INDISPUTABLE Rational Proof That God Exists (Or Existed)

[1robin]

Are you aware of virtual particles? They pop in and out of existence out of nothing. They may be 'virtual' but they do have real physical effects. Go look at the wikipedia article of 'Casimir Effect' for more info. It's not god, it's only quantum mechanics. By the way, do you know what E=mc2 means? It means Energy and Mass are the same. Yep, they are. That is why we have the atom bomb and why stars shine. Therefore, if Mass produces gravity, Energy does also, and gravity has negative energy [youtube.com/watch?v=LQL2qiPsHSQ see 00:45:38]. So if we add mass/energy + gravity, we get a net energy amount of zero because the two cancel out each other (gravity has negative energy). If the net amount of energy is zero, guess what it means : the universe has popped out into existence out of nothing. Moreover, Space and Time are indistinguishable from one of the other. They really are. The faster you move through space, the faster you move through time. Go look at the wikipedia article on 'Special Relativity' for more info. So if Space and Time are indistinguishable from one of the other and that Space itself began with the Big Bang, so therefore did Time. If Time began with the Big Bang, well there was no Time before the Big Bang. Asking what's beyond the Time before the Big Bang is like asking what's beyond the edge of the Earth, it doesn't make sense. So if there's no before the Big Bang, then there is no time available for a 1st cause to happen. It is hard to wrap your mind around it because we have evovled is such a way that identifying a first cause is mandatory for our survival. So we are incomfortable without a first cause. Well, there has to be, otherwise we're stuck in an eternal regression of first causes such as your god.

Nothing pops in and out of existence from nothing. Quantum physics posits a quantum energy field that fluctuates, not empty nothingness. God exists independent from time. His actions are not bound by time domains and so the absence of time is not an absence of his ability to act. You are right that these issues are hard to wrap your head around. That makes ignorant men 500 years ago giving God the exact aspects needed for whatever the first cause was even more remarkable. They had no idea that philosophy and cosmology would one day dictate that whatever caused the universe must exist outside of time. They would not have understood that the universe began to exist and needed a cause outside of nature. Space and time are distiquishable but related.

 

[Devillif311]

There is no proof backing it and there is no proof denying it

 

[Skeptisch]

There is no proof backing it and there is no proof denying it

Would evidence make a difference? :sarcastic

 

[SkepticThinker]

Why do most of your stats end in 1990? Are you aware that was 23 years ago?

I will use this as an opportunity to post statistics alone.

From 1960 to 1990 violent crime rose 560%. F.B.I. Quantifying America's Decline by William J. Bennett Quantifying America's Decline

What happened after 1990? We currently live in the year 2013.

According to Wiki and other sources, crime has now declined to 1960’s levels.

The nation has tripled its prison population since 1980; opening the equivalent of 3 or more new 500 bed prisons every week.14 http://www.wrongfuldeathinstitute.com/links/prison/prisonstats.htm·The rate of incarceration has risen from 313 per 100,000 in 1985 to 476 of every 100,000 in 1997. U.S. 14 ^
·The current prison population of over 2 million constitues a growth of over 850% in the past 30 years. 14^
http://www.wrongfuldeathinstitute.com/links/prison/prisonstats.htm
Since 1995 the number of female prisoners (6.8 percent of all prison inmates) in federal or state prison has grown 42 percent, while the number of male prisoners has increased 27 percent. U.S. Department of Justice. http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/press/p02pr.htm
Between 1990 and 2000 the number of State correctional facilities increased by 351. States also added over 528,000 beds, an 81% increase. 14 Bureau of Justice Statistics; Sourcebook of Criminal Justice Statistics, 2003 (table 6.1.2004)..

You can thank the war on drugs for wasting time, money and lives:

“The Bureau of Justice Statistics has released a study which finds that, despite the total number of prisoners incarcerated for drug-related offenses increasing by 57,000 between 1997 and 2004, the proportion of drug offenders to total prisoners in State prison populations stayed steady at 21%. The percentage of Federal prisoners serving time for drug offenses declined from 63% in 1997 to 55% in that same period.[10] In the twenty-five years since the passage of the Anti-Drug Abuse Act, the United States penal population rose from around 300,000 to more than two million.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_incarceration_rate#Comparison_with_other_countries

·In Canada, there was a 340 percent greater incidence of violent crime over its 1965 figure, with similar rises in robbery, assault, rape and murder statistics. http://www.cchr.org/morals/return.htm
·In Canada, the rate of violent crime doubled in the '60s, increased by 30 percent in the '70s and rose another 46 percent in the '80s. "Juristat," Service Bulletin for the Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics, October 1990.

Your link doesn’t take me to your quote. Do you have something against using current sources?

According to Wiki, the crime rate in Canada has been declining since 1991. 2006 saw the lowest crime rate in 25 years.

·Suicide is the 3rd leading cause of death among youths ages 15 to 20. http://whs.wsd.wednet.edu/Faculty/Lynch/sadd/statistics.html

“File not found.”

