[Illuyankas]

Mutzy, on Sep 3 2009, 03:58 AM, said:

I will give an analogy for you, does the author of a book adhere to the rules of the novel he himself put in there? Or is he outside of that book?

"A God who could make good children as easily as bad, yet preferred to make bad ones; who could have made every one of them happy, yet never made a single happy one; who made them prize their bitter life, yet stingily cut it short; who gave his angels eternal happiness unearned, yet required his other children to earn it; who gave his angels painless lives, yet cursed his other children with biting miseries and maladies of mind and body; who mouths justice, and invented hell -- mouths mercy, and invented hell -- mouths Golden Rules and forgiveness multiplied by seventy times seven, and invented hell; who mouths morals to other people, and has none himself; who frowns upon crimes, yet commits them all; who created man without invitation, then tries to shuffle the responsibility for man's acts upon man, instead of honorably placing it where it belongs, upon himself; and finally, with altogether divine obtuseness, invites his poor abused slave to worship him!"

[Cougar]

I can only assume from this they've started quoting Mark Twain on the sides of KFC Family Buckets.

[Illuyankas]

I don't just go there for the chicken, I go for the experience OK it's totally for the chicken. I still really like that quote though.

[stone monkey]

Mutzy, on Sep 3 2009, 03:19 AM, said:

Perhaps, I am seeing a trend here? And I notice it in every Evolution versus Creation thread. The atheist wants God, who by definition is a great and all-powerful being and you want God to explain himself/herself to you? I find that extremely arrogant.

Why shouldn't God explain him/her/it - self? One of the things history has taught us is that the great and powerful should be held to account and made to explain their actions. What's to stop them from abusing their power if they know they're never going to be called on it? And if you have an all-powerful being, then that being has as much power to abuse as possible. Which would seem to imply that he/she/it would need to be held to account as much as possible... Rolling over and meekly submitting does no-one any good. Respect is a two way street; if your God doesn't respect humans enough to explain itself to us then why would (or should) he/she/it expect any similar respect from us?

Quote

The only problem I have with Evolution is that they can't say where did the miracle pool of DNA strands come from and what caused the miracle pool to create life? Every action has a reaction and all that.

Asking this question means that you really haven't understood anything about what evolution is about. It's about what happens once life has started not about how life started. The current understanding of evolutionary processes cannot and does not say anything about how life starts because that is out of its remit. You may as well ask a plumber to fix your computer; it's not his job.

For that question you want to be looking at abiogenesis, which is a completely different subject. And, whilst nothing definitive has been found yet, there is a great amount of work that has been done in that field. For example; a recent result shows that the precursors to DNA are thermodynamically favoured, there's the famous Miller-Urey experiment (from the 1950s!) demonstrating how the basic chemical components of life could have been assembled on the early Earth, there's the demonstrated behaviour of polar molecules to form sheets and spheres analogous to cell membranes, there's the work done on RNA which shows that this simpler molecule may have been a precursor to DNA as a substrate for genetic information, there's some very recent results which show that some quite complex organic chemistry is (or has been) going on in comets. There's plenty of stuff out there should you care to look.

Although your question strikes me as a little naive; it would seem to be like complaining why you don't feel full when dinner hasn't been cooked yet. Like many things in science, that particular problem has yet to be solved. It would seem likely that one day it will be though as our understanding of what life is and the conditions in which it originated has improved vastly in the last century or so. The point is to keep on looking rather than simply sitting back saying "God did it" as if that explained anything. And I'm not sure what quoting Newton's 3rd Law of Motion brings to the discussion...

This post has been edited by stone monkey: 03 September 2009 - 04:22 PM

[Sindriss]

I think you are adressing a troll SM. I still like your posts though

[stone monkey]

Ah well. That particular question has a habit of pushing my "Angry and Prolix" button... You never know, he may be back to read the reply and then I may have succeeded in teaching a troll some actual facts...

[Mutzy]

When life finally got started, then evolution took place, aye? Perhaps more importantly, is how life started in the first place. If you can't explain how life started, then what could be wrong with what took after it started? A kind of dominoe effect. I'm not advocating the "God did it" mentality, more like if one thing is wrong, then lets take a look at another theory. I just happen to believe that God did create the universe and Earth and everything in it perfectly. And on the Mark Twain quote, if I knew the answer to why God gave us free will, then I wouldn't be on here arguing in favor of Creation o.O And I will ignore the trolling remark.

