Atheists are not nearly as rationional as some think.

[ecco]

Well make your case and if you can't then don't blame the audience. If you cannot build a rational case then that simply demonstrates incapacity.

No person can simultaneously support two diametrically opposite beliefs.

You believe in a literal interpretation of Genesis. That is central to your very core. Very few Christians take the entire Bible literally. You do. Therefore, it is impossible for you to believe in evolution. You must oppose it because your psyche depends on it. You would be completely shattered if you allowed any beliefs of evolution.

Your arguments may sound real to you. But any rational person can clearly see them for what they are: attempts at self preservation.

 

[houseofcantor]

Interesting article in a science mag!!
Then again thats a bit like picking on the disabled so its only for gratification of the ego and that specifically is Not rational but rationalizing.

Vile. Isn't this the type of posting that this site purportedly forbids?

 

[dimmesdale]

Rambling based on a religious agenda. You obviously have no background in science to support any of this.

Yeah but is it true? You can't make an argument nor can you build a convincing case. Nor do you demonstrate comprehension to any rudiment degree.

What actual objective verifiable evidence outside the Bible can you provide to support this assertion based on science?

Well i stated 2nd law and you did not get it the first time. Below. You either did not read it or you did not understand it or you did not comprehend it. Either way you failed to both recognize or acknowledge. You have failed to respond to not one point i made directly. You ignored it all and resorted to talking points. Don't tell me about education since you do not demonstrate any. That tells me of an inability to process information beyond any rudiment degree. An inability to make a case.
From my previous.

They can't even get to a baseline for any of it. They don't know how. It can make no predictions and they cannot tell which animals are evolving and which are not nor can they tell rate. When we get to the details they cannot tell much of anything. They make claims about nature as the catalyst for change and the process is all nonintelligent blind blah blah blah. It involves simple to complex in violation of 2nd law which can even apply to relationships. Things fall apart in nature, they do not get better and better due to mutations and blind unguided processes. We intuitively know 2nd law and all the energy from the sun does not affect anything. It is ad hoc excuses. There are plenty of stars in the universe which radiate energy to satellites. I could go on and on. How does the fetus get input for change from nature? Can nature predict the future to direct the fetus to change? The change has to be three types, passed on and permanent also beneficial all via undirected processes. You can't even pass on vaccine immunity to offspring. How can nature do it? Anyone in medicine can tell mutations normally bring about catastrophic results. They don't have a clue. Get out of town with your myths.

Actually your indictments/accusations are the personal attacks against Charles Darwin and the science of evolution without any scientific support Still waiting???

Yawn. He mentioned eyes, and he was wrong, and they knew about eyes in his time. Besides they do not limit evidence to scientific only. Not in court, not anywhere. It is straight up garbage. All you are doing is throwing up talking points over and over. No brain power and no ability. That is all you are demonstrating.

Group think without any competent science background nor evidence is the problem of fundamentalist Christianity with a religious agenda.

The problem is reality. Your side is making historical truth claims, alien from most of human existence up until the 1800s, which are far from proven. They are failed. There is no animal ancestry in human history.

 

[gnostic]

So are you saying it is not rational to be interested in discussing religious topics if you are not religious? I am interested in lots of things I am not personally a part of.

Me too.

I am interested in music, but I cannot sing, nor play instruments. I did however wrote one song, but didn’t sing it when my friend recorded it.

I like art, but I don’t paint, nor do sculptures.

I like astronomy, but I am not an astronomer. I used to dabble with my telescope, but these days, I am only curious of discoveries and learning, then actual star gazing. And being interested in the stars and other planets, doesn’t mean I want to become an astronaut.

I am very interested in history, but I don’t consider myself a historian,nor do I go out into the fields to find archaeological evidences.

And I really do love my books on myths, legends and folklore, but that doesn’t mean I have to believe in their narratives. Surely people can enjoy stories without having to believe in them?

As with myths, it is the same with being interested in stories of religious scriptures.

Being curious and wanting to learn and understand what I don’t have qualifications for, doesn’t mean I have to justify to theists and to creationists, why I am curious about religions.

 

[shunyadragon]

Yeah but is it true? You can't make an argument nor can you build a convincing case. Nor do you demonstrate comprehension to any rudiment degree.

