Evolution Vs Creation

[ChrisGB]

rxtx said:

ChrisGB said:

2. Atheism is just a lack of belief? I wish you'd said that at the start of our exchanges and I needn't have bothered. So you don't believe in scientism, materialism, physicalism, naturalism or reductionism? Then you're either not a science fan, or you're an Aristotelian, and neither of those is true, so which belief entailed by rejecting theism do you hold? Lack of belief!? Oh dear.

You still don't understand what atheism is? Good grief man, what on earth is wrong with you?

Thanks for enlightening me. What exactly was this post then if not just to insult, make a personal attack, etc.?
Let me explain a little, and yes, this will necessarily get condescending now I've seen what you want to post like:
A lack of a brain will indeed entail certain forms of life and not others. Similarly, a lack of theism will entail certain forms of life and related beliefs and not others.
Happy to unpack that further in a civil way if you'd like.

[VinceFox]

ChrisGB said:

VinceFox said:

Answer my question, god boy!

You said "leave me out of it"???

You're good, you.

[rxtx]

ChrisGB said:

Thanks for enlightening me. What exactly was this post then if not just to insult, make a personal attack, etc.?
Let me explain a little, and yes, this will necessarily get condescending now I've seen what you want to post like:
A lack of a brain will indeed entail certain forms of life and not others. Similarly, a lack of theism will entail certain forms of life and related beliefs and not others.
Happy to unpack that further in a civil way if you'd like.

I no longer care if you are civil or not, you haven't been up until now but at least when I wasn't a while back I was man enough to apologise - something you've never done in this thread despite my asking you to. You simply won't. You are the epitome of arrogance.

Anyway, it doesn't matter. What you're saying there is that people that don't believe in god (is that just your god, or all of them? Actually I no longer care, I'll assume your own perfectly proven god) are just like people with a lack of brain.

That's funny and made me laugh

[ChrisGB]

rxtx said:

ChrisGB said:

Rxtx, if you tell me what the big words you found hard were, I'll try to help.

You don't seem to be able to read, I never mentioned "big words", and nobody said they had any problem with them. Let me know which posts you're having trouble with and I'll try to help.

ChrisGB said:

Vince, would you rather talk about me or address the argument proving God? I'm guessing you're trying the former because you can't refute the latter? Sorry if I'm wrong.

I think you have us both confused. There's no point in asking you a direct question because you never give a direct answer.

Learn to read quotes Chris, it makes things so much easier.

Apologies to you and Vince for mixing up your quotes.
If you want to swap life stories I'm happy to do so over a beer, not on a forum.

You say I am convinced I am right. I have never seen a refutation of Aquinas's proofs of God. Kenny is good, but Oderberg shows he gets every single detail wrong. And Klima is devastating to Kenny's approach.
Am i more convinced i am right than an atheist who has never understood the arguments for God?
Who cares anyway? Why not discuss the argument?

[ChrisGB]

rxtx said:

ChrisGB said:

Thanks for enlightening me. What exactly was this post then if not just to insult, make a personal attack, etc.?
Let me explain a little, and yes, this will necessarily get condescending now I've seen what you want to post like:
A lack of a brain will indeed entail certain forms of life and not others. Similarly, a lack of theism will entail certain forms of life and related beliefs and not others.
Happy to unpack that further in a civil way if you'd like.

I no longer care if you are civil or not, you haven't been up until now but at least when I wasn't a while back I was man enough to apologise - something you've never done in this thread despite my asking you to. You simply won't. You are the epitome of arrogance.

Anyway, it doesn't matter. What you're saying there is that people that don't believe in god (is that just your god, or all of them? Actually I no longer care, I'll assume your own perfectly proven god) are just like people with a lack of brain.

That's funny and made me laugh

Oh, we overlapped.
Glad to have made you laugh.
Apologies again, I am replying to about 20 different people at a go and when your post and Vince's were merged I mixed you up.
I still have no idea what Vince's question is. If it's not personal I'll answer it.

[rxtx]

ChrisGB said:

Apologies to you and Vince for mixing up your quotes.
If you want to swap life stories I'm happy to do so over a beer, not on a forum.

You say I am convinced I am right. I have never seen a refutation of Aquinas's proofs of God. Kenny is good, but Oderberg shows he gets every single detail wrong. And Klima is devastating to Kenny's approach.
Am i more convinced i am right than an atheist who has never understood the arguments for God?
Who cares anyway? Why not discuss the argument?

