Atheists believe in miracles more than believers

[It Aint Necessarily So]

I have had to endure the disrespect of hearing someone say that my mother is an ape. That is simply unacceptable

It's a choice on your part to consider that disrespectful. I consider it descriptive.

It's interesting that you find offense in your mother (and presumably yourself) being an ape. What if I told you things that some find even more embarrassing about themselves, such as pooping their diapers, vomiting on themselves, and throwing tantrums? What if you had too much to drink at a party and did all three of those things? Would it embarrass you to wake up in a pile of vomit and stool with dozens of people angry at you? Hopefully, it would.

But you've outgrown that, just as your ancestors outgrew flinging feces and picking vermin off one another.

An interesting side note here is that all of the major sciences were all founded by men who believed in a conscious God. They believed that because He was a God of wisdom, knowledge and power, that His creation would therefore be be reflected in this and could consequently be understood in a consistent, rational, logical fashion. It was in this basic framework that all of the sciences which we have come to understand are founded.

In the West, rational skepticism and the idea that the world might be godless, regular, and comprehensible was first introduced by the ancient Greek philosophers, whose skepticism about the claims that natural events were punishments from capricious gods led to free speculation about reality. Thales (624 BC - 546 BC) suggested that everything was a form of water, which was the only substance he knew of capable of existing as solid, liquid and gas.

What is significant was his willingness to try to explain the workings of nature without invoking the supernatural or appealing to the ancients and their dicta. The more profound implication was that man might be capable of understanding nature, which might operate according to comprehensible rules that he might discover. Eventually, Thales went on to be the first to accurately predict the time of an eclipse. I expect that his religious neighbors were busy offering sacrifices at the time. The two traditions have nothing in common.

Jump ahead a few millennia, and Christians are trying their hand at that. When they were doing science, Christians left religion at the door like Thales did. When they introduced religion (magic) to their science, it was because they had run out of ideas.

In Newton's Principia, which was groundbreaking science, he describes the celestial mechanics of the solar system in a way any equally talented atheist would then or today - a way atheists still point to as good science.

None of that came from his Bible or his belief in original sin or the resurrection of Christ - Christian contributions to the Western intellectual tradition. If he was influenced by the past, it was by people like Thales.

However, when Newton reached the limits of his knowledge - his mathematics predicted that Earth should have been thrown into the sun or out of the solar system by now - here's where Newton's Christianity and magical thinking take over. He inserts the hand of God to nudge the smaller planets back into their orbits. That's when his science became religion, and his useful ideas ended.

LaPlace came along a century later and supplied the mathematics Newton was missing - perturbation theory - and Newton's religious addition was replaced with science as the god of the gaps lost yet another job to blind nature.

 

[shunyadragon]

The world is not evolutionary; only a part of it is. People should not be forced to accept theories that are still being discussed around the world. No one has the right to do that, just as I have no right to force anyone to believe in my God.

No one is forcing you to accept the objectively verified sciences of evolution. Stoic stubborn intentional ignorance of science is your problem

PS: I have had to endure the disrespect of hearing someone say that my mother is an ape. That is simply unacceptable, but moderation censors my posts and not those.

This supposed disrespect is something you will have to live with your intentional ignorance of the sciences of evolution, because of your ancient mythical religious agenda.

Not only your mother, but we are all members of the evolved clade some call Apes.

 

[Subduction Zone]

The world is not evolutionary; only a part of it is. People should not be forced to accept theories that are still being discussed around the world. No one has the right to do that, just as I have no right to force anyone to believe in my God.

PS: I have had to endure the disrespect of hearing someone say that my mother is an ape. That is simply unacceptable, but moderation censors my posts and not those.

The evidence tells us that all of the life of the world arose through evolution. I have offered to go over the basics of science with you including the concept of evidence.

And whoever pointed out that your mother is an ape would only get in trouble if that person used it in a pejorative fashion. Stating a fact is not an insult. Would you deny that your mother was a mammal? That is an even larger group that she belongs to. Would you deny that your mother was a vertebrate? Oh my! That must really be insulting. Why would you get mad at the fact that she is an ape as well, as all of us are, unless you could see that it was true and it went against your religious beliefs.

Here is the problem, you cannot claim to understand evolution if you claim that it involves a change of kinds. The point was that there is no change of kinds in evolution.

 

[Valjean]

Aether and Phlogiston theories, Intelligent Design is approaching that nadir too.