Why do you think this number is so high? Because these teens are immoral??

 

[SkepticThinker]

·From 1960 to 1990 child abuse has risen from 670,000 in 1976 to nearly 3 million in the 1990s. The FBI; U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation

We should probably ask the priests about this one.


According to a study done by David Finkelhor called, “Updated Trends in Child Maltreatment, 2010,” child abuse has declined 62% from 1992 to 2009. (This includes both sexual and physical abuse.)

According to the National Child Abuse and Neglect Data System, in 2010 less than 1% of the US child population had experienced any form of maltreatment (neglect, sexual abuse, physical abuse).

https://childwelfare.gov/pubs/factsheets/canstats.pdf

·1987 to 1996 saw an increase of more than 50 percent in juvenile arrest for murder, possession of weapons, robbery, and aggravated assault. FBI: U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (1997). 1996 Uniform Crime Report. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice. http://www.yellodyno.com/html/violent_kids_stats.html

If we look at current, primary sources we find that:

“In 1980, juvenile arrests made up 38% of all larceny-theft arrests; by 2009, this percentage had fallen to 24%. Over the 30-year period, the juvenile arrest rate for larceny-theft declined 40%, while the adult arrest rate ended the period near where it had begun.” (Source: U.S. Department of Justice, 2011)
http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/aus8009.pdf


And …

“The juvenile arrest rate for all offenses reached its highest level in the last two decades in 1996, and then declined 43% by 2010.”
http://www.ojjdp.gov/ojstatbb/crime/JAR_Display.asp

· Between 1960 and 1990, there was a 41% decline in marriage. Larry L. Bumpass, "What's Happening to the Family? Interactions Between Demographic and Institutional Change,"

Why is this immoral? And again, why do your numbers end in 1990?

· Divorce is up 350%.in whichchildren under 18 are involved. U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, and Statistical Abstract of the United States.

Divorce is immoral?

· • Since 1960 there has been over a 400% increase in illegitimate births. The Wall Street Journal,Monday, March 15, 1993 Quantifying America's Decline by William J. Bennett Quantifying America's Decline

Wow. People still use the term “illegitimate birth”???

Why? Are these births illegal or forbidden?

My niece and nephew were “illegitimate” at birth, if we use your antiquated terminology. Let me assure you, they are still human beings, and very sweet ones at that. Their parents have been together for 15 years. There’s nothing immoral about any of it.

· Between 1960 and 1990, the percentage of children living apart from their biological fathers more than doubled, from 17 percent to 36 percent. http://mensightmagazine.com/Articles/Popenoe/nofathers.htm
· While in 1960 only 9 percent of all children lived in single-parent families (a figure that had changed little over the course of the 20th century), by 2003 the percentage had jumped to 27 percent.9The State of our unions 2004 marriage. http://marriage.rutgers.edu/publications/soou/textsoou2004.htm.

According to the US Census Bureau, this number “less between 1990 and 2009 than it had between 1970 and 1990.”
http://www.census.gov/prod/2011pubs/p70-126.pdf
Why is this immoral?

· Between 1960 AND 2002, the number of unmarried couples in America – couples who are sexual partners, not married to each other, and sharing a household [otherwise known as fornicators, living in sin] – increased by over 1100 percent. ^9

Oh boy, more antiquated terminology. I just call them people who choose to share their lives with another person. Do you have any idea how expensive weddings are in 2013? Why is it immoral to find out before marriage if you’re compatible with another person you’re potentially going to spend the rest of your life with? Would you prefer they rush into marriage only to divorce later?

According to the Census Bureau, 65% of American couples who cohabitate get married within 5 years.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=124248325



You should look into updating your stats with some more current sources. 1990 was a long time ago. And it doesn’t serve your argument very well to have the stats just end there. Also, you should probably point out what any of this has to do with secularism.

 

[SkepticThinker]

· Premarital sexual activity for girls increased over 500 percent; http://www.christianaction.org.za/media_egroups/uca_2003-04-30.htm

For what years? What is this sentence fragment referring to? What age group?

· Births to unmarried girls from 15-19 years of age is up 500% U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, Historical Statistics of the United States http://www.angelfire.com/music2/fullcircle/

This link takes me to, “Cute Girls Across Russia.”

According to the CDC, “The [FONT=BLJLK D+ Helvetica]birth rate for U.S. teenagers aged 15–19 fell 10 percent in 2010, to 34.2 per 1,000, reaching the lowest level reported in the United States in seven decades. Rates declined for teen subgroups aged 10–14, 15–17, and 18–19 and for all race and Hispanic origin groups.”[/FONT]

http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr61/nvsr61_01.pdf

· • Since 1960 the percentage of babies born to unwed mothers (any age) has increased more than sixfold.9The State of our unions 2004marriage.http://marriage.rutgers.edu/publications/soou/textsoou2004.htm .

