<p>
</p>
<p>I wasn’t asking you if there was evidence. I was asking you what evidence, if it did exist, would convince you that god exists. If you cannot name any such evidence, then your rejection of the belief is not based on evidence.</p>
<p>I’ve re-read the majority of this thread, and have come to the following conclusions:</p>
<p>No side can prove the other wrong in a conclusive fashion.</p>
<p>The majority of folk on CC are not yet ready to discuss this in a candid fashion.</p>
<p>Straw-men rule the day and ought to be employed in any proper argument.</p>
<p>Orotund posts are guaranteed to enhance the credibility of your position.</p>
<p>When enraged, people will abstain from using proper capitalization.</p>
<p>Science cannot disprove the existence of God, though it can call belief in his (or their) existence into question.</p>
<p>I’m going to exit from this thread, simply because I refuse to be consumed by the stupidity of arguing a pointless topic on the internet. Adenine, I admire you for being the OP of this thread, but ultimately, it was an exercise in futility.</p>
<p>And I didn’t even get to increase my post count. :(</p>
<p>the existence of god generally relies on two foundations of knowledge. A priori, and A posteriori. The most convincing arguments generally tend to be the first. the less convincing the latter. But in a debate on over who wins out, i would have to say you shouldn’t even be posing this question. </p>
<p>In order to pose this question you have to imply that one or the other have a higher intrinsic value than the other. But objectively speaking this is entirely dependent, so in shorter terms they stand apart from each other and are not really comparable.</p>
<p>moby’s arguments are interesting. lol. but dude you gotta take a class on logic and philosophy before you try to pose sound arguments. you state your position, but the way you formulate them does not even make an argument in terms of the technical requirements. </p>
<p>you have to propose something that has to be followed up by premises which also have to fit and support the ending which is the conclusion. </p>
<p>the premise has to support the conclusion in order to provide a valid argument, or the conclusion follows from it’s premises. </p>
<p>More specifically an argument is valid if it satisfies the following condition: if its premises were true, then it’s conclusion WOULD HAVE to be true. if anyone of these fall then your argument fails.</p>
<p>and i read that you said “the big bang is not observable”. i Disagree. i live in chicago and i got a chance to do some research for fermi lab on this particle detector project, and let me tell you… we can see the big bang all the way to .00000000000000000001 sec before it went through exponential expansion. it’s basically observing an infinite derivative of a line positioned in a Cartesian graph in analogy. We can zoom into the moments of creation with the aid of the WMAP telescope.</p>
<p>^Oh, swine, let this thread die in peace! I implore you to stop posting here; the yellow circles are just too compelling for me, and I feel an irresistible urge to click. :(</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I, too, will begin to extract myself from this discussion, as I find responding to arguments that refuse to honor substantiated evidence to be quite worthless. The one topic that I would like to pursue further, however, is the issue of morality, and more specifically, its biological substructure. But as for now, I will primarily respond to MosbyMarion’s statements since providing an attentive contribution to morality is a bit more time-consuming relative to the basic responses that may be afforded to arguments out of creationist belief.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>What in particular is wrong with describing natural phenomena as they are? What are these beautiful secrets of life? In what way does scientific knowledge and advancement lead to a society rife with “uncreative automatons?” Those assertions are unproductive and completely ill-founded.</p>
<p>What do you mean nobody will prove science? On a rigorous point-by-point basis, science invariably defeats religious assertion.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Your entire viewpoint is not a way of understanding the world as it is; rather you look for evidence that merely stands in opposition to modern science and the scientific method and propose arguments out of false axioms and without any logically effective underpinning. Radiocarbon dating is not a flawed procedure; it is firmly grounded in the application of physical properties. Determined half-lives and the ages of specific items have been tested and confirmed independently. The Earth is one such example. There have been over seventy meteorites that have been measured radiometrically, all of which have been dated to an ages between 4.53 and 4.58 billion years.</p>
<p>From <a href=“http://pubs.usgs.gov/gip/geotime/age.html:[/url]”>http://pubs.usgs.gov/gip/geotime/age.html:</a></p>
<p>”The best age for the Earth (4.54 Ga) is based on old, presumed single-stage leads coupled with the Pb ratios in troilite from iron meteorites, specifically the Canyon Diablo meteorite. In addition, mineral grains (zircon) with U-Pb ages of 4.4 Ga have recently been reported from sedimentary rocks in west-central Australia. The Moon is a more primitive planet than Earth because it has not been disturbed by plate tectonics; thus, some of its more ancient rocks are more plentiful. Only a small number of rocks were returned to Earth by the six Apollo and three Luna missions. These rocks vary greatly in age, a reflection of their different ages of formation and their subsequent histories. The oldest dated moon rocks, however, have ages between 4.4 and 4.5 billion years and provide a minimum age for the formation of our nearest planetary neighbor. Thousands of meteorites, which are fragments of asteroids that fall to Earth, have been recovered. These primitive objects provide the best ages for the time of formation of the Solar System. There are more than 70 meteorites, of different types, whose ages have been