Don't apologise for that Chris, that happens, but can you apologise for your earlier name calling and general condescension?

I say you're convinced you're right because I think you are. The thing is, these are other peoples' proofs that you've discovered and are replaying. From what I can tell from "most of us new atheists", we aren't referring to any other source except ourselves - except where others have joined in with the deeply philosophical debate, where they have also done as much reading of other peoples' material as you have.

Sorry if it bothers you but my contribution isn't going to be an in-depth philosophical one. It's an area I don't have much interest in personally. I quite enjoy things like solving math or encryption puzzles by writing software for no reason whatsoever than fun, but philosophy just isn't my bag, and nor do I have a background in such a thing.

Sorry.

[Nimby]

Well it turns out both are true

[IainT]

Nimby said:

Well it turns out both are true

It's cruel to mock the afflicted!

[VinceFox]

ChrisGB said:

Oh, we overlapped.
Glad to have made you laugh.
Apologies again, I am replying to about 20 different people at a go and when your post and Vince's were merged I mixed you up.
I still have no idea what Vince's question is. If it's not personal I'll answer it.

Convenient.

[TwigtheWonderkid]

rxtx said:

ChrisGB said:

2. Atheism is just a lack of belief? I wish you'd said that at the start of our exchanges and I needn't have bothered. So you don't believe in scientism, materialism, physicalism, naturalism or reductionism? Then you're either not a science fan, or you're an Aristotelian, and neither of those is true, so which belief entailed by rejecting theism do you hold? Lack of belief!? Oh dear.

You still don't understand what atheism is? Good grief man, what on earth is wrong with you?

He hasn't got a clue. He's made so many comments about what atheists are, and what they believe, whilst not understanding what he's actually attacking. Atheists don't believe anything as a group, they just disbelieve one thing.

Apart from not believing in god/s, you cannot say another single thing about atheists as a group. As per Jennifer Saunders in the paper the other day, an atheist who believes in ghosts.

I even know an atheist who supports Man Utd, so you can't even say we're that bright!!!

[Moonhawk]

ChrisGB said:

Moonhawk says I'm plagiarizing when I use a 2,400 year old argument that may, I say hesitantly, be in the public domain, and I call it name calling and this is double standards?

You copy pasted an entire passage from a website without making it clear it was a quote - nor citing your reference and seemingly passed it off as you own words. When I pointed out where these words came from and challenged over your lack of citation - your reply was essentially "why should I".

Make out its name calling if you will - but that's pretty much the definition of plagiarism.

[Moonhawk]

ChrisGB said:

2. Atheism is just a lack of belief? I wish you'd said that at the start of our exchanges and I needn't have bothered. So you don't believe in scientism, materialism, physicalism, naturalism or reductionism? Then you're either not a science fan, or you're an Aristotelian, and neither of those is true, so which belief entailed by rejecting theism do you hold? Lack of belief!? Oh dear.

Theism is defined as "belief in god or gods"

the prefix 'a' means "without"

therefore in the most basic terms atheism means "without belief in god or gods"

That is its original etymology and is how I use the term.

To be without belief in something doesn't require any proof. I don't require proof to be without belief in the flying spaghetti monster for example. Similarly I don't need proof to support my lack of belief in a teapot in orbit around Jupiter. If people want to argue for the existence of these things - that's fine, but the burden of proof lies with them to demonstrate such things - not for me to disprove them.

edit: It's generally understood where we get the definitions of words from - but just so I can't be accused of double standards:

http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/engli...

http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/engli...

Edited by Moonhawk on Friday 18th April 13:46

[Nick M]

Moonhawk said:

Theism is defined as "belief in god or gods"

the prefix 'a' means "without"

therefore in the most basic terms atheism means "without belief in god or gods"

That is its original etymology and is how I use the term.

To be without belief in something doesn't require any proof. I don't require proof to be without belief in the flying spaghetti monster for example. Similarly I don't need proof to support my lack of belief in a teapot in orbit around Jupiter. If people want to argue for the existence of these things - that's fine, but the burden of proof lies with them to demonstrate such things - not for me to disprove them.

This is pretty much the point I made somewhere earlier in the thread, but oddly enough Chris chose to ignore it...

He does seem to be a devout 'labelist' though...