Let’s look at current numbers from the CDC again:
[FONT=BLJLK D+ Helvetica]“Childbearing by unmarried women [/FONT][FONT=BLJLM D+ Helvetica]declined in 2010 for the second consecutive year, as reflected in fewer births (1,633,471) and a lower birth rate (47.6 per 1,000). The number of births declined almost 4 percent and the birth rate fell 5 percent, while the percentage of births to unmarried women declined slightly to 40.8 percent. “[/FONT]
[FONT=BLJLM D+ Helvetica][FONT=BLJLM D+ Helvetica]http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr61/nvsr61_01.pdf[/FONT][/FONT]

· 1960 there were 2 known Sexually Transmitted Diseases (syphilis and gonorrhea); today there are more than 25. Family Research Council: The Human Papillomavirus (HPV) Epidemic:www.ccv.org/downloads/pdf/HPV-Epidemic.pdf
· Gonorrhonea (a Sexually Transmitted Disease) went up over 200 percent; http://www.christianaction.org.za/media_egroups/uca_2003-04-30.htm

This is total garbage. The Family Research Council doesn’t know what they’re talking about.

Chlamydia, herpes, genital warts, hepatitis, syphilis, gonorrhea, scabies, crabs, etc. have been around for thousands of years. AIDS has likely been around since around the turn of the 20th century.

· Less than 1% of all Americans had used illegal drugs before 1960. The Honorable Judge Robert Ulrich Chief Justice, Missouri Court Of Appeals, Western District; http://www.shalomjerusalem.com/heritage/heritage19.html

Why is it that most of your links take me nowhere? Where is the rest of the sentence? How many use illegal drugs now?

· Ilegal drug usage is up 6,000% since 1960. The percent of youth who have used illegal drugs has gone from 5 to 75%. National Institute on Drug Abuse.
[/quote]

Can you provide a link? I can’t find the numbers you have quoted.

When I look up the National Institute on Drug Abuse I find that most of the increase in illegal drug use has been from marijuana, the least harmful of all known illegal drugs while at the same time the use of most other illegal drugs has been on the decline in recent years.

· Between 1960 and the early 1980s.smoking among 8th-grade girls increased 50 percent over this period, and the percentage of black 8th- and 10th-graders who smoked doubled. U.S. Health and Human Srevices; Page Not Found.

What does smoking have to do with secularism? What happened after 1980? How about 2013?

 

[Agnostic75]

Nothing pops in and out of existence from nothing. Quantum physics posits a quantum energy field that fluctuates, not empty nothingness. God exists independent from time. His actions are not bound by time domains and so the absence of time is not an absence of his ability to act. You are right that these issues are hard to wrap your head around. That makes ignorant men 500 years ago giving God the exact aspects needed for whatever the first cause was even more remarkable. They had no idea that philosophy and cosmology would one day dictate that whatever caused the universe must exist outside of time. They would not have understood that the universe began to exist and needed a cause outside of nature. Space and time are distiquishable but related.

But an article at What Is Nothing? Physicists Debate | The Existence of Nothing | LiveScience shows that there is not a widely agreed scientific definition for the word "nothing."

Your own sources, Vilenkin, Borde, Guth, and Penrose, have not claimed, as you have claimed, that God is the best explanation for the existence of the universe. In addition, the majority of leading scientists do not believe in God.

Since the National Academy of Sciences is neutral on the existence of God, reasonable people do not claim that science provides evidence beyond a reasonable doubt that a God exists.

You have said that all of macro evolution has problems, but one study showed that 99.86% of scientists who study the earth and its life forms accept macro evolution, including your own source Michael Behe, who said the following:

"For example, both humans and chimps have a broken copy of a gene that in other mammals helps make vitamin C. ... It's hard to imagine how there could be stronger evidence for common ancestry of chimps and humans. ... Despite some remaining puzzles, there’s no reason to doubt that Darwin had this point right, that all creatures on earth are biological relatives.” The Edge of Evolution, pp 71–2.

Research has also shown that some of the most likely people to accept creationism are women, people who have less education, and people who have lower incomes.

You have said that some creationists have Ph.D.s, but they are only a relative handful, and you can bet that a good percentage of them also accept the global flood theory, and/or the young earth theory. Two of the leading creationist organizations in the world. the Institute for Creation Research (ICR), and Answers in Genesis (AIG), accept the global flood theory, and the young earth theory. Since their biblical literalism, and biblical presuppositionalism convinced them to accept the global flood theory, and the young earth theory, not valid science, it is probable that the same beliefs convinced them to accept creationism, not valid science.

Another way of putting it would be to say that the vast majority of scientists who reject the global flood theory, and the young earth theory, also reject creationism.

You have admitted that you do not know a lot about biology, but even if you had a Ph.D. in biology, the vast majority of biologists, including the majority of Christian biologists would disagree with you. In addition, if a creationist with a Ph.D. in biology came to this forum to try to help you with your claim that all of macro evolution has problems, how would that help you since the vast majority of people do not know nearly enough about biology to adequately judge complex arguments about biology? The same goes for discussions about quantum physics. As a Wikipedia article says, what is often counterintuitive about quantum physics is not counter intuitive to physics.

