Common Sense Deactivated?

[Subduction Zone]

I see most of you avoiding the main questions.....(how unusual) bananas notwithstanding.....can something come from nothing?

It depends upon one's definition of "nothing". Where did your god come from? If he always existed then why could the universe not have always existed in some form?

What does science really know as opposed to what they guess 'might have' happened?

It does much more than that. Science forms testable hypotheses. And look at your keyboard and screen, science works.

Is the "book of life" just an incredible accident? Did no one write this extremely complex book that took humans thousands of years to discipher....and is yet to fully understand how to control it? We didn't call it that...scientists did.

Nope. But then no scientist claims that it was an accident.

Did DNA just accidentally program itself so that every creature on this planet could have a unique size, shape and characteristics? And all of them just happened to have their own means of reproduction?

Nope, but then no scientist claims that either. Here is a hint, you can't refute scientific ideas with a strawman of that idea.

The details for all modifications were already present in that DNA, some put into play automatically when environment or food supplies were changed for some reason....but these mechanisms were hidden from man for millennia, just waiting for them to become smart enough to discover them. Once discovered, man saw himself as a god of sorts, because he was able to artificially replicate what nature did, naturally. All he ended up being was a copy-cat. And because he ran amok with his knowledge and could see financial gain in the process, environmental impact and potential damage to unaltered DNA, hardly entered his mind.

This is why planet Earth is is such awful trouble....polluted almost beyond man's ability to repair....why? Because he will not stop making money at the planet's expense. When you throw God away, decency and care for others disappears with him. When money is your god, you will serve it faithfully. Genetically altering things carries with it responsibilities, but scientists haven't really demonstrated that they care about the long term consequences.

But we know that is not so. Your beliefs predict a massive founder effect for man and if one believes the Noah's Ark myth a universal population bottleneck for all life. Meanwhile there is no reason that "new information" cannot enter the genome.

 

[Guy Threepwood]

Heh...I chuckled at this. Your overall point is completely valid though, in terms of 'gut feeling' being a pretty bad way of judging reality.

Yes, none of us are immune!

As an atheist (in my younger days) I was teaching sailing on a lake for the summer, a kid commented on how grateful he was for the lake being there for our enjoyment, and I 'corrected' him- that we merely took advantage of a purely natural phenomenon

I didn't know at the time it was actually a reservoir, built largely for recreation use.. so it can work both ways, which one is the fallacy depends on an ultimate truth, which none of us know yet

 

[Subduction Zone]

an oxymoron

You do not seem to realize that all science is "atheistic". At least all that I have ever seen. Do you have any examples of actual science that involves a god?

 

[lewisnotmiller]

I see most of you avoiding the main questions.....(how unusual) bananas notwithstanding.....can something come from nothing?

Might be arrogant of me, but I don't think of myself as a question dodger.
If you use Ray Comfort in your OP, people will assume you're suggesting he's credible. He's not.

I have no idea how something can come from nothing, since I can't conceptualise 'nothing'. For me, concepts of God don't move the needle either way. If God can create something from nothing, how was God created?

It's the old 'turtles all the way down' argument, to be honest.



What does science really know as opposed to what they guess 'might have' happened?

Is the "book of life" just an incredible accident? Did no one write this extremely complex book that took humans thousands of years to discipher....and is yet to fully understand how to control it? We didn't call it that...scientists did.
[/QUOTE]

 

[lewisnotmiller]

You do not seem to realize that all science is "atheistic". At least all that I have ever seen. Do you have any examples of actual science that involves a god?

Methodological naturalism shouldn't be conflated with atheism.

 

[Deeje]

We don't know - we don't know that there ever was "nothing" but even if we assume there was, the same argument applies to the existence of God anyway, doesn't it?

Exactly...that is why we have choices.....we can believe whatever we wish based on what we want to tell ourselves is true for whatever reason we want to believe it.

Almost certainly.

So the whole DNA sequence of every living thing on this planet just programmed itself to be what it turned out to be? All accidentally? No intelligent direction at all?

