oneofshibumi

I suggest the following website book, by Andrew White, (1896) A HISTORY OF THE WARFARE OF SCIENCE WITH THEOLOGY IN CHRISTENDOM. Written over 100 years ago you can see why really only the Church survived the Middle-Ages as an organization through the Enlightenment. His book shows the battles between the Sciences and the Churches. He quotes enough material to give you a good idea of how people thought through different ages. This site will give you the necessary background, or if you want to read his book.

<a href="http://abob.libs.uga.edu/bobk/whitewtc.html" target="_blank">http://abob.libs.uga.edu/bobk/whitewtc.html</a>

Bible Humper

To go back to the OP for a sec....

This argument is a "fat log of steaming shit fallacy".

It would have some validity if we were talking about mere mortals, but this is The Great Magic Sky-Juju we're talking about! Yahweh's omnipotence and omniscience totally ruin this attempt to point to your lack of experience and say "Well until you create something, you don't know the difficulties of being a creator!"

Anything conceivable is well within Yahweh's power to implement, so there is no need for "creation experience" to know what can work and what can't. Anything can work for Yahweh, that's what being omnipotent is all about. There is no need to learn by trial and error when you are talking about magical omnipotence, the idea is absurd.

I don't need to understand the first thing about physics, if I suddenly gained the superpowers that the christians imagine Yahweh to have, I could conjure universes that are forced to work by virtue of my willing them to work. And they would, all of them.

worldling

It's a straw man. You are not criticizing the "Creator". You do not believe in a creator. You are criticizing your opponent's idea that there is a creator, and that this creator is as perfect and omni-everything as your opponent proposes.

Your friend's theism is nothing more than an opinion, and it is the validity of that opinion that you are challenging.

GeoTheo

Actually I think Oolon is criticizing the creator on a sub-concious level. I think that is what is causing him the confusion. I think I am actually more convinced of evolution than some atheists because I have decided it poses no threat to my belief in God. I am therefore free to look at it more objectively. Atheists OTOH, I believe, are not totally convinced there is no God and therefore have some nagging doubts about wheather natural processes really can account for absolutely everything.
I think bad design is a flawed analogy though even though I do not doubt the data used to support it.
Organisms show historical constraint. I think that is all that can be said of organisms with any degree of certianty. Wheather they are good or bad implies some objective criteria for comparison that Oolon does not posess. Good or bad compared to what? The question should be: limiting yourself to historical constraints of previous forms, your only tool being slight genetic mutations created at the quantum level over large expanses of time, could you have done better? Also the intent of the designer and weather or not it's goal was achieved
must be known to make a good or bad evaluation of a design.

Ought Naught

</strong>
*Boggle* You might do well to remind yourself that there are a lot of atheists out there, and they are all somewhat different from eachother. I, for one, was raised by atheist parents and was in middle school before it dawned on me that people ACTUALLY believed in God and weren't just playing make believe like with Santa or the tooth fairy. Hence, I have no residual psychological baggage to leave any lingering or "nagging" doubts. I must commend you, though, for the originality of the idea that you've expressed here. I can't say that I've ever run across it before. </strong>Why, compared to what is possible, of course; and "historical constraint" doesn't make that any more difficult. Also, I'm not sure what you mean by "flawed analogy" in this context. </strong>Well, I'm not sure what you mean by mutations "at the quantum level", but I find your question to be utterly trivial. Take our inverted retina, for example; all that is needed to correct our blind spot is for it to be corrected in the earliest ancestral form in which it appeared.
I don't agree here either. The purpose of the eye is plain. That the design of ours is poorly executed is equally plain. Theists are welcomed to squawk about there being a possible purpose for this ass-backwards design that we just don't know, but the only people who will be compelled by this are others who are also groping about for the slightest scrap of an argument with which to prop up their worldviews.

GeoTheo

If the goal is to produce eyes by way of kicking off the big bang, I would say success was achieved.

Starboy

Vanderzyden, you appear to be intelligent enough to know the difference between a sentiment and an argument. Why do you present this as an argument? What deception are you up to?

As to your question: Why is there something rather than nothing?

It is a silly question.

1.) The silly answer: If you can conceive of nothing then it must be something thus there is always something.

2.) The obvious answer: The sentence implies that something cannot come from nothing. We all agree that there is currently something, therefore there was never nothing.

3.) The deceptive (Christian) answer: The sentence implies that something cannot come from nothing. In the beginning there was nothing (insidious Christian assumption that may or may not be correct). Why is there something rather than nothing? Because someone or something must have created it (Here is the deceptive Christian payoff).

Christians are really poor excuses for human beings at so many levels!

Starboy

[ August 30, 2002: Message edited by: Starboy ]</p>

GeoTheo

Wouldn't you say that was a little harsh Starboy?
Poor excuse for a human being? Is it not a human endeavor to wrestle with questions related to the meaning of the Universe?

Starboy

Hi GeoTheo,

I was hoping that a Christian would come to the defense of Vanderzyden. He is an excuse for a human being because individuals who come to an a-theist board trumpeting their faith are representatives of their faith. If they claim to know and hold high moral standards then honesty and integrity should be the yard stick that they must expect to be judged. If they are not absolutely sure of their arguments and positions and if they are not knowledgeable as to the facts and precedents that they argue and lack the honesty to admit it then they do not have courage to practice what they preach. If religion has any use in the world of man, it is as an example of how people should behave. Christians fail miserably at this, because down deep, for Christians, faith is an act of selfishness.

Starboy

Albion

Why have you reached the conclusion that atheists really aren't atheists? What difference in their approach to science would you expect to see between a person who really didn't believe in God and one who had these nagging doubts?