Pogo
Well-Known Member
Ah, but some are not reasonable and require an answer even if they have to invent it.
They pop up every so often like Trolls from under a bridge.
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Atheists believe in miracles more than believers
- Thread starter Eli G
- Start date
They pop up every so often like Trolls from under a bridge.
According to science, humans ARE a type of ape the same way lions and tigers are cats, or wolves, or coyotes are dogs. The people who defined apes defined them as warm blooded, omnivore, that gives milk upon giving birth (among other things) like it or not, even though that describes monkeys and gorilla's it also describes humans
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Hooded_Crow
Taking flight
Taxonomically, humans are apes.A hybrid that evolutionist invented...
Don't know who these evolutionists you speak of who think gravity has the appearance of a miracle, but again; gravity is not a miracle.
You seem to be somewhat confused about the "scientific" terminology on living beings' classification.Reading too much RF.
Rather than accuse me of being confused, tell me exactly what I said that you disagree with.
Reading too much RF.
Maybe another day. I've already used up the time allotted for today here.
I see evolutionist as a bogeyman created by literalist creationists trying to defame those that accept logic, reason and evidence in science.
Much as the entire picture painted of these alleged evolutionists don't match the the science or enlightened communities accepting science. It is a straw man used as a derogatory term. As a whipping boy.
Good luck.
Pogo
Well-Known Member
Unfortunately like mythology it has too many syllables for some to understand.
I ain't holdin' my breath.
Pogo
Well-Known Member
Maybe another day. I've already used up the time allotted for today here.
Intellectual curiosity, reason, logic, critical thinking and the pursuit of knowledge are all things I view as blessings. Gifts of the Creator as I believe it. I find it very strange in the 21st Century to find entire denominations of Christians where these gifts appear to be predominantly rejected in favor of follow the leader without question. To me, they have turned the Bible into a suicide pact of sorts.
Hooded_Crow
Taking flight
Thanks for this post, Dan. I'm an atheist, but I appreciate what you said here.
Pogo
Well-Known Member
Being a follower of Christ is not in and of itself unreasonable.
The original description of Homo sapiens was by Linnaeus in 1758 based on evidence. This description was of our current species and there is no indication that it was a different species 2,000 or 4,000 years ago. Homo omnisciencis and Homo circularis are made up taxa that exist only here and perhaps other online forums, but are not science. Were they, they would describe apes too.
These made up taxa are represented based on what someone believes, are not published, answer nothing and offer no basis for any sort of future research. I've come to consider them more of @It Aint Necessarily So's "fantastical speculation in vague language". They seem more like editorial commentary with no reason for consideration through science. Possibly just there to give the appearance of science or that it was carried out. Sort of bragging rights based on "fabricated knowledge" without evidence.
You are very welcome. I have my beliefs and I have my knowledge and acceptance of science and findings within it. I'm don't find much use or appreciation in the literalist attempt to force facts to fit interpretation or discarding/denying those that cannot be made to fit.
The existence of evidence that does not fit the biblical narrative is evidence to me that a literalist interpretation must not be the proper way to interpret the Bible or that believers must consider that God littered the world with false evidence or allowed it to be without revealing it.
Pardon my taking advantage to soapbox a little.
cladking
Well-Known Member
My argument is NOT that homo omnisciesis exists. My argument is that the story of the Tower of Babel was legislation in 2000 BC that symbolizes a speciation event that occurred between 3300 BC and 1400 BC that resulted in the extinction of homo sapiens. The tower of babel was the last official act of that species because there were too few survivors to continue to operate the state. For centuries apparently nation states had been raiding others to abduct Ancient Language speakers but the gig was up.
The difference between that species and ours is that they lacked a brocas area that works like a computer program to operate our brain. If and when this is ever proven scientists will pick their own name for our species through consensus. I can provide many possibilities but my two favorite are "all knowing man" and "circularly reasoning man". If we can't make fun of ourselves who can we make fun of?
cladking
Well-Known Member
I have come to believe that the world is littered with false evidence because of the confusion of the language. When Ancient Language failed all the new pidgin languages took their entire vocabulary from it. All sorts and types of superstition arose because there was no science and no history in any of these languages and they were all expressed in words that went back to the dawn of time.
For me, that's feature, not a bug. As you probably know based in prior posts, I consider the RF experience an education in two parts. There are the rational, educated, critically thinking contributors that can teach and learn, and the rest with faith-based and chaotic thinking. I call these two the lecture and lab section of the "class." Without that later group, this experience would be much less.
