Life From Dirt?

[SkepticThinker]

(Isn't that what evolution does, starting with abiogenesis?)

Nope. It absolutely does not.

 

[SkepticThinker]

Me too.

You believe on faith. As you keep saying and showing.

I don't necessarily stop believing it.

If you find out that you believe something that isn't supported by the evidence, you won't stop believing it? As in, you'll continue believing it anyway, in spite of the fact that the evidence doesn't demonstrate it? Why would you do that??

Thanks for another demonstration that faith is not a reliable pathway to truth.

It is a matter of believing that God's Word is true. If one interpretation is not true, I look for another.

This was in response to, "So there is no way to determine which interpretation is the correct one, but you're sure you've got the correct interpretation. And if it seems wrong, then you just re-interpret it. ... ??"

Please notice how your response doesn't really answer the question.

Please notice how your entire argument starts, ends and rests upon faith. (i.e The excuse people give for believing something when they don't have good evidence.) This is despite the fact that your very first line in your response to me here was you saying that you believe things based on evidence and reason. Then you spent the rest of the post demonstrating that you actually rely on faith, rather than reason and evidence.

 

[We Never Know]

Nope. It absolutely does not.

Abiogenisis and evolution..They are two seperate events but ....

Did...
-evolution start a soon as life began(kind of like we start dying the day we are conceived)

-before as chemical evolution that lead to life(but then that wouldnt be life evolving if it isn't life yet)

 

[ratiocinator]

Did...
-evolution start a soon as life began(kind of like we start dying the day we are conceived)

-before as chemical evolution that lead to life(but then that wouldnt be life evolving if it isn't life yet)

Depends on how you define 'life'. For evolution you need replication with inheritance and variation in an environment with limited resources.

 

[shunyadragon]

Correct me if I'm wrong in your eyes. Would there be evolution without abiogenesis? I say no. What do you say?

The problem is your a priori rejection and opposition to both based on an ancient tribal agenda, making your question meaningless unless you can provide a legitimate scientific argument for your agenda.

Evolution has been research for over 170 years of research by thousands of scientists and discoveries. It has been overwhelmingly demonstrated by any reasonable doubt that the history of life evolved from primitive single celled animals, but your stoic intentional ignorance of science concering evolution persists.

The research on abiogenesis is only ~50 years and is difficult because the physical evidence is over ~3.5 billion years old. Nonetheless a great deal of research has achieved a great deal toward demonstrating the natural processes of abiogenesis. The recent advances in abiogenesis have been presented, but your intentional ignorance persists.

 

[YoursTrue]

That sounds more like a rant which you have every right to proclaim.

You know what I find interesting from this is that Pilate didn't want to put Jesus to death but the crowd wanted him to. And Pilate succumbed to the desire of the crowd. The end hasn't come yet but God raised Jesus from the dead. Yet even at that time there were persecutors. Matthew 24:14. God draws those He wants to.

 

[SkepticThinker]

I detect the undetectable God by faith that He exists and allowing Him to show Himself to me.

So you're not actually "detecting" anything at all.
Instead, you're invoking faith to declare that God exists and then believing that.

I have evidence for God that is evidence in my eyes even though you say you want more and better evidence.

Evidence that's only good for you, and isn't verifiable to anyone else isn't useful to anyone other than yourself.

How do you propose that evidence that God exists can be verified to be true or shown to be false?
I don't know how to do that, you don't know how to do that, science does not know how to do that.

You're the one claiming this particular God exists. That's on you.

If said God does exist, this God probably would know what kind of evidence would be convincing to people, right?

How can anything be evidence for God if (as skeptics say to me ) I first need to show that a God exists? iow I have to give evidence for God before I can give evidence for God.

Yes, you'd first need to show the god you believe in exists and then you'd have to show that the stuff you attribute to said God actually came from that God.

You don't just get to say, "this guy predicted the future so that means the God I believe in exists." Some guy predicting the future doesn't demonstrate the existence of any god(s). You need more evidence to show that.

 

[YoursTrue]

Abiogenisis and evolution..They are two seperate events but ....

Did...
-evolution start a soon as life began(kind of like we start dying the day we are conceived)

-before as chemical evolution that lead to life(but then that wouldnt be life evolving if it isn't life yet)

That's a good one. Did abiogenesis actually cause death? Life then death. Do you know that's what the Bible says with one exception. Do you know what that is?

 

[SkepticThinker]

There is no purpose for my existence or for the existence of anything without a creator, the outside force.

Not true. I can make my own purpose. So can you and everyone else. We don't need some outside force to provide it for us.

I determined the purpose from faith in the creator and listening to Him.

Ah, so we can create our own purpose. Glad we agree.

The purpose of life for us is to find the creator and to serve the creator and enjoy the creator and thank the creator.

How do you know this? Which creator? Why is this god so elusive, if part of our purpose is to "find the creator?"