This post has been edited by Mutzy: 03 September 2009 - 05:19 PM

[Obdigore]

Mutzy, on Sep 3 2009, 12:19 PM, said:

When life finally got started, then evolution took place, aye? Perhaps more importantly, is how life started in the first place. If you can't explain how life started, then what could be wrong with what took after it started? A kind of dominoe effect. I'm not advocating the "God did it" mentality, more like if one thing is wrong, then lets take a look at another theory. I just happen to believe that God did create the universe and Earth and everything in it perfectly. And on the Mark Twain quote, if I knew the answer to why God gave us free will, then I wouldn't be on here arguing in favor of Creation o.O And I will ignore the trolling remark.

So you are ok with believing that some 'god' being has always been around everywhere and is all-powerful, but refuse to believe that some amino acids coming in contact with each other could create the first single celled organism?

You also think that everyone and everything is made perfect, but refuse to view the evidence you see around you that living things are able to evolve even after it has been proven to happen?

[Bent]

Obdigore, on Sep 3 2009, 01:29 PM, said:

Mutzy, on Sep 3 2009, 12:19 PM, said:

When life finally got started, then evolution took place, aye? Perhaps more importantly, is how life started in the first place. If you can't explain how life started, then what could be wrong with what took after it started? A kind of dominoe effect. I'm not advocating the "God did it" mentality, more like if one thing is wrong, then lets take a look at another theory. I just happen to believe that God did create the universe and Earth and everything in it perfectly. And on the Mark Twain quote, if I knew the answer to why God gave us free will, then I wouldn't be on here arguing in favor of Creation o.O And I will ignore the trolling remark.

So you are ok with believing that some 'god' being has always been around everywhere and is all-powerful, but refuse to believe that some amino acids coming in contact with each other could create the first single celled organism?

You also think that everyone and everything is made perfect, but refuse to view the evidence you see around you that living things are able to evolve even after it has been proven to happen?

Second part is a BS argument, because there is also a devil and he corrupts. And I have never seen a chimp speak so there....

First part is construed strangely, why cant God have created the amino acids and caused them to form, instead of cosmic accidents causing everything to fall perfectly into line to allow everything to happen (1mmillion monkeys and one million typewriters style?)

[Obdigore]

Bent, on Sep 3 2009, 12:35 PM, said:

Obdigore, on Sep 3 2009, 01:29 PM, said:

Mutzy, on Sep 3 2009, 12:19 PM, said:

When life finally got started, then evolution took place, aye? Perhaps more importantly, is how life started in the first place. If you can't explain how life started, then what could be wrong with what took after it started? A kind of dominoe effect. I'm not advocating the "God did it" mentality, more like if one thing is wrong, then lets take a look at another theory. I just happen to believe that God did create the universe and Earth and everything in it perfectly. And on the Mark Twain quote, if I knew the answer to why God gave us free will, then I wouldn't be on here arguing in favor of Creation o.O And I will ignore the trolling remark.

So you are ok with believing that some 'god' being has always been around everywhere and is all-powerful, but refuse to believe that some amino acids coming in contact with each other could create the first single celled organism?

You also think that everyone and everything is made perfect, but refuse to view the evidence you see around you that living things are able to evolve even after it has been proven to happen?

Second part is a BS argument, because there is also a devil and he corrupts. And I have never seen a chimp speak so there....

First part is construed strangely, why cant God have created the amino acids and caused them to form, instead of cosmic accidents causing everything to fall perfectly into line to allow everything to happen (1mmillion monkeys and one million typewriters style?)

I have never seen an Angel, but you still believe in that. Do I need to go back and link the Gnat experiment that was posted in here pages ago?

I am not sure why you call them Cosmic Accidents, when in there is no such things as accidents. I guess I just don't understand how people believe in a super-being that knows everything, is all powerful, is good, but refuses to stop his creations from killing, raping, and torturing each other, possibly for his own sick pleasure, at the very least, in the name of science. (Since we are just one giant experiment, dosen't that mean the christian god is just one giant, belligerant, scientist? I think it does!)