True? Falsified by the objective verifiable evidence beyond a reasonable doubt,

Well i stated 2nd law and you did not get it the first time. Below. You either did not read it or you did not understand it or you did not comprehend it. Either way you failed to both recognize or acknowledge. You have failed to respond to not one point i made directly. You ignored it all and resorted to talking points. Don't tell me about education since you do not demonstrate any. That tells me of an inability to process information beyond any rudiment degree. An inability to make a case.
From my previous.

They can't even get to a baseline for any of it. They don't know how. It can make no predictions and they cannot tell which animals are evolving and which are not nor can they tell rate. When we get to the details they cannot tell much of anything. They make claims about nature as the catalyst for change and the process is all nonintelligent blind blah blah blah. It involves simple to complex in violation of 2nd law which can even apply to relationships. Things fall apart in nature, they do not get better and better due to mutations and blind unguided processes. We intuitively know 2nd law and all the energy from the sun does not affect anything. It is ad hoc excuses. There are plenty of stars in the universe which radiate energy to satellites. I could go on and on. How does the fetus get input for change from nature? Can nature predict the future to direct the fetus to change? The change has to be three types, passed on and permanent also beneficial all via undirected processes. You can't even pass on vaccine immunity to offspring. How can nature do it? Anyone in medicine can tell mutations normally bring about catastrophic results. They don't have a clue. Get out of town with your myths.

This is definitely an oldie moldy argument against evolution that has long been discarded by anybody with a rudimentary knowledge of science. The source of energy for life as well as evolution is simple and abundant. It is the sun and the vast internal heat of the earth. In fact the best candidate for abiogenesis is originating around the ocean sea vents with abundant heat energy necessary abiogenesis to take place. Both the internal heat of the earth and the sun is far more than necessary for both to take place.

From: Does evolution contradict the second law of thermodynamics? (Intermediate) - Curious About Astronomy? Ask an Astronomer

"This idea has been put forward by many people to try to prove that evolution is impossible. However, it is based on a flawed understanding of the second law of thermodynamics, and in fact, the theory of evolution does not contradict any known laws of physics.

The second law of thermodynamics simply says that the entropy of a closed system will tend to increase with time. "Entropy" is a technical term with a precise physical definition, but for most purposes it is okay to think of it as equivalent to "disorder". Therefore, the second law of thermodynamics basically says that the universe as a whole gets more disordered and random as time goes on.

However, the most important part of the second law of thermodynamics is that it only applies to a closed system - one that does not have anything going in or out of it. There is nothing about the second law that prevents one part of a closed system from getting more ordered, as long as another part of the system is getting more disordered.

There are many examples from everyday life that prove it is possible to create order! For example, you'd certainly agree that a person is capable of taking a pile of wood and nails and constructing a building out of it. The wood and nails have become more ordered, but in doing the work required to make the building, the person has generated heat which goes into increasing the overall entropy of the universe."

Yawn. He mentioned eyes, and he was wrong, and they knew about eyes in his time. Besides they do not limit evidence to scientific only. Not in court, not anywhere. It is straight up garbage. All you are doing is throwing up talking points over and over. No brain power and no ability. That is all you are demonstrating.

Evolution has been successfully defended in court in the Kitzmiler vs. Dover trial in 2005 where it won the decision over Intelligent Design.as science.

The problem is reality. Your side is making historical truth claims, alien from most of human existence up until the 1800s, which are far from proven. They are failed. There is no animal ancestry in human history.

Science does not prove anything. The science of evolution has been falsified by objective verifiable evidence beyond a reasonable doubt. Most of the knowledge of science today was not known before the the 1840's..

 

[gnostic]

It is called testimony from history and it is evidence.

Not a single thing in Genesis is history.

Supposedly, Moses was the one who wrote Genesis, as well as Exodus, but there are no evidences that Moses wrote anything, because there are no 2nd millennium Bronze Age writings of the Genesis or the Exodus. There are no evidences that Moses or Joshua existing, and no evidences for Israelites invading Canaan.

The oldest evidences of any work on the Old Testament, are late 7th century or early 6th century BCE, scrolls that were discovered in a cave that served as a tomb at Ketef Hinnom, known as the Silver Scrolls. Those scrolls are badly fragmented, and only small passage from Numbers 6 that is readable.