Theories? LOL -- old, unevidenced, untested, speculations.
Intelligent design -Religion, and unfortunately it still looks pretty healthy.

 

[cladking]

Haha... Touche.

An interesting side note here is that all of the major sciences were all founded by men who believed in a conscious God. They believed that because He was a God of wisdom, knowledge and power, that His creation would therefore be be reflected in this and could consequently be understood in a consistent, rational, logical fashion. It was in this basic framework that all of the sciences which we have come to understand are founded.

Modern science very much came out of religion as well. Early thinkers were well aware that reason and logic alone were not sufficient to understanding reality. We'd still be living in the dark ages without religion and theologians.

 

[cladking]

None of that came from his Bible or his belief in original sin or the resurrection of Christ - Christian contributions to the Western intellectual tradition. If he was influenced by the past, it was by people like Thales.

Thales was a mathematician and philosopher who calculated the heights of the pyramids!!

Have I ever mentioned that without experiment there is no science. Not only did Thales have no experiment he hadn't even thought of it. No science.

I think the more interesting question is what kind of science could have built the pyramids that Thales tried to estimate with his equations and measurements.

 

[IamYourYahaweh]

It seems contradictory, but if you see it from this perspective you will understand:

A believer considers miracles to be the result of a display of knowledge and power on the part of a conscious person.
An atheist believes that things that exist came out of nothing in a miraculous way, obeying some natural laws that emerged out of nowhere, by themselves.

So who is the one who believes in miracles?

Atheists seem to believe in tangible facts rather than beliefs. Seems like the right way to do things. I have yet to see anybody prove God without quoting obvious forged scripture or saying look at the universe that's your proof... very weak

 

[cladking]

In Newton's Principia, which was groundbreaking science, he describes the celestial mechanics of the solar system in a way any equally talented atheist would then or today - a way atheists still point to as good science.

Newton studied the pyramids trying to compute the weight of the earth. He came far closer to succeeding than he ever knew when he translated from the Arabic; "2) That wch is below is like that wch is above & that wch is above is like yt wch is below to do ye miracles of one only thing." If he had understood this line he would have been much closer to his goal.

 

[cladking]

Religion came up with science, not scientists, and not Descartes.

 

[cladking]

Atheists seem to believe in tangible facts rather than beliefs.

The problem is that every fact must be interpreted and it will necessarily be interpreted in terms of the observer's beliefs and models. "Tangible" facts are no different. Take the tangible fact that science holds that the entire universe apparently sprang from a point with no dimensions at all. Sure, it can't be projected back so far in time but we still have the universe emerging from a mere pinpoint. While numerous facts support this I have no doubt that there are alternatives to the common interpretation of the 'big bang".

I don't believe in something from nothing either. Perhaps in reality it's possible. Perhaps reality itself came into being from nothing at all. I merely doubt it.

 

[IamYourYahaweh]

The problem is that every fact must be interpreted and it will necessarily be interpreted in terms of the observer's beliefs and models. "Tangible" facts are no different. Take the tangible fact that science holds that the entire universe apparently sprang from a point with no dimensions at all. Sure, it can't be projected back so far in time but we still have the universe emerging from a mere pinpoint. While numerous facts support this I have no doubt that there are alternatives to the common interpretation of the 'big bang".

I don't believe in something from nothing either. Perhaps in reality it's possible. Perhaps reality itself came into being from nothing at all. I merely doubt it.

Should say "my problem". I don't have a problem. And tangible facts versus the big bang is a big stretch. Who cares about doubt and belief, the truth is where many answers lie

 

[Valjean]

Modern science very much came out of religion as well. Early thinkers were well aware that reason and logic alone were not sufficient to understanding reality. We'd still be living in the dark ages without religion and theologians.

Didn't religion and theologians contribute to the darkness, with their suppression of free thought and unorthodox opinion? How does the promotion of unevidenced dogma and suppression of reason and of rational, fact based thinking contribute to the understanding of reality?

What does contribute to the understanding of reality? Certainly not religion, religion's not an investigational modality at all, nor does it claim to be. It's doctrinaire and absolutist.
What consistent, agreed upon understanding of reality has religion ever produced?

 

[cladking]

Didn't religion and theologians contribute to the darkness, with their suppression of free thought and unorthodox opinion? How does the promotion of unevidenced dogma and suppression of reason and of rational, fact based thinking contribute to the understanding of reality?

