Paul2

edit: removed, i reacted wrongly to your post.


Edit again:

Ok. Now that i'm not so steamed, re-read the last few posts.

I said that the outcome HAD to have happened because of the way chemicals react to each other. It's clear that you've not taken even the basic chem course, so i'd suggest you do that before you continue to discuss. Read that link i posted, as it's a decent intro to biochem.


What, exactly, do you think "life" is made out of? sugar and spice? your body is nothing but chemicals.

xian

lol, and where do you find that?

how about you just name 10 of them. forget infinite...i'll be nice. Just give me 10 alternativies to abiogenesis that do not assume anything supernatural.
if you can't give me 10 fully independent alternatives, your postulation is bunk.


" You're changing the problem. My original statement was "Nor does it require faith to accept abiogenesis as the best available hypothesis for how life arose on earth." You're talking about life in the universe."

i'm not changing anything. if you want to know who has done the changing, it is you guys. this post is about my ability to identify atheists without a profession of atheism. How it turned into this mush i do not know.

i still wait for 10 alternatives. since you think there is an infinite amount of independent theories other than abiogenesis that do not suppose supernaturalism, it should be very easy for you to come up with 10. Heck...forget how valid they may be...just CONCEIVE of 10.

C'mon...you can do it...right? (i bet you dont even get 3)

irrelevant. abiogenesis is a broad category. it is a category itself. any alternative theory you try to come up with will fall UNDER this. You will hardly come up with anything independent of abiogenesis.

I await 10. that shouldn't be so hard, now should it? REmember, just CONCEIVE of 10...they don't have to have any scientific merit except that they do not suppose supernaturalism.

unfortunately since i am 99.99% certain you wont come up with anything....i will simply expect a cop out response like "well science hasn't discovered one yet" blah blah. Just CONCEIVE of one. Use your imagination. I gave you an exhaustive set of all possible theories for the origins of life. you wont be coming up with anything independent of my categories (abiogenesis was one of the categories I listed). NO matter WHAT you come up with, it will fall UNDER one of the categories (of which abiogenesis was one of them)

Monkeybot

I use trusty Occam's Razor: always pick the alternative that involves the fewest assumptions.

We know life arose on Earth at some point, by whatever process. That's not in doubt.

What we don't know is what caused it.

Now, which am I going to go with?

a) Chemical reactions, the laws of which are constant and observed today

b) some deity whose existence i don't believe in (assumption 1), and even if it has, may not give a flying fig about a tiny little planet called Earth (assumption 2)

Colander of Truth

Really, is a "double blind test" where not only you do not know whether the person you are trying to identify is an atheist, but neither do they?

Godot

Pretty much so. But that was the least of the worries posed by this charade masquarading as a valid (and useful) survey tool.

David M. Payne

Well xian, some people talk the talk, and some people walk the walk. All you do is talk the talk.

Put up or shut up! (Nice job of trolling though.)

David

"God and religion, the oldest scam in history, and it still suck them in today. So free your mind, and your body will follow!"

Inconnu

Why did this thread get so much attention? Xians text is contemptuous and polemic and gives the impression of a rather distasteful person, 'pinning' and categorising people simply because they disagree with him, and lauding an ability to spot them in a crowd. Is he going to be measuring nasal and cranial features next?

Taffer

I hope so. Identifying atheists by their profiles would be a lot more impressive than by a questionnaire like that.

xian, please tell me you were joking throughout the entire thread whenever you said "supernatural".

Stephen T-B

What annoys xian (and lies behind his brilliantt OP) is the refusal by atheists to acknowledge the fact that they are bound together by a common dogma, just as Christians are.

Truth is, he’d just LOVE to uncover the existence of an Atheists’ Council at which Rules for Atheists are laid down by the Chief Atheist and then passed on to the rank and file.
He’d like to find out that Atheists meet in each other’s houses in order to receive directives – approved by the Atheists’ Council – telling them what opinions they should hold and instructing them what not to believe in, and how to express that un-belief.

Well xian. It’s all true. I’ll send you a form to fill in and when you have performed the necessary rituals and have passed the necessary tests, a Senior Regional Atheist will visit you and induct you into Atheism.
You’ll enjoy it, and you can even go on paying your “tithes,” because all Atheists give ten per cent of their income to funding Atheist missions and buying large houses for their Senior Regional Atheist.
We have Atheist barbecues and Atheist Conventions and Atheist Retreats and secret “Outings” for closet Atheists where surprising people like George Doubleyer can come and in confidence share their Atheism and make jokes about Christians.
We have a slogan: “Join Atheism and don’t even miss your Church!”

(I'll probably be severely punished for revealing all this to you, but I want you to be able to go to bed tonight in the knowledge that this thread you started succeeded in penetrating one of the world's greatest secrets. YOU DUN WELL!)

Stephen T-B

In fact, you've done so very well that from now on you're permitted to refer to yourself with a capital "I"