The Silver Scrolls are oldest texts relating to the Hebrew Scriptures, and it has been dated to before Jerusalem fell in a siege in 587/586 BCE.

There are no older texts found before these, so your claim of the Genesis creation being testimony of some non-existing authors (eg Moses), is not evidence at all, just your declaration and blind faith.

 

[Truly Enlightened]

It sounds to me like you are engineering the question in such a way to as to ignore all the damage, the body count which happened under atheistic regimes in the 20th century. At the start of the Ruskie revolution the Bolsheviks went in and murdered the Romanovs including helpless children.They took them to the basement and shot them. It was perfectly natural and violated nothing in nature. There was nothing objectively wrong with what they did since atheism assumes no judgment from God for murder of children.
Non belief is the catalyst for all atrocities and murders in history. If they believed in judgement from God then they would not do it out of fear alone. God will not acquit the guilty. Ex. 23:7.
Do not kill the innocent and the just, for I will not acquit the guilty.

That is a direct quote attributed to the Living God. It applies to everyone equally . It presupposes a judgment.


That is why the two midwives in Exod 1 refused to murder Hebrew male infants. They feared God more than Pharoah. Under atheism the rational thing to do was murder the infants since there is no God to fear. There is only Pharoah and he can do as he pleases including family members. Nobody in their right mind is going to march women and children off to the gas chambers for mass murder if they really believed God knows exactly what they are doing and will judge them at the judgement, also their immediate family members are placed in jeopardy. God is not mocked. The problem with you atheists is you hate God more than you love your children. Even if they claim they do not.
That book was an unprofessional piece of toilet paper. No notes.
I showed you why you are not responsible with the question you ignored.

So, I take it that you CAN'T give me an example? I don't think that any secular, or non-religious political regime will commit atrocities on its citizens, only because they want to believe in a superstition. Maybe Governments should commit atrocities to children that believe in Santa and the Easter Bunny? I think there must be other reasons involved. Of course, this doesn't excuse the atrocities committed in the name of Religions, in spite of the high moral standards it espouses. Since there are many reasons for atrocities being committed, reducing them to only two categories is a logical fallacy(false dichotomy, excluded middle). You should also re-read why the Romanovs were assassinated. Death of a Dynasty: How the Romanovs Met Their End It had nothing to do with Atheism, or any other supernatural non-belief.

That is why the two midwives in Exod 1 refused to murder Hebrew male infants. They feared God more than Pharoah. Under atheism the rational thing to do was murder the infants since there is no God to fear. There is only Pharoah and he can do as he pleases including family members. Nobody in their right mind is going to march women and children off to the gas chambers for mass murder if they really believed God knows exactly what they are doing and will judge them at the judgement, also their immediate family members are placed in jeopardy. God is not mocked. The problem with you atheists is you hate God more than you love your children. Even if they claim they do not.

The only thing rational about Atheism is that it is not based on superstition. It is based on evidence(or lack of). The rationale for the german soldier sending Jews into the Gas Chambers, was that if he didn't he would be joining them. One choice is a virtual certainty, and the other is an absolute uncertainty. You are correct, no one in their right mind would purposely fly planes into tall buildings for religious reasons, but they did. No one in their right mind, would claim that their atrocities were justified because "God made them do it", but they have. And, no one in their right mind would claim that Atheists "HATE" God(their disbelief), more than they love their own children, but they do. There are certainly words to describe people that think like this.

That book was an unprofessional piece of toilet paper. No notes.

Are you talking about the Bible? That is not very Christian of you. Atheists and secularist believe that having humanistic values is the natural state of humans. The fear of being judged, is an unnecessary contrived form of motivation. People will generally do what is good, because it is also the right thing to do. The only thing that you have demonstrated quite clearly, is that you are not responsible for your actions, or for the comments you make. You clearly do not respond rationally within the contexts of the argument. You provide zero relevant answers to questions, and take every opportunity to Biblically quote-mine and sermonize. In one sense you are at best a curiosity, and at worst closed-minded and irrational. But in either case, you are refreshingly honest. Atheism simply represents all the failed proofs of Theism.

 

[ecco]

It involves simple to complex in violation of 2nd law

Anyone making comments like that got their science education from the likes of AIG, not from a science class in high school.