Everybody makes sense and does what they think is right. Theologians believed heretical ideas were a threat to the commonweal and tried to silence them. They believed they had the words of God to support them.

Modern scientists have centuries of hard work, experiment, and philosophical thought and believe heretical ideas are a threat to the commonweal because the general public is already confused enough. They believe they have the laws of nature to support them.

Almost everyone wants to cling to the status quo and resist change. Even if you have already been declared unfit or are in extreme poverty you fear any change might make it even worse. The world is always being dragged kicking and screaming into the future because while we might all reason in circles we are still all seeking the truth. The truth will prevail whether that's a new better means to plow the earth or a clearer understanding of what life is.

There's very little evil in the world. It does enormous harm but we do far more harm to ourselves than does evil. The most harmful thing in the last couple hundred years is the belief in Evolution. The last 4000 years have been a detour. With luck and effort we can get back to the road without backtracking too far. All our errors can be repaired without reinventing the wheel. We need to chart a course through the trees and underbrush that will get us all back safely. A mad scramble back to terra firma would be a disaster.

 

[cladking]

What does contribute to the understanding of reality? Certainly not religion, religion's not an investigational modality at all, nor does it claim to be. It's doctrinaire and absolutist.
What consistent, agreed upon understanding of reality has religion ever produced?

No, religion is no solution IMO.

But I believe if we stick with reason and science that we'll find many religious concepts to be vitally important to the human race. Philosophy most assuredly is a good means of discovering reality and our place in it and much of religion is largely philosophy. It is not to be discounted or dismissed as history or in the here and now. We must come to understand that science and experiment outside of philosophy is vacuous and potentially dangerous to the individual.

Most scientists already know better than to believe in science and it's not my job to tell them how to think anyway. But most of us really need to work on understanding the means by which science works at all and what experiments really mean.

Science will never give us an "understanding of reality" so much as more models by which we can make better prediction and better control those things important to humans. We need to also be able to better understand our nature and our history because ultimately it is the truth that sets us free. Superstition, misunderstanding, and evil lies lead to bondage.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

We'd still be living in the dark ages without religion and theologians.

The Dark Ages were characterized by religion. Breaking out came from other avenues such as recovering Greco-Roman culture from the Muslims and the Renaissance and Enlightenment. The church would still be performing exorcisms and executing witches if left to its own devices. I think it still does those things in some places.

Have I ever mentioned that without experiment there is no science. Not only did Thales have no experiment he hadn't even thought of it. No science.

Yet Thales did science. He observed and collated celestial data then generated correct inductions confirmed by other observations. Yes science.

Newton studied the pyramids trying to compute the weight of the earth

I'm pretty sure that Newton understood the difference between weight and mass.

The earth is pretty light. Try weighing it in your bathroom. Put your bathroom scale on it upside down and all you'll see is the weight of the scale.

Religion came up with science

I already refuted that here. You had no counterargument then or now, meaning that unless you attempt to falsify any or all of that argument - and that doesn't mean just dissent with or without your preferred belief, but an argument that if sound that makes mine false - then the matter is resolved. Feel free to reopen the matter with a counterargument if you can muster one up, but recall that dialectic ends with the last plausible, unrebutted argument, which was mine.

Science will never give us an "understanding of reality" so much as more models by which we can make better prediction and better control those things important to humans.

I don't require even that from it. Nor do most other people. Just keep the inventions coming. I like having a car, a refrigerator, electricity, air conditioning, microwaves, the Internet, antibiotics, and vaccines. It's not necessary to understand how any of those work to benefit from them.

Very little of my practical understanding of reality comes from formal science as is done in laboratories and observatories. It comes from informal science, which is my name for the empiricism we apply to daily life and which generates knowledge about how the world works and how it affects ourselves derived from our experience of reality as derived by the application of reason and memory to the evidence of the senses.

 

[cladking]

The Dark Ages were characterized by religion. Breaking out came from other avenues such as recovering Greco-Roman culture from the Muslims and the Renaissance and Enlightenment.

Most death and destruction come from superstition. The superstition that the fit survive directly killed six million in WWII and indirectly killed another 20 million. I doubt victims care whether they're persecuted by religion or science.

Just as a rising tide lifts all boats science lifted religion out of the dark ages as well.

Yet Thales did science. He observed and collated celestial data then generated correct inductions confirmed by other observations. Yes science.