So the purpose of human existence is to constantly worship, thank and exalt the apparently, very insecure creator of the universe? That's the reason we're here? The same God that claims we're all sinful jerks because he set up a scenario where we were doomed to fail from the get-go? Sounds pretty sociopathic to me. No thanks.

 

[SkepticThinker]

It is reasonable to believe in a creator for a start.

You have yet to demonstrate that to us. At every turn so far, you have demonstrated that you are relying on faith, and NOT relying on reason and rationality.

Not believing has no use in helping us determine fact from fiction.

Relying on evidence before accepting the existence of something certainly does.

Faith is believing what you find reasonable and true, whether this is in a creator and Jesus or in human ability to determine through science what is best to believe.

Faith is just believing whatever you want to believe. Like I said. You've said nothing here to demonstrate otherwise.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

You never presented the methods of how you can investigate subjective religious beliefs.

You can deduce that yourself. His method is for you to think about supernaturalism with a willingness to believe it until you do. He calls it investigating, but as you've noted, he has steadfastly ignored several posters requests for clarification of what investigation means to him in this context, so we decide for ourselves what he likely means.

After a while, one is justified in not asking further and deciding for himself what the answer that is being hidden likely is. Why ask again? I've stopped asking, chosen what I think he likely means, told him, and that's that. He didn't respond to that, either, which tells me has no interest in trying to change that tentative conclusion or having any input into what I conclude.

I read the book… you didn’t.

Why should he? I agree with his assessment that the use of certain language is a shibboleth for tendentious (motivated) thinking, which isn't worth reading. Dispassionate intellectuals don't write things like "I used to be a devout atheist." That's the language of hucksters. That's the language of creationist websites. That's the language of American conservative indoctrination media. That's how you reach low-information readers - with emotive language.

Are you familiar with the term ethos from the philosophy of argumentation? It refers to the meta-messages a speaker or writer sends his audience in addition to the explicit meaning of his argument, such as does he seem knowledgeable, does he seem sincere, does he seem credible, does he seem trustworthy, does he seem competent, does he show good judgment, does he seem to have a hidden agenda, is he more interested in convincing with impartial argument or persuading with emotive language or specious argumentation, and the like.

When a speaker uses phrases like, "devout atheist," "the religion of atheism," or "I don't have enough faith to be an atheist," or words like evolutionist, scientism, materialist, creation science, and macroevolution, his ethos drops through the floor. There is no reason to read further.

Did the creation of all that we see have a supernatural beginning or just a natural beginning

We don't know (this is what agnosticism looks like), but there is no reason to believe that nature wasn't up to the task absent intelligent oversight.

 

[SkepticThinker]

That sounds like as sensible as wanting to be the richest man in the grave.

This was in response to, "It's not good for anybody who cares about being rational and believing in as many true things and as few false things as possible."

You're telling me that it's not sensible to want to believe in as many true things as possible while not believing in as many false things as possible?

How on earth is that not sensible? How is it sensible to believe in things that are false?

You could be the most knowledgeable person in the grave, but learning and learning does not mean that we will ever come to a knowledge of the truth unless you count the truth as just being a collection of facts.

What? How do you define truth?

Truth to me, is that which comports with reality.

And your claim (what you believe) is that you believe more true things and less false things than I do.

That's not what I claimed at all. I don't know what all your beliefs are. Your god beliefs, as you've demonstrated here, are based on faith and believing what you want to believe, regardless of the what the evidence indicates. We've even seen you massage the "evidence" to suit your beliefs, as in your interpretation that the global flood story described in the Bible is actually a local flood.

What I claimed is that faith is of no use to us in helping to determine fact from fiction because anything can be believed on faith, and so it cannot be a reliable pathway to truth. I further claim that I want to believe in as many true things as possible, while not believing in as many false things as possible. And faith doesn't get us there.

 

[shunyadragon]

I read the book… you didn’t.

You base your position by a quote, I based my position on having read the book.

And you say I am biased?

What does “science” have anything to do with the journey of an devout atheist as a cold-case investigator and how his investigation led him into a believing position?

Very unscientific procedures here.

Science has nothing to do with the journey of a devout atheist. It is a philosophical/theological decision based on a subjective belief. From the atheist perspective it is a total lack of objective evidence for the God(s) of the Torah, Bible and the Koran.

From the agnostic perspective there is insufficient information to justify the the belief that God(s) exist or not. There are some agnostics that are simply indifferent or just do not care if God(s) exist or not.

Ok… let’s go deeper. Did the creation of all that we see have a supernatural beginning or just a natural beginning

Simple, by the objective verifiable evidence there is an adequate explanation for natural source for our physical existence. A uperantural explanation is based on conflicting and variable subjective beliefs of different religions. Which one would be true based on an unbiased objective investigative approach by definition?

investigate - Google Search

www.google.com

carry out a systematic or formal inquiry to discover and examine the facts of (an incident, allegation, etc.) so as to establish the truth.

carry out research or study into (a subject, typically one in a scientific or academic field) so as to discover facts or information.

Let’s hit square one first before we go to square two.