Actually I'm somewhat surprised that AIG still supports this nonsense. I thought that some years ago they accepted the fact that the earth was not a closed system. Oh, well.

Evolution and the Second Law of Thermodynamics: Effectively Communicating to Non-technicians

Isaac Asimov (1984) characterized the fallacy of the creationist understanding of entropy: “In kindergarten terms, the second law of thermodynamics says that all spontaneous change is in the direction of increasing disorder—that is, in a ‘downhill’ direction. There can be no spontaneous buildup of the complex from the simple, therefore, because that would be moving ‘uphill’.” Asimov reasons, “An argument based on kindergarten terms is only suitable for kindergartens.”​

 

[dimmesdale]

Not a single thing in Genesis is history.

So u are an expert on Genesis? Can u falsify all historical claims in Genesis? U made the claim so now back it up. Not a single thing, you say? How about the existence of Egypt recorded in Genesis? This is off the top of my head. There are locations, tribes of people. Customs, wars, disputes.

Supposedly, Moses was the one who wrote Genesis, as well as Exodus, but there are no evidences that Moses wrote anything, because there are no 2nd millennium Bronze Age writings of the Genesis or the Exodus.

Not a historical standard since they go with what they have. Originals wear out with time. If all that was a historical standard then all ancient history would be wiped out.

There are no evidences that Moses or Joshua existing, and no evidences for Israelites invading Canaan.

The recordings are the evidence. So to assert no evidence is falsified.

The oldest evidences of any work on the Old Testament, are late 7th century or early 6th century BCE, scrolls that were discovered in a cave that served as a tomb at Ketef Hinnom, known as the Silver Scrolls. Those scrolls are badly fragmented, and only small passage from Numbers 6 that is readable.

The Silver Scrolls are oldest texts relating to the Hebrew Scriptures, and it has been dated to before Jerusalem fell in a siege in 587/586 BCE.

There are no older texts found before these, so your claim of the Genesis creation being testimony of some non-existing authors (eg Moses), is not evidence at all, just your declaration and blind faith.

As it relates to the existence of Moses your history deniers once made claims about the nonexistence of Jesus and King David and were reasonably shown to be wrong so why assume they are right bout Moses myth? You are entitled to your opinion, not your facts. When it comes to the existence of Moses, there are plenty of facts. Testimony, including Jesus. So why was Jesus wrong and you right?


Contents

• 1 Authors
  • 1.1 Ben Sira
  • 1.2 Eupolemus
  • 1.3 Artapanus of Alexandria
  • 1.4 Josephus
  • 1.5 Philo
• 2 Moses' death, or elevation, or pre-existence
• 3 Moses in Hellenistic literature
  • 3.1 In Hecataeus
  • 3.2 In Artapanus
  • 3.3 In Strabo
  • 3.4 In Tacitus
  • 3.5 In Longinus
  • 3.6 In Josephus
  • 3.7 In Numenius
  Get back to us when you reasonable prove all these witnesses wrong and we require far more than opinion.

 

[Polymath257]

They can't even get to a baseline for any of it. They don't know how. It can make no predictions and they cannot tell which animals are evolving and which are not nor can they tell rate. When we get to the details they cannot tell much of anything. They make claims about nature as the catalyst for change and the process is all nonintelligent blind blah blah blah. It involves simple to complex in violation of 2nd law which can even apply to relationships. Things fall apart in nature, they do not get better and better due to mutations and blind unguided processes. We intuitively know 2nd law and all the energy from the sun does not affect anything. It is ad hoc excuses. There are plenty of stars in the universe which radiate energy to satellites. I could go on and on. How does the fetus get input for change from nature? Can nature predict the future to direct the fetus to change? The change has to be three types, passed on and permanent also beneficial all via undirected processes. You can't even pass on vaccine immunity to offspring. How can nature do it? Anyone in medicine can tell mutations normally bring about catastrophic results. They don't have a clue. Get out of town with your myths.

This diatribe only shows you don't understand what the second law of thermodynamics says *at all*. It is quite possible for order to increase and the second law to still apply. It is even possible for the increase of order to be spontaneous. A trivial example is when water freezes (and we can all agree it does so, right?). A liquid is more disordered than a solid. Yes, when it gets cold enough water will spontaneously go from the less ordered liquid to the more ordered solid.