If needed, I could post a number of articles by physicists, including articles by some of your own sources, about the possibility of getting something from nothing, but since quantum physics is very complex, and frequently counterintuitive, why should we laymen waste time dabbling with things that we do not know very much about, and which quantum physicists themselves still have much to learn?

At best, all that you have accomplished in this thread is to make a reasonable case that science has not ruled out the existence of God beyond a reasonable doubt. That obviously also means that science has not ruled out that naturalism is true beyond a reasonable doubt.

Of course, if a moral God exists, that would be great. Who would not want to spend a comfortable eternal life free of disease, hunger, wars, natural disasters, and death if they believed that there was such a life after death?

 

[Ouroboros]

But an article at What Is Nothing? Physicists Debate | The Existence of Nothing | LiveScience shows that there is not a widely agreed scientific definition for the word "nothing."

Oh, I get it. Hehe.

Look at the consensus scientific definition of the word "nothing" and there is nothing.

 

[SkepticThinker]

That is the point. With God slavery would still be wrong. Without it would be right.

It appears you’ve missed my point.

What do you think the slaves would think about slavery, in a world where everyone practiced slavery?

Looking at it from a reading of the Bible, we’d have to deduce that god thinks slavery is a-ok, as long as we follow the rules about beating them and marking them and such. People would easily be able to justify it, in the same way that you have justified slavery during Biblical times. And we’d have to accept that, because who could say god is wrong?
At least in my view, we can weigh it out and make our own judgments about it based on the available evidence (which is what I claim we actually do and which explains why slavery is no longer morally acceptable to us).

Yet it would still be wrong and if the cannibals and murderers would have accepted that they would still be around.

No, they wouldn’t. Nobody would be around. That’s the point. The people alive today are the products of beings who thought cannibalism and murder were wrong because the people who thought they were right died off (were murdered and/or eaten).

Objectively impossible. Nothing in nature has the power to make anything right or wrong morally. Nature says what is not what should be.

We can declare fact from fiction all on our own. This is not impossible. Obviously, since we do have things we collectively consider right and wrong. What you’re trying to tell me is that without god, it is factually impossible to declare anything right or wrong, which is clearly false, given that we do this all the time.

Humans and animals decide what is right and wrong because we are the only ones who can do so. We’re the ones who inhabit this world we have to live in.

NO we collectively declare what we label as such.

Sure.

No, God is around.

So you claim. I find no good evidence supporting your claim.

Because we apprahend a moral "norm" using out God given consciences. We intuitively declare psychopathy to be in opossition to that norm. A norm which has no objective foundation without God.

We decide what is the “norm” using more than mere intuition. We determine such things by analysis, by reason, and by study of human behavior, which takes a lot of work, on our part. We declare psychopathy wrong because it deviates from typical, acceptable patterns of human behavior. It is objective, in that sense.

Because we were created to.

Again, that’s your claim for which I find no evidence to support.

Funny you should say this anyway, because according to the Bible, Adam and Eve were apparently created without knowing anything about good and evil. It wasn’t until they partook of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil that they knew anything about it. So, I’m not sure what you’re talking about. You say we were created to care about the well-being of others. Where’s your evidence for that?

There is no preference to it if his existence is granted. I do not steal because it is a universal moral truth even if no one would notice, not because it is preferred or convenient. Your only argument is whether God exists. Once granted the rest of your argumentation evaporates.

Sure there is. How can there not be preference, on god’s part?

Are you telling me that the only reason you don’t steal is because you think a god finds it to be an immoral action?

Why do you assume god is good, and by what standard are you making such a determination?

I say that we don’t steal because it is a universal truth based on preference, evolution, reason, logic, etc. that has become ingrained in human society over time. People who steal from others willy-nilly and don’t respect other peoples’ property don’t last very long in societies where most think it’s wrong. If this is not the case, how do you explain the fact that in general, people from all walks of life and all religions find stealing to be a wrong action?

I feel like your view of right and wrong stemming only from your god within your system of obedience to authority, diminishes our humanity and ignores the fact that we have the ability to reason, learn, weigh evidence and consider the consequences of our actions.

Let me give the test once again. Is X moral truth if as you say above no one is around who agrees.

I’ve answered this many times. See above.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rai_stones

Cool.

If they valued it, then it has value to them.

Cont'd ...

 

[SkepticThinker]

They are without God.

Your answer doesn’t address my assertion that they’re not equally comparable.

Then Hitler and Stalin were right as the requirement was the use of reason and they did so.

The rest of us determined that they didn’t value well-being and therefore didn’t value morality, that they didn’t value human life (beyond their own) and that the opinion of those two individuals was wrong. Individuals determine their own morality but they don’t necessarily determine the morality of the entire human race.

I have lost track of the original subject.

You were asking me how I could determine god was wrong if he extinguished the lives of entire populations of people.

I use right not good in this context. There exists no standard to judge anything he does as wrong.

