Atheism makes you smart, but don't take my word for it...

#27
#27
I find the basic premise has some truth to it. I've often seen the argument from atheists that as mankind becomes smarter it will become more atheistic. I believe it's a false relationship.
 
#28
#28
Oldvol75 said:
Has not man always worshiped something? Be it moon, stars, sun, weather or what ever. These beliefs grow in people and change over time, some weaker and some stronger. As you say, parents influence. In my case, I didnot go to or attend church as a youth. We simply did not go. We had a living room that nobody went into, you remember those types of rooms? We did have one of those giant white Bibles on the coffee table in there. I discovered Jesus on my own.
Click to expand...

It was your premise that man FIRST worshipped the God of the Bible. What evidence do you have to support this, in the face of thousands of years of archeological evidence to the contrary?
 
#29
#29
volinbham said:
I find the basic premise has some truth to it. I've often seen the argument from atheists that as mankind becomes smarter it will become more atheistic. I believe it's a false relationship.
Click to expand...

I'll convince you sooner or later. :)
 
#30
#30
volinbham said:
I find the basic premise has some truth to it. I've often seen the argument from atheists that as mankind becomes smarter it will become more atheistic. I believe it's a false relationship.
Click to expand...

interestingly the percentage of church going americans hasn't dropped signifiantly in recent years.
 
#33
#33
If there is no God than how did we get here? Two objects collided in space? It just so happens that our Earth is in just the right location from the Sun to be a livable place? How did a big bang start the first heartbeat of life?

To me, believing we were made with thought of detail in mind by a higher being is less mind boggling than believing everything happened by a big bang. We are too intricate in my opinion, even for billions of years of evolution without some sort of guidance.
 
#35
#35
615 Vol said:
If there is no God than how did we get here? Two objects collided in space? It just so happens that our Earth is in just the right location from the Sun to be a livable place? How did a big bang start the first heartbeat of life?

To me, believing we were made with thought of detail in mind by a higher being is less mind boggling than believing everything happened by a big bang. We are too intricate in my opinion, even for billions of years of evolution without some sort of guidance.
Click to expand...

:blink:

You have changed....

:eek:k:

Are you still pro government?

:p
 
#38
#38
615 Vol said:
If there is no God than how did we get here? Two objects collided in space? It just so happens that our Earth is in just the right location from the Sun to be a livable place? How did a big bang start the first heartbeat of life?

To me, believing we were made with thought of detail in mind by a higher being is less mind boggling than believing everything happened by a big bang. We are too intricate in my opinion, even for billions of years of evolution without some sort of guidance.
Click to expand...

The magic of large numbers makes more sense to me.

The chances of one person winning the powerball lottery are one in a couple hundred million, yet it happens every couple of years. With how many lottery tickets are bought, one is bound to be a winner sooner or later.

Same goes with your argument. Think of how many billions and billions of stars, planets, and galaxies there are in the extensive spanse of the universe. We can't even comprehend the size. Even if the chances of all of them coming together to make a life suitable planet, and that planet is capable of complex life driven by evolution..is one in a billion (roughly 5 times the chances of winning the powerball), there could be literally thousands of life sustaining planets out there.

As far as where it all came from, the argument that it came from a creator still begs the question of where the creator came from...and if he is eternal and outside of time, then I could just as easily say the universe is eternal and outside of time. We are just cutting the starting points of this philosophical argument at different times. Maybe the universe is contained in a closed manifold with no "beginning" or "end". Maybe we don't understand how time works, how space time bends, how matter and energy coexist....

My point is there is so much we don't know about what we percieve as reality that the default position of "God" is too quick of an explanation. And this doesn't even begin to address the specific religious claims also associated with him.
 
#39
#39
rjd970 said:
The magic of large numbers makes more sense to me.

The chances of one person winning the powerball lottery are one in a couple hundred million, yet it happens every couple of years. With how many lottery tickets are bought, one is bound to be a winner sooner or later.

Same goes with your argument. Think of how many billions and billions of stars, planets, and galaxies there are in the extensive spanse of the universe. We can't even comprehend the size. Even if the chances of all of them coming together to make a life suitable planet, and that planet is capable of complex life driven by evolution..is one in a billion (roughly 5 times the chances of winning the powerball), there could be literally thousands of life sustaining planets out there.

As far as where it all came from, the argument that it came from a creator still begs the question of where the creator came from...and if he is eternal and outside of time, then I could just as easily say the universe is eternal and outside of time. We are just cutting the starting points of this philosophical argument at different times. Maybe the universe is contained in a closed manifold with no "beginning" or "end". Maybe we don't understand how time works, how space time bends, how matter and energy coexist....

My point is there is so much we don't know about what we percieve as reality that the default position of "God" is too quick of an explanation. And this doesn't even begin to address the specific religious claims also associated with him.
Click to expand...

The descriptions of heaven are eerily similar to.......

borg-cube-voy.jpg
 
#40
#40
rjd970 said:
The magic of large numbers makes more sense to me.

The chances of one person winning the powerball lottery are one in a couple hundred million, yet it happens every couple of years. With how many lottery tickets are bought, one is bound to be a winner sooner or later.