The point is that entropy is only loosely associated with order or disorder. Yes, I know many popular accounts make that identification, but it is more wrong than right and ultimately more confusing than helpful.

The point is that entropy is only *one* variable operative when dealing with an open system (like something alive). You also have to take into account the temperature and the amount of energy released from the reaction. The lower the temperature, the less relevant the entropy change is and the more important the energy release is.

I won't even get into your issues with basic genetics: how information is passed from one generation to the next.

 

[dimmesdale]

This diatribe only shows you don't understand what the second law of thermodynamics says *at all*.

2nd law even applies to relationships. Are you married? Just ignore her and soon the relationship will fall apart. It takes work to keep it going.

It is quite possible for order to increase and the second law to still apply. It is even possible for the increase of order to be spontaneous. A trivial example is when water freezes (and we can all agree it does so, right?). A liquid is more disordered than a solid. Yes, when it gets cold enough water will spontaneously go from the less ordered liquid to the more ordered solid.

Water freezes under certain external conditions involving temp. Yours is saying things go from simple to complex, incredible complexity, via conditions on Earth including the sun. It violates 2nd law. Nature alone does not do this. Leave your house for 6 months and it will show signs of neglect when returning. It wil not get better, or improve. It is not all that hard to understand and it is physics. Things fall apart. It is one of the easiest to understand. All the sun and temp change do not improve the roads, they make them worse. It takes external work to repair and improve. All you ar doing is applying an ad hoc to 2nd law to living things because of atheistic philosophy in violation of known science.

 

[shunyadragon]

So u are an expert on Genesis? Can u falsify all historical claims in Genesis? U made the claim so now back it up. Not a single thing, you say? How about the existence of Egypt recorded in Genesis? This is off the top of my head. There are locations, tribes of people. Customs, wars, disputes.

Actually, I had a college course on Genesis and still have the eight volume text describing and analyzing Genesis and the known history and context what is known by historical and archaeological evidence for Genesis.

Yes the description of Creation and Noah's flood can be falsified by geologic and historical evidence. The objective verifiable evidence determines that the universe, solar system, earth and life is billions of years old. There is no possible evidence for the flood of Noah as described in Genesis.

Not a historical standard since they go with what they have. Originals wear out with time. If all that was a historical standard then all ancient history would be wiped out.

The problem here is nothing in known history was ever wiped out. There are a multitude of texts from different Middle East cultures that definitely did not wear out with time. There is not one scrape of text evidence for the Pentateuch including Genesis before 600 BCE.

The recordings are the evidence. So to assert no evidence is falsified.

The written records of Genesis are not evidence. What is lacking completely missing is historical evidence supporting Genesis.

As it relates to the existence of Moses your history deniers once made claims about the nonexistence of Jesus and King David and were reasonably shown to be wrong so why assume they are right bout Moses myth? You are entitled to your opinion, not your facts. When it comes to the existence of Moses, there are plenty of facts. Testimony, including Jesus. So why was Jesus wrong and you right?

As far as Moses there are not any historical evidence for Moses at the time claimed by the Genesis record. As far as the Jesus goes, your changing the topic, but nonetheless, by far most historians accept the existence of a historical person Jesus, not for the Divine miracle working Jesus Christ, but there are problems with the Christian claims as recorded in the gospels. ALL of the references you cite are not first person testimony of the existence of Moses nor Jesus, There was absolutely no, none, zip, negatory, not a scratch of any record for the existence of Jesus nor Moses during their life time as recorded in the Bible.

 

[ecco]

When it comes to the existence of Moses, there are plenty of facts. Testimony, including Jesus.

A mythical character testifies that another mythical character actually exists. Wow. That's surely all the proof anyone would need.

 

[ecco]

To frog walk women and children into the gas chamber to murder is applied atheism.

I believe today that I am acting in the sense of the Almighty Creator. By warding off the Jews, I am fighting for the Lord's work.

What we have to fight for is the necessary security for the existence and increase of our race and people, the subsistence of its children and the maintenance of our racial stock unmixed, the freedom and independence of the Fatherland so that our people may be enabled to fulfill the mission assigned to it by the Creator.

Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.

