10 Questions for Atheists and What do Atheists Believe:

Discussion in 'Religion Archives' started by ggazoo, Jan 9, 2008.

  1. lightgigantic Banned Banned

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    actually snakelord has referenced it on at least three occasions (fish propping themselves up on their fins, birds growing longer beaks and spindly milk sapped plants) in regards to evidenced examples of speciation.
    :shrug:
     
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  3. SnakeLord snakeystew.com Valued Senior Member

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    Wrong and I shall explain how and why you are wrong.

    Your equation would be accurate if it went like this:

    C * time = B

    where c is caterpillar and b is butterfly because c with time does become a butterfly.

    The error is right in the "=". A fish given time does not become anything other than dead or fish fingers and yet that is exactly how your equation is set up. You work on the basis that anyone has claimed that given time a fish becomes a bird, but it does not.

    The rest of your argument uses a wall comprised primarily of bricks made out of semantics.. to which I have asked several times at which stage a fish is not a fish. Is a butterfly a caterpillar? You would say yes. Regardless to all those difference it is still in your eyes the exact same thing, and there is the issue. Ichthyostega, (amusingly enough meaning fish roof), is just a fish with legs that used lungs as it's primary method of breathing. It's pure semantics.
     
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  5. lightgigantic Banned Banned

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    I guess I should have been more specific and included subsequent generations under the time thing.
    Also if I happen to mention eating a meal in any of our future discussions, i will be sure to include the added information that I ate it off a plate, since you certainly appear to have an eye for details like this.

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  7. SnakeLord snakeystew.com Valued Senior Member

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    It doesn't mean squat. Regardless to subsequent generations that fish still never becomes anything other than dead, (it's why I mentioned your great... grandmother never growing wings even if you have them).

    Ultimately the issue comes down to a matter of semantics. It's like asking; at what moment does a puppy become a dog. When is a fish no longer a fish?
     
  8. lightgigantic Banned Banned

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    In the middle of a discussion dealing with issues of cause and effect with subsequent generations, it's unclear how the topic became an issue of the life expectancy of a single organism.
    When we were talking about things occurring over millions of years, why on earth would you think I was talking about a particular fish living for over millions of years ?

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    more like at what moment does a puppy become a cat
    :roflmao:
     
  9. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    30,994
    When you started talking about "observing" evolution, and fish growing feathers, and a fish being something whose parents were a fish,

    and when you started collapsing chains of invalid equivalences to one invalid equivalence

    and so forth.

    When you can explain why no one who understands evolutionary theory accepts your chain if "=" signs as a valid description of it, you will have acquired a better understanding of evolutionary theory. Until then, you will keep getting the same responses, from people whose bemusement gradually changes to irritation, not enlightenment.
     
  10. lightgigantic Banned Banned

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    once again, if you want to have a map of the evolution of a bird from a fish accepted as anything other than a theory, you're required to evidence it.

    after all


    Why do you believe that if something cannot be touched, seen, heard, or measured in some way, then it must not exist… yet you fail to see the irony of your calling Christians "narrow-minded"?

    The fact of the matter is that you wont find many atheists saying "it must not exist". Evidence however is important to support claims, be it that a god exists or that leprechauns exist. You would demand it in any other situation and to think its any different in this one would show you to be a hypocrite.




    Evidencing a fish propping itself up on it's fins doesn't quite go the distance.
     
  11. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    30,994
    Maps are theories, now ? As pictures were explanations, before, apparently.

    I am called upon to "evidence" something. The map ? My wants? hard to say.

    And the supreme goal of establishing a theory, just about the highest accomplishment in science, is somehow presumed to be not good enough for this little map.

    Creationists are indeed a strange crew.

    LG, have you figured out why all those "=" signs are invalid yet ?
     
  12. lightgigantic Banned Banned

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    for as long as they are not correlated with any hard evidence, I guess so
    once again, nothing wrong with a picture
    well once again, in the immortal words of snakelord ...