Then there exists no standard to judge anything he does as right or good, and your argument falls apart.

If Newton said 1+ 1 = 7 than the standard of math can disprove him. If God killed Hitler or a child in Israel by what standard can you declare that wrong?

We would determine whether it was good or bad, right or wrong by our own standards, which is all we really have to go on.

As for good, I claim that because my God given conscience and his actions are consistent most of the time. If God exists human wellbeing IS ACTUALLY good and he has acted consistently with this.

How do you know god cares about human wellbeing in the first place? Judging from much that is contained within the Bible, I’d say that’s debatable. I mean, you support the slavery described in the Bible because you have to accept that god couldn’t do a wrong thing. So I watch you go through a whole bunch of mental gymnastics in order to defend something that most everyone in the present day agrees is immoral.

And again, I ask, given that you haven’t responded to it yet, how do you know that god’s nature is good?

If he does not the Human wellbeing is specieism and a self-interested and unjustifiable standard and not even one we obey anyway.

Have you not noticed that human beings do care about other animals, as I’ve pointed out several times now?

How can you say that human wellbeing from a human perspective is unjustifiable??

There exists no standard that can make God wrong. If God exists then my conscience is the standard to declare his actions good because it is God given.

Then there exists no standard that can make god good, and your argument fails.

But thank you for admitting that you use your own moral compass to determine what is good and what isn’t. It’s about time. This is what we all do. And then we get together with other people who agree on the same set of standards and we live together in a society where we all understand that in order to live in any sense of harmony with each other, we have to follow the standards we’ve set out. These things can change over time, as we learn new things and new evidence is presented to us, which is why morals have indeed changed over time. E.g. Most people now feel that slavery is immoral when once upon a time, it was common practice.

If god told you to kill your child, would you do it? And would you think it's right and/or good?

They are two different arguments. If he exists his actions are right (that is different than good).

This doesn’t answer the question.

According to what standard??

If he exists then he gave me revelation and my conscience and they testify that he is good. I have never suggested human wellbeing is bad. I said it is not objective nor sufficiently justifiable without God.

Maybe your revelation is wrong. Maybe god is playing games with you. Maybe the devil is the good one and god is the bad one. How do you determine these are not equal possibilities?

If you say human well-being is not objective or cannot be objective in any sense, nor sufficiently justifiable without god then I’m sorry, but I think you’re just plain wrong. If this is your line of reasoning than the study of human health and medicine for example, can never be objective in any sense of the word either. And I’m not sure you’d agree with that.

As I have explained many times. To discuss God I have two choices I can assume he exists and then debate what his existence means, or I can refuse to allow his existence and then do so. The former is correct, the latter is wrong, useless, but unfortunately the tactic many times. Morality is not part of nature exclusively. Atoms are amoral, natural law can't generate what should be. We are talking about impossibilities. There is no well maybe this or that. Nature does not place actual value on anything. It is God's nature that is moral and is part of the framework of reality.

This still doesn’t answer the question. All you are doing is making bald assertions.

As soon as you prove he killed without justification then I will agree. Good luck.

All I would have to do is point out that he’s contradicting his own moral dictates.

I met him. However as in all debates we must assume what we are discussing is possible and if we are discussing My God then he comes with a context. If you want to discuss another context then that is not my God.
My computer is trying to crash so I will stop here. SCIENCE???
I recommend any debate by the great mathematician Lennox concerning morality and nature.

So you say you met your god. How do I know you weren’t just dreaming or that you’re mentally ill or something? You want to keep declaring that nothing humans declare can be objective, and then you throw the most subjective evidence possible back at me??

I don’t think Lennox is as great as you do, apparently.

 

[Devillif311]

Would evidence make a difference? :sarcastic

That is why i'm here

 

[1robin]

Why do most of your stats end in 1990? Are you aware that was 23 years ago?

What happened after 1990? We currently live in the year 2013.

Well you have un-riddled us. We all got together and decided that even though us Christians can't decide on music in church, transubstantiation, or millennialism we could all agree that 1990 was the exact year that we needed to stop all statistics to be the most damaging to secularism. Despite mass killings once a month, school shootings on television every week, a liberal administration scandal popping up every other day, and crack being smoked by the ton secularism has actually produced a moral utopia since 1990 that is inconvenient for our claims. In actuality I only gave maybe 5% of what the links led to and any date consistency was a coincidence. Secularism began to take hold in 1960. That gives 30 years to evaluate it's effects. Is there some argument that things got better since 1990? Does it effect the hundreds of stats at those sites that went to well up in the 2000’s?

According to Wiki and other sources, crime has now declined to 1960’s levels.

Please see this site for stats from as recent as 2006 that show wikipedia is full of it. http://www.wrongfuldeathinstitute.com/links/prison/prisonstats.htm
It is not only that things are getting worse, the actual rate at which they are is getting worse in many cases.