You enumerated those gift as, "Intellectual curiosity, reason, logic, critical thinking and the pursuit of knowledge"
Rejecting that was the ethic taught in the church I attended in the seventies. Faith was taught as a virtue, whereas in that other rejected tradition, it is a logical error. Questions were discouraged, and too many identified one as someone who needed to be reigned back in or at least silenced from the rest of the congregation. Doubt - the sine qua non of skepticism - was seen as a flaw or evidence of Satan trying to steal ones soul. It was to be shushed and ignored.
You're a Christian, but you've escaped that as well as the ignorance of antiscientism and the assorted bigotries taught. You also display no theocratic tendencies. You don't want your religion in government or controlling the lives of even nonbelievers.
I told you that this experience was like a class for, and observing believers was like field work or the lab section. The main effort has been to experience hundreds of examples of faith-based thinkers and compare them to the strict empiricists to get a sense of the distribution of effects that religion has on people, with atheistic humanists the control group.
One thing that I discovered was a subset of believers who I call theistic humanists. You're one as are a few other posters I'd like to mention by name, but I think RF frowns on that. They're all university educated in STEM subjects, and like you, though they self-identify as Christian, their posting is otherwise indistinguishable from the atheistic humanists.
So, my main dividing line separating RF posters in religious threads is not theist versus atheist, but humanist versus non-humanist. That was a big insight. It's not a god belief per se that is the problem, but a willingness to accept the Abrahamic anti-intellectualism, anti-secularism, and its myriad bigotries. And the more of these that they accept, the more it harms them and their neighbors. The most zealous Abrahamists are completely untethered from reality and seem to understand little or nothing. They can't make a sound argument or properly critique one.
That's what distinguishes your kind of Christian - the theistic humanist - from the rest. YOU'RE looking at evidence dispassionately and not through the lens of religion. That's a value you share with atheistic humanists, but not zealous Abrahamists.
This atheist leaves miracles to those willing to believe by faith.
It looks like you're trying to separate yourself from miracles a bit when you seek naturalistic explanations for events described as miracles - the suspension of the laws of nature (aka magic).
Worse, you're trying to hang that on the critical thinkers and empiricists who reject all of that.
It's part of a decades-long campaign to make science seem more like religion and religion seem more sciency. The faithful call the humanist worldview faith-based and a religion, and creation apologists try to give their faith-based and unfalsifiable beliefs an air of legitimacy as you have done with your Red Sea illustration.
I believe it originates in the efforts to get creationism into public schools and to make religion and science appear to be on a more equal footing than they actually are by debasing science as you are doing here while boosting religion up
Here's another manifestation of that now. You try to hang your myths and miracles on those who reject such things to try to make them seem more like the believers, then ask where's the superiority.
The superiority is in rejecting such things. Skepticism was one of man's greatest intellectual achievements. It converted alchemy to chemistry, astrology to astronomy, and creationism to Big Bang cosmology and modern biology. It rejected the claim of a divine right to kingship and the myriad bigotries of the god of Abraham. It made the Enlightenment and modernity possible.
And more of that separation, more distancing from the idea of miracles or magic. That's a step in the right direction, but I think you've taken it to make yourself and your beliefs seem less zealous and just a little bit closer to Dan and me like the creationists I described above trying to make creationism seem more on a par with science and more palatable to the skeptical public - not to actually do or be that.
Incorrect. I'm an atheist, and like you, I don't deny that there was a conscious creator. Unlike you, I also don't affirm it. I remain agnostic about gods, because I have no means to rule their existence in or out, and no need or desire to guess.
The god of Abraham is said to do magic, although for whatever reason, believers are loathe to use that word in reference to their god. They prefer to refer to the magic as miracle, but that's the same claim - that the laws of nature can be suspended or violated by will or incantation.
Atheism is the result of applying reason to the problem of gods. Atheists reject the god claims of theists because they are skeptics, and reason requires rejection of claims in the absence of sufficient supporting evidence to justify believing them.
The believer, by contrast, bypasses reasoning and embraces faith instead.
Very little is history, and much that is history is mixed with fiction (legend). You've got myths, parables, proverbs, psalms, contradictory genealogies, prophecies, and extraordinary claims of magic.
But you have faith, and with faith anything is believable, as is that belief's polar opposite. By faith, one can proclaim that either all or none of scripture is history, and you'd be on equal footing whichever you chose.