measured using radiometric dating techniques. The results show that the meteorites, and therefore the Solar System, formed between 4.53 and 4.58 billion years ago. The best age for the Earth comes not from dating individual rocks but by considering the Earth and meteorites as part of the same evolving system in which the isotopic composition of lead, specifically the ratio of lead-207 to lead-206 changes over time owing to the decay of radioactive uranium-235 and uranium-238, respectively. Scientists have used this approach to determine the time required for the isotopes in the Earth’s oldest lead ores, of which there are only a few, to evolve from its primordial composition, as measured in uranium-free phases of iron meteorites, to its compositions at the time these lead ores separated from their mantle reservoirs. These calculations result in an age for the Earth and meteorites, and hence the Solar System, of 4.54 billion years with an uncertainty of less than 1 percent. To be precise, this age represents the last time that lead isotopes were homogeneous througout the inner Solar System and the time that lead and uranium was incorporated into the solid bodies of the Solar System. The age of 4.54 billion years found for the Solar System and Earth is consistent with current calculations of 11 to 13 billion years for the age of the Milky Way Galaxy (based on the stage of evolution of globular cluster stars) and the age of 10 to 15 billion years for the age of the Universe (based on the recession of distant galaxies).”</p>
<p>But regardless of the scientific evidence that uniformly overturns your baseless opinions, you will continue to indiscriminately adhere to that in which is stated within your holy book.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>The bible is not steadily accurate in its historical assertions nor was it ever intended or written for the sake of such. The narratives were merely created by ecclesiastics attempting to forge a common identity among those struggling for a sense of individuality among several competing political ascendancies that sought to further expand their state.</p>
<p>More on the bible’s errancy regarding historical matters:</p>
<p>*”…The fact is that some archaeological discoveries in confirming part of the Bible simultaneously cast doubt on the accuracy of other parts. The Moabite Stone, for example, corroborates the biblical claim that there was a king of Moab named Mesha, but the inscription on the stone gives a different account of the war between Moab and the Israelites recorded in 2 Kings 3. Mesha’s inscription on the stone claimed overwhelming victory, but the biblical account claims that the Israelites routed the Moabite forces and withdrew only after they saw Mesha sacrifice his eldest son as a burnt offering on the wall of the city the Moabites had retreated to (2 Kings 3:26-27). So the Moabite Stone, rather than corroborating the accuracy of the biblical record, gives reason to suspect that both accounts are biased. Mesha’s inscription gave an account favorable to the Moabites, and the biblical account was slanted to favor the Israelites. The actual truth about the battle will probably never be known.</p>
<p>Other archaeological discoveries haven’t just cast doubt on the accuracy of some biblical information but have shown some accounts to be completely erroneous. A notable example would be the account of Joshua’s conquest and destruction of the Canaanite city of Ai. According to Joshua 8, Israelite forces attacked Ai, burned it, “utterly destroyed all the inhabitants,” and made it a “heap forever” (vs:26-28). Extensive archaeological work at the site of Ai, however, has revealed that the city was destroyed and burned around 2400 B. C., which would have been over a thousand years before the time of Joshua…</p>
<p>…The work of Kathleen Kenyon produced similar results in her excavation of the city of Jericho. Her conclusion was that the walls of Jericho were destroyed around 2300 B. C., about the same time that Ai was destroyed. Apparently, then, legends developed to explain the ruins of ancient cities, and biblical writers recorded them as tales of Joshua’s conquests. Information like this, however, is never mentioned by inerrantists when they talk about archaeological confirmation of biblical records…*”</p>
<p><a href=“de-conversion.com - This website is for sale! - de conversion Resources and Information.”>de-conversion.com - This website is for sale! - de conversion Resources and Information.;
<p>Despite saying that I would cease in my responses to this topic, I couldn’t help but comment upon this:</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I think CelaPlusAimaple meant to say that no one can prove science is the only truth that exists.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>First of all, the proof of human existence clearly preceded Sumer. Secondly, if you trust that particular year, then that would encroach upon your 6,000-year-old Earth theory.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>No, it does not. The Big Bang provides a cosmological model for the evolution of the universe that accurately adheres to the most exhaustive and factual accounts from scientific evidence and observation, such as those that I provided within my last set of posts. We continue to observe the Big Bang. And remember, the phenomenon does not simply refer to the development of the universe at its most embryonic state. </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>That is not supportable by any possible means. The idea of a biological god, to be specific, is increasingly contravened by biology and neuroscience, since we now have a scientific basis for previously unexplainable biological phenomena, which naturally provides the opportunity to discard unnecessary supernatural explanations for such (I plan to enlarge on this idea in a future post).</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>You are merely searching for writings that groundlessly propagandize a false legitimacy for religious fundamentalism, which feebly attempts to discredit radiometric dating.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>An additional elaboration of the biological basis of morality will be approaching. I simply do not have the time to write on the subject at the moment.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Stating that humans, in particular, are endowed with some “special significance” is quite an uneducated and baseless deduction, as nothing evidential leads to that belief.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>On both accounts. The concept of the supernatural is logically refutable and evidentially unsupportable.</p>