Like these guys.....they just happened to independently decorate themselves despite the fact that they are all beetles? No "design" here...these are just flukes of nature? Was there an original beetle from which these descended?

What about these....?

These are all four legged creatures who have basically the same body structure yet their DNA coded them to be completely different creatures....the ones in the middle are both cats but one is wild whilst the other is a domesticated variety. Still felines but not at all the same.

There are wild dogs and domestic dogs too....

How many breeds of wild dogs are there? Supposedly all descended from an original dog ancestor. Yet how many domestic dogs are the product of natural selection? How many man-made breeds would ever have come about by random chance? They are coded in their DNA so that they can be bred to a minimum size and a maximum one. Yet the largest and the smallest are still dogs and will never be anything else. So where did the original dog come from?

Yes - no 'one' wrote it - and it is incomplete and evolving just as its content is...appealing to complexity doesn't help your argument because you have no choice but to invoke even greater complexity - the "mind of God" - in order to explain how this complexity arose, but you have no explanation for how that "God" complexity arose - all you can say is it just is.

For almost every complexity known to man, there is a mind capable of comprehending and explaining it. For scientific minds, there are still some unexplainable things that human intellect is still to grasp.....why wouldn't the most complex force in the universe be included in that knowledge? Why is it an affront for atheists to admit that there may be an unknown source of energy 'out there' that they have yet to encounter? Does calling it "God" somehow insult them?

I do have an explanation for my God because he provides all we need to understand that his intellect is superior to any that exists on this planet. Science gropes around in the dark for answers and when it has no solid evidence for what it believes, it pretends that its suggestions are facts....no proof of which are ever produced. It then belittles anyone who doesn't agree with its unprovable conclusions.

Probably.

Yes.

I rest my case....

 

[sayak83]

Love him or hate him, Ray Comfort makes a good argument.

https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=1163450647090949

Can nothing create everything?

What evidence would convince you that there is intelligence demonstrated in the DNA that makes up all living things?

Video evidence capturing God making DNA would do it.
Very easy thing to provide if God of the Bible exists.

 

[sayak83]

Regardless of his methods or his tactics, (obviously the reason why atheists hate him) answer his honest questions for yourself. Can everything come from nothing?
Can the book of life have no author? Can any book write itself?

I particularly like Dawkins' reaction to the audience laughing at his absurd statements. He is obviously not use to being the object of ridicule but rather the dispenser of it.

Yes.
Yes.
No.

 

[QuestioningMind]

Love him or hate him, Ray Comfort makes a good argument.

https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=1163450647090949

Can nothing create everything?

What evidence would convince you that there is intelligence demonstrated in the DNA that makes up all living things?

Ah yes, the old 'everything came from nothing' argument, an argument that is only made by creationists who don't comprehend what the current scientific views on the subject are.

 

[Deeje]

Might be arrogant of me, but I don't think of myself as a question dodger.
If you use Ray Comfort in your OP, people will assume you're suggesting he's credible. He's not.

Ray Comfort asks good questions. I don't subscribe to his methods but that doesn't alter the validity of his questions IMO.
I believe that atheists cringe because they have no solid answers to the questions he poses.

I have no idea how something can come from nothing, since I can't conceptualise 'nothing'. For me, concepts of God don't move the needle either way. If God can create something from nothing, how was God created?

What was before the "Big Bang"?

If any being is capable of creating matter, then if you can't explain what he does, how do you explain what he is? If he is uncreated then that is a whole new ball game. No way to comprehend that. It cannot be related to anything in the known universe....can it?

 

[siti]

these are just flukes of nature?

No these are flukes:

Little parasitic flatworms or trematodes that infect the digestive tracts, livers etc. of vertebrates including millions of humans, killing hundreds of thousands of them - often very young children - every year. There are thousands of species - presumably all individually designed to inflict the maximum discomfort, disease and premature death of their unsuspecting, but uniquely well-suited (presumably also by design) hosts.