    Evidence however is important to support claims, be it that a god exists or that leprechauns exist. You would demand it in any other situation and to think its any different in this one would show you to be a hypocrite.



    stranger still a persons who instantly reject god due to a 'lack of evidence' yet support theories that are no more feasible

    yup
    because fish don't live for millions of years

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  13. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    ? We have a serious problem with the English language here. You are using several words - induction, deduction, theory, etc - in ways that make no sense.
    Something wrong with calling them "explanations", though. And maps "theories".
    Which once again are about something else, not maps or theories or goals or anything relevant. Why the quote ?
    Aside from commendably referring to the OP o the thread, no obvious relevance - and much obvious nonsense: "feasible" ? "Support theories" ?

    Nope. Fish could live for millions of years, and your "=" signs would still be invalid.

    But keep trying -" like a mosquito biting on an iron bar", as the zen guys put it - there is always hope of insight.
     
  14. robotic_ninja_fairy Registered Member

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    15
    Christianity — The belief that a cosmic Jewish Zombie who was his own father can make you live forever if you symbolically eat his flesh and telepathically tell him you accept him as your master, so he can remove an evil force from your soul that is present in humanity because a rib-woman was convinced by a talking snake to eat from a magical tree...yea...that makes perfect sense!
     
  15. lightgigantic Banned Banned

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    Iceaura
    its not clear where all those words appear in my above statement
    something wrong when the theories are not tallied with evidence.
    even snakelord appears to agree to that ....
    maps, theories and pictures become potent when they have a foundation of evidence
    you don't find the absence of feasible foundations to particular theories or evidences to be an issue?
    but they don't live for millions of years, so I would have hoped the = sign would have carried a different significance
    indeed
     
  16. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    30,994
    I find the phrase "feasible foundations to particular theories or evidences" incomprehensible.

    Again, we don't seem to have a common vocabulary. Nor do I see any shortage of "evidences" for any relevant "theories" as an issue. The evidence in agreement with the predictions of standard evolutionary theory, if that is what you are getting at, is overwhelming - that's how it got to be a theory, boosted by its phenomenal agreement with evidence and its multifacted usefulness in generating fruitful lines of inquiry. The evidence agreeing with predictions of creationist proposals is essentially nil, and their usefulness in generating fruitful lines of inquiry negative, which is why none of them have held theory status since Darwin put it together.

    Is that what you are talking about? The main problem with discussing such matters here is that the thread is about atheism instead, and you don't know what standard evolutionary theory is, so discussions of "evidence" for standard evolutionary theory is bound to be and has been kind of blank.
     
  17. lightgigantic Banned Banned

    Messages:
    16,330
    once again


    Why do you believe that if something cannot be touched, seen, heard, or measured in some way, then it must not exist… yet you fail to see the irony of your calling Christians "narrow-minded"?

    The fact of the matter is that you wont find many atheists saying "it must not exist". Evidence however is important to support claims, be it that a god exists or that leprechauns exist. You would demand it in any other situation and to think its any different in this one would show you to be a hypocrite.



    if you don't have a problem with evolution theory, why do you have a problem with god?
     
  18. iceaura Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    30,994
    Once again you fail to deal with any of the issues raised. Instead, you revert to an already dismissed subject. The quotes you repost have been dealt with before, by me and others, several times, on this thread. I do not believe, for example, that if something cannot be toudhed, seen, heard, or measured, that it must not exist. I have never expressed any such belief, and I have specifically denied it on this thread. Nor have I ever called Christians "narrowminded".

    Meaningless repetition is the hallmark of the propagandist. What are you doing ?
    I have had no problems with your god. Presumably, such a being would reason and discuss honestly.
     
    Last edited: Jan 19, 2008
  19. lightgigantic Banned Banned

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    16,330
    then it seems you have the right argument in the wrong thread
    :shrug:
     
  20. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    30,994
    And that you have no argument at all.

    This is the third consecutive dishonest post by you.
     
  21. lightgigantic Banned Banned

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    16,330
    actually I was suggesting that you have an argument, but it is not pertinent to this thread.

    :shrug:
     
  22. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    30,994
    And that is why you keep going in circles and deflecting the issues ? I don't buy it. You've run out the evangelical string in one direction, and want to start fresh in another.
     
  23. lightgigantic Banned Banned

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    16,330
    actually it was all about on what basis people reject god as a tenable option yet accept evolution.
    Snakelord kind of splayed out the evolution issue quite a bit and it appears you, having jumped mid stream of our discussions, thought it was simply about evolution.
    Thats about as simply as I can explain it.
    Does it make sense?
     

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