You can thank the war on drugs for wasting time, money and lives:

This is kind of odd:
1. Unless you are suggesting that not resisting immorality is “better”, then this would be a failure of application which has little to do with my claims.
2. The war on drugs began during our secular slide so if anyone was responsible for its application it would be a far more secular responsibility. Not that I am contending that.
3. In short I have no idea what this meant.

“The Bureau of Justice Statistics has released a study which finds that, despite the total number of prisoners incarcerated for drug-related offenses increasing by 57,000 between 1997 and 2004, the proportion of drug offenders to total prisoners in State prison populations stayed steady at 21%. The percentage of Federal prisoners serving time for drug offenses declined from 63% in 1997 to 55% in that same period.[10] In the twenty-five years since the passage of the Anti-Drug Abuse Act, the United States penal population rose from around 300,000 to more than two million.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_incarceration_rate#Comparison_with_other_countries

This (at best) would be an argument against how the fight against drugs was waged which has no relevance to my claims. The fact that drug use has increased drastically since the 50's is not even debatable.

Your link doesn’t take me to your quote. Do you have something against using current sources?

1995 is within the last .0025% of human existence. If that does not qualify as current the term has no meaning. There were countless stats at the sites I gave that were very recent. This date thing is a diversion.

According to Wiki, the crime rate in Canada has been declining since 1991. 2006 saw the lowest crime rate in 25 years.

Someone’s wrong.
· In Canada, there was a 340 percent greater incidence of violent crime over its 1965 figure, with similar rises in robbery, assault, rape and murder statistics. http://www.cchr.org/morals/return.htm
· In Canada, the rate of violent crime doubled in the '60s, increased by 30 percent in the '70s and rose another 46 percent in the '80s. "Juristat," Service Bulletin for the Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics, October 1990.
Read more: http://peacebyjesus.witnesstoday.org/RevealingStatistics.html#ixzz2Wg5RS3Xz
CChr is not a religious organization.

Why do you think this number is so high? Because these teens are immoral??

Because the world their secular elders have created is less worth the effort. Is suicide not an obvious factor of secularism versus theism? You certainly cherry picked what to contend. There are thousands of stats that make it very very clear which direction we are headed in and it isn't good. Picking arbitrary date mandates and one link in hundreds that may or may not work will not change the conclusion of those mountains of data.

 

[Willamena]

Why do most of your stats end in 1990? Are you aware that was 23 years ago?

What happened after 1990? We currently live in the year 2013.

The 1990s happened. :/

But that's off-topic.

 

[lewisnotmiller]

Someone’s wrong.

Meh...I didn't realise you were back. Haven't a chance right now to respond to your earlier posts, so I apologise.
But your sources on Canadian crime stats appear to be biased...

Police-reported crime statistics in Canada, 2011

Canada's crime rate in 2011 lowest since 1972 - Canada - CBC News

Police report lowest crime rate in forty years, Statistics Canada says | News | National Post

And, speaking fairly generically, 1990 WAS actually a high-water mark for crime, as per the links above.

 

[SkepticThinker]

The 1990s happened. :/

But that's off-topic.

Apparently we're supposed to ignore that.

 

[SkepticThinker]

Meh...I didn't realise you were back. Haven't a chance right now to respond to your earlier posts, so I apologise.
But your sources on Canadian crime stats appear to be biased...

Police-reported crime statistics in Canada, 2011

Canada's crime rate in 2011 lowest since 1972 - Canada - CBC News

Police report lowest crime rate in forty years, Statistics Canada says | News | National Post

And, speaking fairly generically, 1990 WAS actually a high-water mark for crime, as per the links above.

I love how he just ignored all the stuff where I pointed out that all these numbers have gone down since the 1990's and how that kinda hurts his argument.

 

[Enai de a lukal]

Whether God is an all-knowing being, or a thoughtless being non-existent anymore, something had to start the first thing, the first science, and science cannot and will not ever explain the start of science, just as something cannot create itself. Before anything, there was nothing. Something transcendent, existent before anything, had to create the first something. That, we call God.

Lots of logical fallacies all lumped together here. As others have pointed out, this is just a muddled version of the causal argument, i.e. "everything which begins to exist has a cause, the universe began to exist, therefore the universe had a cause", or variations thereof.

Unfortunately, this is a compositional fallacy- that the universe itself must have a cause, because the individual things in the universe all have causes, does not follow; what is true of a part may not be true of the whole.

But worse, its non-sequitur, and an argumentum ad ignorantium, that the cause of the universe must be God, or a god. It could be something else. And that the universe began to exist is far from self-evident (popular misconceptions about Big Bang cosmology notwithstanding).

In any case, there are no valid, non-question-begging arguments for the existence of God, so this is a dead end.

 

[1robin]

We should probably ask the priests about this one.

Even Catholic priests can't explain a 2.5 million increase.

According to a study done by David Finkelhor called, “Updated Trends in Child Maltreatment, 2010,” child abuse has declined 62% from 1992 to 2009. (This includes both sexual and physical abuse.)