Square one, How can you 'investigate subjective religious beliefs based on the English definition above?

 

[SkepticThinker]

But you claim that Bible prophecy is the same as scientific prophecy like weather forecasting.



And?



I'll just have to risk it. If somebody says things that point to a belief that God does not exist, then maybe I'll keep pointing it out so that you have something to do.



I don't say that science is completely accurate or inaccurate and neither should you. Sometimes science shows the best interpretation of the Bible about physical things, but not about spiritual things. Spiritual is the realm of God and the Bible.



If you are talking about scientists then many of them might say that it shows design. However it is true that science cannot and does not show that there is no designer or creator, so I suppose you must be talking about skeptics like yourself who are more skilled at reasoning and interpreting evidence that I am.
How do you think that a scientist is going to determine if something shows design or not?



That is no more than the presumption that there is no actual 'spiritual' and that it can all be interpreted as physical phenomena.
Sure, that is the only evidence that science has to work with, however there is more evidence that science cannot work with, but that evidence is not even acknowledged in science or by those who just stick to what science claims in all of what they believe.



Yet I believe it.



Things that are part of the physical universe can probably eventually be detected by science but not things that are not part of the physical universe.



That is presumption based on the belief that the Bible is not true. (or if you like, the lack of belief in the Bible and drawing conclusions from that lack of belief)



God can be found at all times and places and in timelessness also and when and where no other things exist.



God is not evident to the senses but is detectable if God reveals Himself to you. But how can God reveal Himself to you if you do not believe God is doing that? This seems to be a good place for faith to be handy.

Something that "is not evident to the senses" is a thing that is not detectable. We use our senses to detect things.
How can anything be "revealed to us" if not via our senses?

 

[Kenny]

Then you don't understand what agnosticism is. That's odd given your line of work.

The context wasn’t the “definition”

Let me illustrate. I've known Bob for years and find him dependable and trustworthy. I've also known John for years and discovered the opposite about him. He lies, steals, and betrays. I just met Jack and know nothing at all about him. I don't know if he's trustworthy like Bob or untrustworthy like John. I'm agnostic about the matter. I neither believe he can be trusted nor the opposite. I just don't know.

Does it also seem incongruent to you for me to say "I don't rule out Jack being trustworthy" and also say, "I'm agnostic about Jack's trustworthiness"? If you ask me whether I trust Jack, my answer is no. Do you understand that to mean that I've decided that he would cheat or betray me given the chance? If so, you've made that transformation again between what was written into what you changed it to.

The context of “incongruent” was “I won’t investigate”. If you want to know Jacks trustworthiness, you would investigate. To say there is no substance of Jack worthiness, one way or the other, is to say “I really don’t care”. It wouldn’t make you an agnostic, it would make you an “i don’t care” person

Besides, I've already learned too much to ever join you.

Not asking you to join me. I asked you to investigate. If you became a satanist, at least you could say “I investigated”.

On a side note, it depends on what you learned. Some people have to unlearn some Christian teaching to find Jesus teaching

I assure you that if in a few years, I begin posting about my acceptance of supernaturalism, others familiar with my previous thinking will know that more has happened to me than just that I've changed my opinion. They would understand that something is deteriorating in me. So would you, but you would see it as a good thing.

OK… the if you accept it, just continue investigating it. That is all I am trying to say.

So you can see what I mean now.

 

[SkepticThinker]

Are you saying that the evidence for Jesus and Christianity is not better than the evidence for Buddha and Buddhism, or is this just a random attack on Christianity based on the skeptic belief that the gospels were written by people who did not know much about Jesus?
But imo the actual evidence suggests that the gospels were written by the people the church claims wrote them.

I have a Bible that states right in it that the Gospels are anonymous.
What evidence do you have to claim otherwise?

 

[SkepticThinker]

Keep looking -- I quoted the material Dr. Hawking provided ... first yes, then no, then something from ("created," he said) from nothing. Do some research, you'll find it. So take care. Bye for now.

You didn't quote anything at all.

 

[Subduction Zone]

That sounds more like a rant which you have every right to proclaim.

Your question was a rather poor one. It deserved no more than a rant. But it also explained the popularity of Christianity. Like many religions it was largely spread by the sword.

 

[Subduction Zone]

How is that speaking ill of the dead? Do you think Dr. Hawking can change his mind again now??? C'mon, please give us your opinion, ok? In case you didn't understand, I changed the spelling from Dr. Hawkin which was incorrect to Dr. Hawking with a g at the end.
So do you have a belief about whether the DEAD, including Dr. Hawking, can hear, see or think? Any opinion on this from you?

It was a lie about the work of Dr. Hawking. Lying about people that are no longer here to defend themselves is immoral.

 

[Subduction Zone]

Keep looking -- I quoted the material Dr. Hawking provided ... first yes, then no, then something from ("created," he said) from nothing. Do some research, you'll find it. So take care. Bye for now.

Really? You quoted work that Dr. Hawking provided. Please provide a link to that work of his.