[IainT]

To be fair to Chris he thinks his teleological/Aquinan arguments do prove it so he is trying to create the extraordinary proof for his extraordinary claim.

[Nick M]

IainT said:

To be fair to Chris he thinks his teleological/Aquinan arguments do prove it so he is trying to create the extraordinary proof for his extraordinary claim.

Although I think he may struggle to provide extraordinary evidence to support his extraordinary claim...

[Timsta]

Nick M said:

IainT said:

To be fair to Chris he thinks his teleological/Aquinan arguments do prove it so he is trying to create the extraordinary proof for his extraordinary claim.

Although I think he may struggle to provide extraordinary any evidence to support his extraordinary claim...

There you go. Fixed that. We've only seen word games. No evidence yet.

[Engineer1]

Timsta said:

There you go. Fixed that. We've only seen word games. No evidence yet.

And that's because Chris is a true believer so of course the proof proves what he wants it to prove

[leglessAlex]

Timsta said:

Nick M said:

IainT said:

To be fair to Chris he thinks his teleological/Aquinan arguments do prove it so he is trying to create the extraordinary proof for his extraordinary claim.

Although I think he may struggle to provide extraordinary any evidence to support his extraordinary claim...

There you go. Fixed that. We've only seen word games. No evidence yet.

But the problem is that Chris appears to consider a well reasoned (from his POV at least) argument actually is evidence. Which it isn't of course, but he won't recognise that.

[Grandpad58]

Now where did I put that whoosh parrot?

[mattmurdock]

ChrisGB said:

So what is the substance of this post apart from all the bile?
1. Of course my arguments are not original, I am using an essentially 2,400 year old argument. That no one is anywhere near refuting, but that is a side issue. Let's call names, discuss names, discuss names' intents, anything to avoid the argument proving God.
2. Biblical god appears to change? Yes indeed, if you are a fundamentalist. I'm not.
3. Show essentially ordered doesn't exist, or is that too much like addressing the argument for comfort?
4. Philosophy, like science, is not allowed to develop or improve. No wait! Aristotle solved permanence and change problem with act and potency, Aquinas solved one and many problem with existence and essence. The latter built on the former. To claim otherwise, show essence -existence in Aristotle. Or alternatively show development in knowledge is a bad thing.

Did I miss the bit where you refute the prime mover argument?

You aren't using an essentially 2,400 year old argument, because if you were you would reach the same conclusion as Aristotle, and you don't. His prime mover is a unintelligent, uncaring group of entities, effectively the underlying fabric or laws of the universe, and they guide nothing (as if they had a plan, or took any action, they would have potency and would not be the prime mover). So to keep associating yourself with Aristotle is nonsense, you are a pure thomist, and Aquinas was clearly trying to find a justification for God rather than coming to him from first principles.

As far as the essentially ordered chains, I am of the opinion that there is no material difference between what you call accidentally and essentially ordered causality. The beginning of any essential ordered chain is the end of an accidentally ordered chain, which means in effect all chains are the same and there is no distinction. Where a hand pushes a stick pushes a stone, it can only do so because the hand exists in the first place, and the stone will continue to move if the hand and stick stop. It is quite possible for the stone to move on its own due to the influence of gravity, which gives gravity causal power which can be regressed infinitely. No amount of waffle about essence or concept changes this. If you hold that essentially ordered causal chains actually exist, then it logically leads to the reasoning that the unmoved mover only sustains causality for essentially ordered chains, which begs the question why are they not sustaining everything? If they are sustaining everything, then everything is essentially ordered, which is clearly not true in the observable universe.

As to your fundamentalist crack, are you seriously suggesting that the God of the OT and the God of the NT had exactly the same methodology and opinions, and only a fundamentalist would believe otherwise? What exactly do you think the Catholic religion is based on? If you are going to dismiss the bible as a reliable source of information about God, then you don't really have much grounds to call yourself a Catholic or a Christian.

The God of the OT loves Jews, hates sinners, very nearly destroyed mankind by flooding the world(although he seems to have plagiarised that idea from the Babylonians) and generally hates the idea of anyone worshipping any thing or any one but him (no idols). The God of the NT loves everyone, turned himself into a bloke and killed himself to save mankind from sin, forgives sinners, has no plans to destroy mankind and (if you are a Catholic) seems to actively encourage worshipping his bit on the side/mum, the pope and any number of saints. Whilst one has developed from other, this is clearly not an 'unchangeable' being.