<p>you have to know that arguing with people that believe in a god is pointless right? i am agnostic myself but people believe in what they believe in… there’s very little we can do about it unless god came down himself and told them he wasn’t real</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Even though the above quote is in response to Adenine’s statements, I will reply for him. </p>
<p>First of all, if one is going to teach your particular creation myth, it is only fair to teach the thousands of other factually fabricated accounts that have ever been conceived and advanced as the “truth.” </p>
<p>But simply because science has not yet answered every conceivable question about the universe, there is absolutely no need to turn to faith or invest fallacious belief in one or more supernatural entity, for faith has never answered anything of great consequence. </p>
<p>The philosophical burden of proof relies on the theist/creationist to prove that one’s religion has any basis. If I were to suggest that there was an invisible pink unicorn living somewhere in the sky and that it cannot be disproven because it is undetectable by its very ontology, my claims would rightly be dismissed as nothing more than harebrained, idiotic, and illogical flapdoodle. But if such an assertion was endorsed by a holy book, intellectually imbibed every Sunday, instilled into children beginning in infancy, and taught that one will live a future life of great misery if one does not believe in it or is insubordinate to its doctrine (through fear, in essence), hesitation to believe in it would be a profoundly (and irrationally) perceived indication of a social impropriety. To both you and I and everyone else, belief in such should rightfully lend oneself to the due attention of a psychotherapist or, in a previous era, to the selective scrutiny of an Inquisitor.</p>
<p>Such provides an argument via reductio ad absurdum against supernatural belief. If agnosticism or skepticism holds the necessity to provide impartial regard for the belief and disbelief in supernatural power(s), then it must provide the absolute equivalent respect for belief in invisible pink unicorns or elephants, the flying spaghetti monster, and the entire infinite menagerie of mental misconceptions, which includes your own god. Believing in the aforementioned holds the same scientific plausibility as belief in any supernaturally conceived notion. Yet throughout culture, belief in one’s own personal god(s) is somehow exempted from the merited absurdity provided to other baseless abstractions.</p>
<p>When you understand precisely why you do not believe in the thousands of deities that have ever been believed in by humans and reject the credibility of any one of the infinite number of imaginary conceptions that have yet to be created, you will begin to obtain a clearer perspective as to why the secularist has absolutely no reason to believe in your own god.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Can you prove that empirically? ;)</p>
<p>Ah, this thread has been a source of great hilarity to me. You should’ve gotten here when things were really hot a little while back, swineflu17! :)</p>
<p>Hopefully, Adenine will post another similar thread soon. I’m looking forward to it.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Yes, regardless of the evidence, inconsistencies, or logic that contradicts their position, many refuse to budge from their belief.</p>
<p>^But does that make it pointless?</p>
<p>in order for there to be a point one must consider moving from an initial state to a different state. if no such change is perceived then yes it is pointless</p>
<p>God exists. I’m sorry, its true. There’s a point in my life where I was like “Well, you can’t prove his existence, so therefore based on conceptualized scientific knowledge, he does NOT exist.”
But life experiences change that. As I reflect on life…I developed a sort of strange feeling. I feel that God indeed exists, and its REALLY hard to explain why.</p>
<p>Even Albert Eienstien said so himself–he believed in God’s existence.</p>
<p>Anyways, do I follow religion? Do I believe Jesus walked on water? That Krishna lifted a mountain with his pinky finger?
These I cannot answer.
But I do know that there is a God of morals and of that who created the universe.</p>
<p>^Oh, Johnny dear, you shouldn’t have posted! There’s a chance mifune will come back to respond. :(</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>But points, by definition, exist in the zero dimension and exhibit no quantifiable parameters, unless location is counted as one. So in that case, wouldn’t this discussion be line segment-less (or, if you want to use the term “point,” points-less)?</p>
<p>/endstupidity</p>
<p>I actually know virtually nothing about math, so please disregard what I just wrote. 
It’s past my bedtime, so I’m kind of scatterbrained right now - more so than usual.</p>
<p>once again i accept your belief in a god, and hey it’ll probably do you good, but for alot of people a gut feeling is not enough to quantify the existence of a omnipotent, omnipresent, incorporeal entity that has dominion over everything.</p>
<p>an einstein is constantly misquoted as a theist, but in fact if you actually read more about it especially in his official biography, he considered himself an agnostic. he believed in “spinoza’s god” which is the god of order not of the god you speak off. it’s a philosophical god.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>There wasn’t a single word you said that didn’t make me want to go :o</p>