No. There is no modern science outside experiment.

There are other kinds of science but none of them depend on any homo omniscience language because we see what we believe.

The earth is pretty light.

That's a heavy thought.

I already refuted that here. You had no counterargument then or now, meaning that unless you attempt to falsify any or all of that argument - and that doesn't mean just dissent with or without your preferred belief, but an argument that if sound that makes mine false - then the matter is resolved. Feel free to reopen the matter with a counterargument if you can muster one up, but recall that dialectic ends with the last plausible, unrebutted argument, which was mine.

I've researched this in the past and have no desire to do so again. Like most human advancement it came in bits and pieces from numerous individuals. But no matter how you slice it it can not have come from scientists and most of the inventors had a religious bent. There are sources that actually say the first proper definition of an experiment came from a monastery.

Science was born of reason and a recognition that reality can only be studied through testing.

Science has never addressed how insects and other species can progress without experiment.

Just keep the inventions coming.

The inventions must stop. For two reasons. The more important is that all inventions derive from theory and there has been no advancement in theory since 1925 and the other is superstition kills. As we invent more processes that can through happenstance or intent kill everybody the odds it will happen increase every day. So long as we believe in the miracle of science we will all be the victims of science in the long run.

 

[Pogo]

Science has never addressed how insects and other species can progress without experiment.

So show us how insects experiment.

 

[cladking]

So show us how insects experiment.

Insects can't understand any abstraction whatsoever. Just like the great pyramid builders their science is based on observation and logic. It works because their brains are wired logically according to their genes. They see reality directly through their consciousness rather than indirectly though their beliefs like every human being since the tower of babel.

Animal progress is so slow that their behavior eventually becomes wired right into their genes but this isn't "instinct" because most behavior is based on consciousness rather than their wiring.

I swear I don't understand what is so complicated about any of this. It's all just a different way to see all the facts and all the experiment. Instead of viewing reality from the perspective of its parts its a way to see it all at once like a bee would see it.

 

[cladking]

Animal progress is so slow...

Animal progress is so slow because each individual must learn reality by himself and has no shoulders from which to see further. It is only complex language that confers the ability to pass learning from generation to generation. It created the human race.

The first homo sapien we know as Adam. He was an experiment by nature that tied his speech center directly to higher brain functions. By this means he invented complex language and he and his mate, Eve, passed this ability down and it rapidly spread through the population 40,000 years ago. History remembered him so the story could be passed down to unhearing ears by using a star (s3.h) as his mnemonic.

But Adam's language was merely an elaboration on the simple animal language that existed before. It was simple but it was metaphysical, ie- it contained all human knowledge and the rules to accumulate it. As learning increased a little the language became very more complex so it failed at the tower of babel.

There were no miracles in the distant past and none today. Human omniscience didn't arise through the miracle of genius because there's no such thing as "intelligence" as we define it. What we mistake as intelligence is simply an event of consciousness that all living things are subject to even though they don't have an "experience" of it. They remember the idea but they can't see or imagine where it came from. It is simply a part of their being. There are no miracles of universes escaping from a theoretical point and no miracles of experts being able to deduce theory. There was no miracle when Descartes thought himself into existence because he already existed. Experiments aren't magic.

The only magic is invention of hypothesis and what is seen in a young girl's eyes. No miracles. Everything has a very simple logical explanation and if we ever discover "God" there will be a simple explanation for This as well.


Animals are just as "smart" as we are but they have to start at the beginning, at birth.

 

[cladking]

The first homo sapien we know as Adam. He was an experiment by nature that tied his speech center directly to higher brain functions. By this means he invented complex language and he and his mate, Eve, passed this ability down and it rapidly spread through the population 40,000 years ago. History remembered him so the story could be passed down to unhearing ears by using a star (s3.h) as his mnemonic.

The real crime of Egyptology is that they never noticed the lack of taxonomies and abstractions in Ancient Language. If they had noticed this they would have taken a harder look at the formatting and at their own language usage. We use all sorts of taxonomies as mnemonics. Ancient people needed mnemonics as well so they named the stars and constructed them on earth.

There were no miracles by which ancient people could remember how to make shoes or what each of their gods could do. The gods themselves were the mnemonics and made in the image of man.

The level of confusion engendered by the tower of babel is absolute. It's little wonder a third of the population was said to have committed suicide. We'll never get it all untangled but we can put a "stop" to it.