NOGO

Totally irrelavant. It is true that if your lawyer makes mistakes in representing you then you will suffer the consequences. In such cases you have been misrepresented and therefore unjustly found guilty. This is where the analogy falls apart. Not just a bit but completely falls apart.

Perhaps for humans law and justice system we have to make due. Ignorance of the law or its application can lead to improper defence however God's system of law and justice should be above any such considerations.


1 Kings 8:46 does not talk about birth at all. Are you sure that you got reference right?

Usually when somebody says that he was conceived in sin he is talking about being a bastard. David was a tenth generation bastard, that is, his great grandfather to the tenth degree was not married when he copulated and had a son. So technically David should not have been king since a law in the OT bars bastards from any public office to the tenth generation.

So it isn't in the OT.
Even if David said what you say that he said (and he did not) it is not sufficient. This topic is far too important to just have a passing comment while discussing another subject. The OT should have discussed the original sin, its consequences and the need for a saviour, as a subject IN ITS OWN RIGHT. There should have been a whole chapter at least if not a whole book or several chapters from different authors throughout the OT.

A short inconclusive comments while discussing some other subject is simple not enough. But you don't even have that.

Ed

No, you have not provided a logical reason why humans are more valuable than other species.


Okay, name one that does not.


No, the studies that I have mentioned cover atheists under the nonreligious classification, so MY claim stands. Any real evidence for that last bigoted claim?

I have experienced a hurricane, and your point is? God generally allows the world operate by natural laws, all these things you mention are usually the result of natural laws. The ebola virus is probably the result of the mutation of a benign virus.

No, actually I didn't go far enough. Studies have shown that Dogs ARE wolves and wolves ARE dogs. But humans are not apes and apes are not humans.

The problem is that the cause is not sufficient, a child is not adequate to produce a human person.

Hardly, the Law of Biogenesis can be found in both the "Oxford Dictionary of Natural History" and "Aristotle to Zoos: A Philosophical Dictionary of Biology".

This is the end of part II of my response.

Jack the Bodiless

And neither have YOU.

THERE IS NO LOGICAL REASON. What does "valuable" even MEAN? Valuable to WHO?

This is a subjective term. It is utterly meaningless to describe anything as "valuable" in an absolute sense. It depends entirely on the assessment of the valuer.

Evolution explains why humans tend to value OTHER humans, which is the basis of morality. Not only is there no reason to assume the existence of a non-human valuer, but a non-human valuer would be IRRELEVANT to issues of human morality. Even without a God: if we were being watched by aliens from the planet Tharg who think Nazism is a good thing, would that make Hitler's actions moral? Of course not.

On to Deuteronomy 24:16.
Anyone. How about Peter Kirby or Richard Carrier, for starters? They're right here, you can start a thread on BC&A to ask them.

More importantly, ED does not believe that.

Yes, Ed. I'm talking to YOU. YOU don't believe that the punishment of children for the crimes of others is wrong ONLY if governments do it, but right if everyone else does it.

You have said so, IN THIS THREAD.
The correlation between atheism and intelligence is well-known. Scientists tend to be atheists, and the more accomplished they are as scientists, the more atheistic they are. Scientific American did a survey on this recently.
Why did God do this, or allow it to happen, or fail to fix it?
Studies have shown that humans ARE apes. So you're lying again.
Nor was Pasteur's experiment adequate to produce microbes from non-living matter. However, in the case of Pasteur's experiment, you have chosen to utterly ignore this obvious fact and declare it to be "strong evidence" against primordial abiogenesis.

Therefore my clay-figure experiment is EQUALLY strong evidence against Genesis. So don't be such a hypocrite.
Read those again. If you still believe that they refer to a "Law of Biogenesis" which prevents the emergence of life from the primordial soup, then quote the relevant sections here.

Jack the Bodiless

Going back to this:
This is rougly equivalent to stating that "no competent airline pilot can remain rational and reject flat-Earthism". It is an absolutely, ludicrously false claim: so false that it's very hard to imagine that you actually believe it yourself. However, I suppose I should have addressed that possibility.

I will use the recent thread Magus55: take the Prophecy Challenge! as an example.

The Book of Daniel supposedly prophesied events that took place centuries after it was written (allegedly before 500 BC). However, Daniel was actually written AFTER the events it claimed to prophesy.

Was this determined by "atheism"? No, it was determined by BIBLICAL SCHOLARSHIP, which allows us to date Daniel rather precisely, to between 168 and 165 BC.

This contradicts the claims of the Bible itself, but is so firmly established by BIBLICAL SCHOLARS that it is used to date other Hebrew texts.

Every competent Biblical scholar agrees that the Book of Daniel is apocalyptic fiction, NOT the prophecy that it claims to be. This is just one of MANY falsehoods in the Bible identified by BIBLICAL SCHOLARS.

No competent Biblical scholars are inerrantists.

NONE.

Damien

What is the serious problem of atheism?

First of all, what is atheism?

In this article found in the infidels website, atheism is the absence of belief in the existence of gods.

One definition alone should do it, as other definition will more or less be similar to the stated above.