This site shows that the numbers of child abuse deaths per day rose from 3.3 in 1998 to over 5 in 2010. I can't figure out how to copy and paste graphics so here is the link. http://www.childhelp-usa.com/pages/statistics

According to the National Child Abuse and Neglect Data System, in 2010 less than 1% of the US child population had experienced any form of maltreatment (neglect, sexual abuse, physical abuse).
https://childwelfare.gov/pubs/factsheets/canstats.pdf

Is this a claim that less than 1% is ok? My comments are about relative levels versus the rise of secularism. That is a very strange claim.

If we look at current, primary sources we find that:
“In 1980, juvenile arrests made up 38% of all larceny-theft arrests; by 2009, this percentage had fallen to 24%. Over the 30-year period, the juvenile arrest rate for larceny-theft declined 40%, while the adult arrest rate ended the period near where it had begun.” (Source: U.S. Department of Justice, 2011)
http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/aus8009.pdf
And …
“The juvenile arrest rate for all offenses reached its highest level in the last two decades in 1996, and then declined 43% by 2010.”
http://www.ojjdp.gov/ojstatbb/crime/JAR_Display.asp

I was going to give this one to you except I realized your statics are worse than mine (year related). You complain that I only posted a certain range of data then you post an even smaller range. While there has been a shift the rates are still higher than before secularism took hold. They are currently higher than even as recently as 1980.
The overall delinquency caseload was 48% larger in 1997 than it was in 1988, and four times as large as it was in 1960.[10]
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/juvenile/stats/basic.html
Saying something is less than it was in the 80's does not undue the fact it is still 4 times worse than the 60's.

Why is this immoral? And again, why do your numbers end in 1990?

If you do not see the cost of fragmented families and single parent homes there is no argument that I could make that would help.

Divorce is immoral?

Robbing children of having two parent available at the same time is not only immoral it has resulted in an increase in crimes in and of itself. Again if you are not already convinced of this an argument from me will not help. The Bible said God allows divorce because we are sinful and obviously ruin much of what we do. The point is that divorce occurs because we are faulty and our being faulty is sinful. That is not to say divorce can be justified within that context but that does not mean it is right or good as a concept. I can explain what I mean but if you do not think the dissolution of the family is wrong I can't fix that. It is just this lack of moral clarity that I think secularism causes.

Wow. People still use the term “illegitimate birth”???

Does the concept change or become "better" by changing the label?

Why? Are these births illegal or forbidden?

I never used either of those words. It is very hard to have a moral discussion with a secularist because morality is an ambiguous uncertain thing with them. I have stated many times that the lack of moral clarity the dismissal of God causes is in large part the cause of immorality. I think as secularism caused problems so undeniable over the years that the reclassification of what is even wrong is now the only defense. If you can't agree that having only one parent available is detrimental in general then on what ground could it even be discussed.

My niece and nephew were “illegitimate” at birth, if we use your antiquated terminology. Let me assure you, they are still human beings, and very sweet ones at that. Their parents have been together for 15 years. There’s nothing immoral about any of it.

This is the kind of stuff that drives me nuts about secularists and liberals.

1. I never mentioned any one specifically.
2. I never said anything what so ever about whether a child from a single parent home was any less sweet.
3. I certainly never said they were any less human.
4. Appeals to sympathy are what are used instead of arguments when a person is emotionally (not rationally) driven.

This is cheap theatrics and a very underhanded technique used to place anyone who disagrees with you on lower moral ground and is a common tactic from your side. It is like the argument that we should spend trillions we do not have on a health care plan that was illegally passed and sold as going to save us money and anyone who is monetarily responsible does not want people to be healthy. It is a garbage argument and offensive. My mother died when I was a teenager so I obviously have no axe to grind. Single parent homes are in general deficient to a complete family unit. If you disagree then do so without insinuating I claimed they are less than human. That is an obvious sign of an argument that could not be made on rational grounds. I need a break after that one.

 

[SkepticThinker]

Well you have un-riddled us. We all got together and decided that even though us Christians can't decide on music in church, transubstantiation, or millennialism we could all agree that 1990 was the exact year that we needed to stop all statistics to be the most damaging to secularism. Despite mass killings once a month, school shootings on television every week, a liberal administration scandal popping up every other day, and crack being smoked by the ton secularism has actually produced a moral utopia since 1990 that is inconvenient for our claims.

OR you alone decided to provide statistics ending in 1990 because you realized that the numbers didn’t continue increasing during the last 23 years as you had expected. So you left them out. Or you couldn’t find anything after 1990.

That sounds more plausible to me.

I’m not talking to all Christians, I’m talking to you. I don’t know where this claim comes from that all Christians believe anything. I certainly didn’t make it.

In actuality I only gave maybe 5% of what the links led to and any date consistency was a coincidence.

That’s some major coincidence then. Practically every single statistic you provided ended sometime in the 1990’s.

Secularism began to take hold in 1960. That gives 30 years to evaluate it's effects. Is there some argument that things got better since 1990? Does it effect the hundreds of stats at those sites that went to well up in the 2000’s?