Same goes with your argument. Think of how many billions and billions of stars, planets, and galaxies there are in the extensive spanse of the universe. We can't even comprehend the size. Even if the chances of all of them coming together to make a life suitable planet, and that planet is capable of complex life driven by evolution..is one in a billion (roughly 5 times the chances of winning the powerball), there could be literally thousands of life sustaining planets out there.
Click to expand...

Not sure where you may be getting your numbers, but most scientists would put those odds at anywhere from 1 chance in 10 to the 130th to 1 in 10 to the 40,000th (10 to the 40,000th is a 1 with 40,000 zeros after it!) Mathematicians generally agree that, statistically, any odds beyond 1 in 10 to the 50th have a zero probability of ever happening... and even that gives it the benefit of the doubt!

And for your own reference, the famous astronomer Sir Fred Hoyle and Professor Chandra Wickramasinghe (both atheists) calculated the probability of life forming by chance in five billion years on earth. Their answer was 1 in 10 to the 40,000th (a number so close to zero as to effectively be zero). They then considered the universe with 100 billion galaxies each with 100 billion stars and 20 billion years. Still no chance. Hoyle said the probability of life evolving anywhere in the universe is as likely as a tornado sweeping through a junkyard and assembling a Boeing 747!
 
#41
#41
IBlvNTmWrk said:
Not sure where you may be getting your numbers, but most scientists would put those odds at anywhere from 1 chance in 10 to the 130th to 1 in 10 to the 40,000th (10 to the 40,000th is a 1 with 40,000 zeros after it!) Mathematicians generally agree that, statistically, any odds beyond 1 in 10 to the 50th have a zero probability of ever happening... and even that gives it the benefit of the doubt!

And for your own reference, the famous astronomer Sir Fred Hoyle and Professor Chandra Wickramasinghe (both atheists) calculated the probability of life forming by chance in five billion years on earth. Their answer was 1 in 10 to the 40,000th (a number so close to zero as to effectively be zero). They then considered the universe with 100 billion galaxies each with 100 billion stars and 20 billion years. Still no chance. Hoyle said the probability of life evolving anywhere in the universe is as likely as a tornado sweeping through a junkyard and assembling a Boeing 747!
Click to expand...

Most scientists came up with that number? How so?

FWIW, Hoyle wasn't an atheist, at least not when he died. And many of his conclusions are now referred to many in the scientific community as "Hoyle's Fallacy", believe it or not, because of the assumption and inaccurate calculations (based on his misunderstanding of Big Bang theory and evolutionary theory).

See: Hoyle's fallacy - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The 1 in 10 to the 40,000th number, and corresponding 747 example...while cute...is completely wrong. Hoyle said it is equal to rolling 50,000 dice at the same time and all of them showing "6". And he would be right, except for the fact that this is not what evolution states. Evolution occurs in a step fashion, and would be aiken to taking all 50,000 dice, rolling them, keeping all the "6"'s, re-role every other dice, keep those sixes, role again, etc...until you have 50,000 "6"'s. Hence, natural selection...keeping good genes, discarding bad ones. And in evolutionary theory, the environment is the selector. Taken in a stepwise fashion like that, there is more than enough time for life to evolve into the complexity it has today, and correspondingly fits nicely into the large number comparison I gave earlier.

This is Hoyle's fallacy, and where the ridiculous tornado and 747 analogies come from.
 
#42
#42
rjd970 said:
Most scientists came up with that number? How so?

FWIW, Hoyle wasn't an atheist...

Yes he was, but he changed his position based upon his studies.

Evolution occurs in a step fashion, and would be aiken to taking all 50,000 dice, rolling them, keeping all the "6"'s, re-role every other dice, keep those sixes, role again, etc...until you have 50,000 "6"'s. Hence, natural selection...keeping good genes, discarding bad ones. And in evolutionary theory, the environment is the selector. Taken in a stepwise fashion like that, there is more than enough time for life to evolve into the complexity it has today, and correspondingly fits nicely into the large number comparison I gave earlier.
Click to expand...

My biggest issue with your example is that it starts with "dice that include the number 6". If dice represent some type of living organism, and the "6" represents a protein or amino acid, then where did the dice, proteins and amino acids come from? The essence of life still has to exist somewhere for there to be a "chance" to form a living thing out of them to begin with.
 
#43
#43
615 Vol said:
If there is no God than how did we get here? Two objects collided in space? It just so happens that our Earth is in just the right location from the Sun to be a livable place? How did a big bang start the first heartbeat of life?

To me, believing we were made with thought of detail in mind by a higher being is less mind boggling than believing everything happened by a big bang. We are too intricate in my opinion, even for billions of years of evolution without some sort of guidance.
Click to expand...

most people know this, they just do not want to admit it for fear of not "sounding" smart
 
#50
#50
T-TownVol said:
most people know this, they just do not want to admit it for fear of not "sounding" smart
Click to expand...

There is a limitation to the human condition, in that we are so used to perceiving time and space the way we do, it is much easier to chalk up things we don't understand to a mysterious entity, than to realize the relative nature of our perceptions. The justification for God is often spoken of in terms of needing a chronological chain of events leading to our existence. What if the nature of the universe isn't a chronological line? If that sounds absurd, consider that God's existence is by definition non-linear. No matter what you believe, both belief systems are dealing with the same problems, which come down to the limitations of the human experience and the human intellect.
 
New posts
You must log in or register to reply here.

VN Store



Back
Top