Yellum Notnef

Hey Radorth,
You might have to give up the title of "worst witness ever" if this new guy keeps going the way he's going.

pz

You aren't making much sense. What is your actual argument, anyway?

Is it that modern physics is evidence for god? That, because some atheists are comfortable with modern physics, they must believe in god? Or is it even more convoluted than that, that because some christians reject modern physics, they are therefore following Robert Ingersoll, who did not know about modern physics, and must be atheists?

All you've accomplished so far is to write a long-winded muddle. It's pretty convincing that you don't have the slightest clue about what "naturalism" means.

keyser_soze

I thought it was terrible when I thought it was written by some right wing atheist, who was unaware of what an atheist was. Now that I know it was a christian, it makes a wierd kind of sense, but as already pointed out, the logic and debate traps are EXTREMELY obvious and fairly childish(one of the reasons I thought it so terrible). It could have some potential, but I would suggest going back through and balancing out the obvious logical errors, refine it a bit and then resubmit it.

Rhea

Keyser_soze has some good advice...
I'd start with this little problem...

Do you know the difference between an agnostic and an atheist? That would be a good place to start, I expect.

Starboy

Who is Ingersoll and why should I care what is happening in his grave?

There is a difference between determinism and causality. What QM did was point out the difference. QM posits the death of classical determinism not causality. Events still have causes, it is just that in general given a specific set of causes it is not possible to predict exactly which event will occur. But it definitely rules out certain events from happening and puts a probability on occurrence for those events that are allowed. Nature must stay within the average.

I don't know who Ingersoll was but I would be willing to bet that he would be the last person on earth to deny what is evident in the natural world.

Starboy

Psycho Economist

Atheists ammend the details of their conception of the universe to comply with empirical findings, even though it raises a little bit of uncertainty.

Theists cling to old beliefs because the new discoveries upset them.

Sounds about as far away from irony as you can get, to me anyway.

xian

my argument is that poor Ingersoll was duped into atheism. He became an atheist because of his firm, fervent conviction of causation, which obviously he was intellectually wrong (at least modern atheists would say he was). This means poor Ingersoll became an atheist for irrational reasons. I mean...I feel bad for the guy.

Bumble Bee Tuna

Yes, your personal definition of atheism is a strawman. The actual definition of anything can not possibly be a strawman, by the very definition of the term. But I realized in your other threads that you merely know the names of logical fallacies, and not what they actually are.

When you learn what atheism (and for that matter, complex physics) actually entail, feel free to try again. Until then, your arguments will just be strawmen. And as fun as it might be for you to set up strawmen and knock them down, it's also completely ineffective.

-B

pz

Nonsense.

What Ingersoll is saying up there is that naturalism is sufficient. There is no need to postulate unseen, supernatural causes working behind the scenes in the natural world. He frames this understanding in terms of 19th century science, because he was a 19th century man.

Nothing has changed that would affect his argument. The 20th century added quantum physics to our repertoire of explanations; it did not, however, add unseen, supernatural causes. God is still a superfluous entity lacking all evidence for its existence, so the substance of Ingersoll's discussion still holds.

Oh, and that a concept is incorrect because it is erroneous does not mean that it is necessarily irrational. I'm noticing that you seem to have a poor grasp of the meaning of the words you are using.

braces_for_impact

See, I didn't have to wait too long at all.