Well, yeah. I provided a whole bunch of links showing basically that.

I think the better argument is that crime rates and many other things on your list, go in cycles. Sometimes they’re high, given various factors and circumstances present in society, and sometimes they’re low(er).

Please see this site for stats from as recent as 2006 that show wikipedia is full of it.

Wikipedia must be in on this liberal conspiracy to drag the world into secular chaos!

Oh wait, they provide links and references at the bottom of the page for anyone to peruse. Whew!

I hate to point it out to you but it must be done: It seems that all these Christian-oriented sites you’re linking to appear to be cherry picking statistics to suit their agenda. Maybe that explains why they all end 23 years ago. And just to let you know, many of your links didn’t even work. And some of the ones that did, appear to cite their source but when you actually go to the cited source, the alleged statistics are nowhere to be found.

http://www.wrongfuldeathinstitute.com/links/prison/prisonstats.htm
It is not only that things are getting worse, the actual rate at which they are is getting worse in many cases.

That site doesn’t indicate any such thing.

It does say the following though:

“Crime rates have been stable and slightly declining since the 70’s. The massive increase in law enforcement started in the 80’s and wasn’t a result or caused by rising crime; nor did it cause crime to decrease.”

“Eighty-Four percent of the increase in prison admissions were for non-violent offense. Congress has barred inmates from receiving grants for college and correspondence courses.”

 

[SkepticThinker]

This is kind of odd:
1. Unless you are suggesting that not resisting immorality is “better”, then this would be a failure of application which has little to do with my claims.
2. The war on drugs began during our secular slide so if anyone was responsible for its application it would be a far more secular responsibility. Not that I am contending that.
3. In short I have no idea what this meant.

The war on drugs is a massive waste of money, time and energy and it’s responsible for increased incarceration rates of drug users (mostly marijuana, the least harmful of any drug including alcohol and tobacco). This doesn’t really help anyone, except for the private owners of these prisons.

I’d characterize the war on drugs as more of a republican idea than a secular one (Nixon, Reagan, Bush I).

This (at best) would be an argument against how the fight against drugs was waged which has no relevance to my claims. The fact that drug use has increased drastically since the 50's is not even debatable.

Sure, it has relevance to your claims, especially when you keep pointing out that the prison population has increased since the 1960s as some sort of indicator that crime has been on the rise since then! Do you not see that?

1995 is within the last .0025% of human existence. If that does not qualify as current the term has no meaning. There were countless stats at the sites I gave that were very recent. This date thing is a diversion.

So what? We’re not talking about all of human existence here. We’re talking about a major problem with your argument. You’re the one who keeps saying that all crime rates have increased since the 1960’s when secularism supposedly took hold. Since your statistics end in 1990 they don’t exactly support your claim, unless your claim is that crime rates rose between 1960 and 1990.

Far from being a diversion to the argument, it speaks DIRECTLY to your argument.

Someone’s wrong.
·In Canada, there was a 340percentgreater incidence of violent crime over its 1965figure, with similar rises in robbery, assault, rape and murder statistics.http://www.cchr.org/morals/return.htm
·In Canada, the rate of violent crimedoubled in the '60s, increased by 30percentin the '70s and rose another 46percentin the '80s."Juristat," Service Bulletin for the Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics, October1990.
Read more: http://peacebyjesus.witnesstoday.org/RevealingStatistics.html#ixzz2Wg5RS3Xz
CChr is not a religious organization.

Yes, you are wrong. See Lewistnotmiller’s post on this and my previous post.

CCHR was founded by the Church of Scientology.

http://www.cchr.org/morals/return.htm = The requested page could not be found.

I can’t find any of these statements anywhere other than peacebyjesus.org or jesus-is-saviour.com. Why is that?

Because the world their secular elders have created is less worth the effort.

Now you’re just making things up.

Is suicide not an obvious factor of secularism versus theism?

Well, now that you mention it, no. Why stick around in this crappy world when eternity in paradise awaits you?

In my view, this is the only world we get to live in and the only life we get to lead, so I’m not rushing to end it anytime soon.

You certainly cherry picked what to contend.

No, that was you, Mr. My Stats Conveniently End in 1990.

I responded to most, if not all of your supposed stats and assertions.

There are thousands of stats that make it very very clear which direction we are headed in and it isn't good. Picking arbitrary date mandates and one link in hundreds that may or may not work will not change the conclusion of those mountains of data.

Why didn’t you post those then? Because the ones you gave don’t exactly indicate that.

Are you kidding me here? You’re the one who chose the arbitrary dates! If your argument is that secularism is responsible for the increase in crime, drug use, etc. since 1960 until PRESENT DAY, then your stats should show that. If you have to end them in 1990, then your stats don’t indicate that all of these immoral things have been increasing since 1960. At best, you could say that they increased between the 1960’s and the 1990’s. But that’s about it. As to the part about secularism being responsible for all of this, you’ve still got all your work ahead of you.


Welcome back, by the way. J