[Bent]

Obdigore, on Sep 3 2009, 01:41 PM, said:

when in there is no such things as accidents. I guess I just don't understand how people believe in a super-being that knows everything, is all powerful, is good, but refuses to stop his creations from killing, raping, and torturing each other, possibly for his own sick pleasure, at the very least, in the name of science. (Since we are just one giant experiment, dosen't that mean the christian god is just one giant, belligerant, scientist? I think it does!)

Why do we continually blame god for everything wrong in the world, maybe, just maybe, if everyone believed in god (and I mean every single person in the world) there would be no more of any bad. But they don't and if God made everyone do that, then we become robots and that takes away free will.

To quote a profound Nickelback song

If everyone cared
and nobody lied

If everyone loved
and nobody cried

If everyone shared
and swallowed their pride

then we'd see the day that nobody died

Pretty deep, because the bible says, the wages of sin is death. So if you defeat sin, you defeat death.

Anyway, thats whats wrong with the world, God made doctors that know how to abort babies, so that means its gods fault that babies get aborted. God made men who created weapons, so that means that god is responsible for war. Its not a very good arguement, when, if a christian we are taught to love. thats the basic premise thats forgotten in the churches, love...love god,love yourself,love your friends and family, and love your enemies. If you can do that, you have no reason to do anything seen as evil, and thusly, god doesn't get the blame for war etc.

[stone monkey]

Mutzy, on Sep 3 2009, 06:19 PM, said:

When life finally got started, then evolution took place, aye? Perhaps more importantly, is how life started in the first place. If you can't explain how life started, then what could be wrong with what took after it started? A kind of domino effect.

Given they're two different questions then in the matter as to whether evolution is correct it doesn't actually matter how life started. In much the same way as it makes no difference to your next coin toss whether the last one came down heads or tails...

Quote

I'm not advocating the "God did it" mentality, more like if one thing is wrong, then lets take a look at another theory. I just happen to believe that God did create the universe and Earth and everything in it perfectly.

First we have to prove the original theory wrong and/or find a competing theory that fits the available evidence better. God creating everything in its current form just doesn't do that. And "perfect" is an interesting term to use. The human body has all sorts of interesting design flaws that are currently only explainable by the contingent nature of evolution. Try comparing the orientation of retinal cells from a human with the same for a squid (which has an eye layout that is superficially similar) you'll see why squids don't have an unnecessary blind spot in their vision for their brains to work around. Evolutionary theory tells us why that is the case; i.e. the light sensitive cells that the squid's ancestors co-opted to eventually build a retinas in their descendants were different from the ones our ancestors used.

Quote

And on the Mark Twain quote, if I knew the answer to why God gave us free will, then I wouldn't be on here arguing in favor of Creation o.O

Arguably, if you knew that then it would be one of the best reasons to argue with us about about creationism and the existence of the deity, you'd have some serious backup. Although there are all sorts of proposed answers to that particular question. Theologians have been going at that one for well over a millennium.

This post has been edited by stone monkey: 03 September 2009 - 06:05 PM

[Obdigore]

So what you are saying, Bent, is that if you aren't religious you don't have any morals?

[Bent]

Obdigore, on Sep 3 2009, 01:59 PM, said:

So what you are saying, Bent, is that if you aren't religious you don't have any morals?

No, Im saying if you arent connected on a spiritual level with God, and thusly fearing His wrath, and consequence of punishment, humans are capable of anything. My belief in God is what keeps me from sleeping around on my wife and lots of other morally challenging things...Im not saying that they have no morals, just that my morals are a bit stronger because I fear an eternity in hell, whereas they fear nothing.

[Obdigore]

Bent, on Sep 3 2009, 01:04 PM, said:

Obdigore, on Sep 3 2009, 01:59 PM, said:

So what you are saying, Bent, is that if you aren't religious you don't have any morals?

No, Im saying if you arent connected on a spiritual level with God, and thusly fearing His wrath, and consequence of punishment, humans are capable of anything. My belief in God is what keeps me from sleeping around on my wife and lots of other morally challenging things...Im not saying that they have no morals, just that my morals are a bit stronger because I fear an eternity in hell, whereas they fear nothing.