They are flukes by name and they are certainly flukes by nature - either that, or the Great Designer who invented unzippable seedless fruit just for our pleasure is a schizophrenic sadist who inflicts pain and pleasure on his crowning creation in unpredictable measure just for his own entertainment.

 

[siti]

Ray Comfort asks good questions. I don't subscribe to his methods but that doesn't alter the validity of his questions IMO.
I believe that atheists cringe because they have no solid answers to the questions he poses.

Not at all. Atheists cringe because people like Comfort illustrate so eloquently the fact that evolution (in this case the evolution of human intelligence) can also go in reverse.

 

[Deeje]

Ah yes, the old 'everything came from nothing' argument, an argument that is only made by creationists who don't comprehend what the current scientific views on the subject are.

You mean current scientific views that can change with the next discovery....tomorrow or next week?
You'll forgive me if I require something more reliable than that. The Creator does not change.

 

[lewisnotmiller]

Ray Comfort asks good questions. I don't subscribe to his methods but that doesn't alter the validity of his questions IMO.

A good question, commonly asked by atheist and theists, is 'How did we come to be here?'

It's Ray Comforts attempted answers that make him a disingenuous clown. Not his questions.

But by all means, just ask me the questions you see as good, and I'll answer from my point of view and understanding. No shirking nor potting the messenger, promise.

I believe that atheists cringe because they have no solid answers to the questions he poses.

Atheists have no consistent dogma, so I can only speak for myself.
(Much like theists have no consistent dogma, although some subgroups do)

Part of my atheism is acknowledgement of what I don't know. I'm a human on a ball of dirt circling one sun out of many. My ignorance is pretty profound.
Ignorant little humans claiming they know God, the purpose of everything, and that people are born gay but that homosexual actions are sins against God...meh...

Hubris irritates me.

What was before the "Big Bang"?

There was a Big Bang? Assuming there was 'buggered if I know' springs to mind.

If any being is capable of creating matter, then if you can't explain what he does, how do you explain what he is?

I don't. You're getting me confused with JWs...lol
(You even went with 'he'!!)

If he is uncreated then that is a whole new ball game. No way to comprehend that.

'If' looks large in that sentence. But 'no way to comprehend'...I mean...are you SURE you're not a closet atheist?

It cannot be related to anything in the known universe....can it?

I still cant comprehend 'nothing' let alone 'something existing in nothing'. Ape brains have limitations.

 

[Jainarayan]

In the beginning there was nothing and all of a sudden, for no apparent reason, nothing exploded into something that became everything!

The operative word is ‘apparent’. Just because you can’t see something or understand something doesn’t mean there’s no reason at all.

Besides, I don’t believe ‘nothing’ exists. Once you attempt to describe or define ‘nothing’ it exists. Try imagining ‘nothing’. You can’t. ‘Nothing’ can’t exist. So there was never a time when nothing existed.

 

[Rational Agnostic]

Darwinists used to think life must have developed in slow steady increments, not distinct sudden stages...

Life did develop in slow, steady increments, certainly not sudden distinct stages.

 

[The Kilted Heathen]

I already saw that video on Facebook. It's pretty biased, like every media coverage that shows "idiot Liberals" (if it's Fox) or "idiot Conservatives" (if it's CNN). Show us the Atheists that can provide the answers that he's asking.

 

[Willamena]

Ray Comfort asks good questions. I don't subscribe to his methods but that doesn't alter the validity of his questions IMO.
I believe that atheists cringe because they have no solid answers to the questions he poses.



What was before the "Big Bang"?

If any being is capable of creating matter, then if you can't explain what he does, how do you explain what he is? If he is uncreated then that is a whole new ball game. No way to comprehend that. It cannot be related to anything in the known universe....can it?

There is no living person who could possibly believe that something comes from nothing.

Edit: I take that back. I will include everyone who has ever lived to the beginning of life.

 

[Rational Agnostic]

You are welcome to your doubts......I don't have any.

"The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts."
-Bertrand Russell

 

[Jainarayan]

What was before the "Big Bang"?

The Big Crunch of a previous universe. Or this universe was pinched off from another one.