Now, the problem of atheism as a worldview can easily be seen in the definition alone. Atheism is a reaction to the belief of a deity. It is a negation. As such, a philosophy based on negation has never captured world imagination before. Atheism to be seriously considered as worldview must offer something other than a reaction. Dying for atheism is a heroic act, but living for it does not mean anything, because atheism does not offer anything except a reaction to theism.

It is true that the theism is based on poor foundation: supersitition, old-wives tale and hearsay. But it is able to support an edifice that has somehow shielded a lot of people from the harshness of reality. Atheist proposed that we destroy this edifice and its foundation. But atheist stops there. We need a new edifice built on a strong foundation.

Atheist delude themselves by believing that once theism is destroyed everything will be alright. Fauerbach claims that if we destroy religion, we will become better people. Emma Goldman in the welcome page of II, says that the disbelief in God is the affirmation of beauty and humanity.

They couldn't be more wrong. The worm is not in religion, the worm is in man's heart. Should we successfully eradicate religion, man will quickly pick up the rubble and start a new one. In the words of Voltaire, "if God does not exist, man will have to create one."

Atheism does not equal humanism. I have read works of atheists in this forum that supports this assertion. There are isolationist atheist and anarchist atheists--people who cannot be bothered by the sufferings of others.

The atheists of this board could be ask this question: after atheism, what then?

Jack the Bodiless

...Which is why the worldview of most of the atheists around here is a combination of Metaphysical Naturalism and Secular Humanism. Atheism isn't a worldview.

On this thread, only Ed appears to believe that it is. The thread was originally created (a long, long time ago) as a response to one of Ed's misconceptions.

doodad

Could it be that atheists have a worldview of some sort but that atheism as a word does not define or imply one? I'll agree that the word athiesm is rather simplistic and of limited use. Perhaps non-thieism or non-believer are more productive words to use.

From my past two or three years of posting on atheist forums it seems to me that most non-believers do have some sort of a worldview.

Jayhawker Soule

No, "The atheists of this board could be ask this question": Concurrent with atheism, what? This question, or its equivalent, is asked all the time here, which is one reason for multiple forums.

NOGO

Right!

The disbelief in Zeus, Thor, Odin, Venus, Pegasus etc.
the Lockness monster, big foot,
Flying saucers etc. etc etc.

... are all also negatives and a reaction to belief.

They offer only one thing, like it or leave it, they offer the truth.
Now, some people believe because of a promise of the gift of eternal life and paradise. Obviously atheism does not promise anything and people that come to it do so not for ulterior motives (ie rewards) but for the truth itself.

Ed

That thread still continues because I have not been defeated there.

Quote:

jtb: No, Ed. According to you, WE are NOT the ones causing suffering and injustice. According to you, GOD is the one causing suffering and injustice, because God created "spiritual DNA" for this purpose. Ed: No, WE caused our "spiritual DNA" to become corrupted. jtb: No, according to you, WE did not. ADAM AND EVE did. THEY corrupted the "spiritual DNA" which GOD had created to allow THEIR "sin" to be inherited by US.

No, I was using the representative "WE", like "We won the Gulf War". Because Adam and Eve were our representatives, they corrupted it but then we inherited it. But yet we still freely choose to cause suffering and injustice. Because we are doing what we want, that is part of what free will is.

Quote:

jtb: This is part of your elaborate excuse to transfer blame TO US. Therefore you're shooting yourself in the foot by saying that WE are responsible for it!

No, see above.

Quote:

Ed: But the government itself recognized the Creator God in the DOI. So they incorporated that principle into the government, but of course not into the laws of the land, because they wanted to follow Christ's teaching regarding freedom of conscience. jtb: There are no such teachings.

They are implied teachings, Christ and his disciples never forced anyone to convert.

Quote:

jtb: See above. The Bible talks repeatedly of punishing innocents for the crimes of their ancestors. Ed: Where? jtb: Re-read this entire thread. NOW. Ed: You primarily just talk about the Amalekite case. And I have dealt with that. jtb: No, you haven't "dealt with" that. And there's "original sin", the massacre of the Egyptian firstborn, and so forth.

Read Romans 6:23 and 3:9-23.

Quote:

Ed: No, as I stated before this is just how it appears to humans. From God's perspective he knows what would happen in the future to the children so actually he is rescuing them from committing the same heinous sins that their fathers did. See also my comment about the universal reason for human death. jtb: The Bible says otherwise.

Fraid not, read the verses above.

Quote:

jtb: Therefore the "time of accounting" for the Amalekites as a whole will never come. It was NOT due. Ed: No, apparently God felt that a physical accounting was needed besides a spiritual accounting in hell. jtb: ...A "physical accounting" for what? Not for the initial killing. And not for many subsequent generations "celebrating" it.. Ed: For collective guilt. jtb: ANSWER MY POINT, ED. NO "physical accounting" for the initial killing. NO "physical accounting" for many subsequent generations "celebrating" it. NO "collective guilt".

No, from what we know about human nature they probably were celebrating, but also see Romans 6:23 for another reason they died.