I see, so you don't sleep around on your wife because you fear being tortured for eternity, whereas I don't sleep around on my girlfriend because...?

Do you really think that people who aren't religious don't care about others and harm people more often than those that do?

[HoosierDaddy]

And what about those wars and murders sparked by fanatical followers of a Judeo-Christian or Muslim religion? It evidently had an adverse impact on their morals.

[stone monkey]

So all believers are paragons of moral virtue simply because they believe? I can't really see that one flying. There's far too much evidence to the contrary. I would argue that the thing that should keep someone from sleeping around on their spouse is that they love them and therefore don't want to hurt them by doing that. The fear of eternal punishment would be secondary to that... And if someone doesn't love their spouse, what on earth are they doing being married to them?

This post has been edited by stone monkey: 03 September 2009 - 06:13 PM

[Obdigore]

HoosierDaddy, on Sep 3 2009, 01:09 PM, said:

And what about those wars and murders sparked by fanatical followers of a Judeo-Christian or Muslim religion? It evidently had an adverse impact on their morals.

Although this thought had occured to me, I am not going to go after Bent with it, because I don't believe that he advocated said crusades or murders, although if I didn't know him, his whole 'If only everyone believed in God' thing would be somewhat scary.

I am much more interested, Bent, in why it seems that you think anyone that isn't religious cannot have morals, or why you think a religious persons' morals are stronger than a non-religious persons?

[HoosierDaddy]

Obdigore, on Sep 3 2009, 02:12 PM, said:

HoosierDaddy, on Sep 3 2009, 01:09 PM, said:

And what about those wars and murders sparked by fanatical followers of a Judeo-Christian or Muslim religion? It evidently had an adverse impact on their morals.

Although this thought had occured to me, I am not going to go after Bent with it, because I don't believe that he advocated said crusades or murders, although if I didn't know him, his whole 'If only everyone believed in God' thing would be somewhat scary.

I am much more interested, Bent, in why it seems that you think anyone that isn't religious cannot have morals, or why you think a religious persons' morals are stronger than a non-religious persons?

I'm not saying he advocated it. Merely pointing out that it isn't the virtues espoused by the religion that are the cause of morality in their followers, rather it is more likely the person theirself.

[Mutzy]

stone monkey, on Sep 3 2009, 10:58 AM, said:

Mutzy, on Sep 3 2009, 06:19 PM, said:

When life finally got started, then evolution took place, aye? Perhaps more importantly, is how life started in the first place. If you can't explain how life started, then what could be wrong with what took after it started? A kind of domino effect.

Given they're two different questions then in the matter as to whether evolution is correct it doesn't actually matter how life started. In much the same way as it makes no difference to your next coin toss whether the last one came down heads or tails...

Quote

I'm not advocating the "God did it" mentality, more like if one thing is wrong, then lets take a look at another theory. I just happen to believe that God did create the universe and Earth and everything in it perfectly.

First we have to prove the original theory wrong and/or find a competing theory that fits the available evidence better. God creating everything in its current form just doesn't do that. And "perfect" is an interesting term to use. The human body has all sorts of interesting design flaws that are currently only explainable by the contingent nature of evolution. Try comparing the orientation of retinal cells from a human with the same for a squid (which has an eye layout that is superficially similar) you'll see why squids don't have an unnecessary blind spot in their vision for their brains to work around. Evolutionary theory tells us why that is the case; i.e. the light sensitive cells that the squid's ancestors co-opted to eventually build a retinas in their descendants were different from the ones our ancestors used.

Quote

And on the Mark Twain quote, if I knew the answer to why God gave us free will, then I wouldn't be on here arguing in favor of Creation o.O

Arguably, if you knew that then it would be one of the best reasons to argue with us about about creationism and the existence of the deity, you'd have some serious backup. Although there are all sorts of proposed answers to that particular question. Theologians have been going at that one for well over a millennium.

Actually, I would arguing against the scientists, just not on here. Though I might come on here and post my theory. Perhaps I forgot to mention, that in the Bible, which is anotehr discussion, states that humanity disobeyed one simple rule and were punished for it. Hence the flaws in our nature and design, since we went from perfect to what we are now. Planets are dying, stars are exploding, and humanity is killing itself off. I do not see any evolution, I see a regressive state.