 

[ecco]

Leave your house for 6 months and it will show signs of neglect when returning.

Perhaps you don't realize it but, a house is man made.

Leave a bud alone and soon you will have an apple.

 

[dimmesdale]

As far as Moses there are not any historical evidence for Moses at the time claimed by the Genesis record.

Not a historical standard which can be applied consistently.

As far as the Jesus goes, your changing the topic, but nonetheless,

The topic is denial of history. Fact being, they were wrong about Jesus myth. So why are they right about Moses myth? You are entitled to opinion, but you need far more than opinion to falsify the early witnesses attesting to the physical existence of Moses.

by far most historians accept the existence of a historical person Jesus, but there are problems with the Christian claims as recorded in the gospels.

Strawman. At issue here was the denial of the historicity of Jesus and the fact they were shown to be wrong.

ALL of the references you cite are not first person testimony of the existence of Moses nor Jesus,

They don't have to be. Again not a standard which can be applied consistently in investigation. If applied it wipes out all of ancient history. Common first-century practice was scribes who recorded.

There was absolutely no, none, zip, negatory, not a scratch of any record for the existence of Jesus nor Moses during their life time as recorded in the Bible.

Not a standard in history and certainly not a standard for the 1st century. i could go into the details but your comprehension is off so i won't invest a lot of time.

 

[gnostic]

So u are an expert on Genesis? Can u falsify all historical claims in Genesis? U made the claim so now back it up. Not a single thing, you say?

It is based on facts, that there are Genesis in written form during the Bronze Age 2nd millennium BCE (meaning between 2000 and 1001 BCE, supposedly the times of Abraham to Joseph and then the Exodus and Canaan invasion) - not as scrolls, papyri, parchments, clay tablets or stone tablets.

No such writings (Genesis and Exodus) exists and written in Hebrew. Hebrew alphabets didn’t exist until pro-Canaanite alphabets in 11st century BCE, and the inscriptions found had nothing to do with the Old Testament.

As I had already pointed out to you, in my last post. The only oldest literary evidences that exist and survived to this day, is the Silver Scrolls from the tomb at Ketef Hinnom cave, along with other artifacts found in the tomb, dated to around the reign of King Josiah and just before the Fall of Jerusalem.

And from scattered fragments found before the 3rd and 2nd centuries BCE translation and publication of the Torah in the Greek Septuagint, very few texts (in Hebrew) survived between the time of King Josiah and the Septuagint.

How can there be written “testimony” of Genesis, when much of the Hebrew Scriptures were written between King Josiah and the return from the Babylonian exile?

The only things that we can confirmed to be “historical” from some of the events recorded in 1 & 2 Kings, matched with outsiders’ records from other empires (eg the Assyrians).

From what I have read from your earlier posts, you clearly don’t understand science. But clearly you also don’t understand history as well, eg you seemed to be clueless with historical verification.

 

[dimmesdale]

It is based on facts,

Well here are the facts. This is what you wrote. ''Not a single thing in Genesis is history.''

Not one thing so that has been falsified since Genesis records the existence of Egypt so your statement is false. I may get back later.






]

 

[Polymath257]

2nd law even applies to relationships. Are you married? Just ignore her and soon the relationship will fall apart. It takes work to keep it going.



Water freezes under certain external conditions involving temp. Yours is saying things go from simple to complex, incredible complexity, via conditions on Earth including the sun. It violates 2nd law. Nature alone does not do this. Leave your house for 6 months and it will show signs of neglect when returning. It wil not get better, or improve. It is not all that hard to understand and it is physics. Things fall apart. It is one of the easiest to understand. All the sun and temp change do not improve the roads, they make them worse. It takes external work to repair and improve. All you ar doing is applying an ad hoc to 2nd law to living things because of atheistic philosophy in violation of known science.

No, it actually does not violate the second law. Here's a challenge: state the second law in a way that does not use the words entropy, order, or disorder.

This is trivial for those who know what the actual second law says, but impossible for those who merely read popular accounts.

 

[atanu]

Life on our planet is not a violation of the second law of thermodynamics, because living organisms are not closed systems. Yet, it is an unlikely process that is uniquely different and how so-called life manages to locally reduce entropy is still the question. The answer 'Nature does it' is qualitatively same as 'God does it'.