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Faith!?


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Poll: Atheist or Believer (135 member(s) have cast votes)

Are you an atheist, Agnostic or do you believe in a God or many gods?

  1. Iam an Atheist! (66 votes [48.53%])

    Percentage of vote: 48.53%

  2. Iam an Agnostic (31 votes [22.79%])

    Percentage of vote: 22.79%

  3. I believe in God/Gods! (29 votes [21.32%])

    Percentage of vote: 21.32%

  4. Other (explain in replie) (10 votes [7.35%])

    Percentage of vote: 7.35%

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#61 eternaltraveler

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Posted 22 May 2010 - 01:25 AM

*sigh*

You have yet to produce any evidence


I haven't made any claims...

attacking me because of my faith.


I never attacked you in any way shape or form. I attacked your viewpoint which is not at all the same thing. This is not personal.

Do you want to have a discussion and leave the ad hominems out of it? I'll retract my regrettably heated response that I was done with you if you desire. You're intelligent, and I'm not dismissive of you as a human being at all. I do think you hold one viewpoint that is unsupported. I'll even go through your article and address it's points if you wish (as time permits). I will be blunt, and if that is something that will make you upset then I'll wish you well and end this conversation more amicably.

#62 chrwe

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Posted 22 May 2010 - 03:46 AM

It is evident the particular navigator above knows little of quntum physics, knows less of common sense and knows even lesser of basic decency.


Erm, what? I hope you referred to eternaltraveller not to me. I may not know as much about quantum physics as I would like to, but common sense and decency are usually a field I play decently well.

If you look at how heatedly some of the greatest minds argue about quantum physics - mainly about "objective chance", "many worlds", "many minds", "role of the spectator", "copenhagen interpretation", Wigner`s waves etc., you cannot really say that it is "some esoteric idiots" who "misuse" quantum physics. It is a field where there are many open, baffling questions and if you ask me, the "many worlds" interpretation is as esoteric as it gets and its still postulated by reknown physicists (and I am not even saying it is wrong - I have no idea if it is).

Edited by chrwe, 22 May 2010 - 04:14 AM.


#63 AdamSummerfield

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Posted 22 May 2010 - 04:08 AM

I am not an evangelical Christian but William Lane Craig’s Article is a good example of a contemporary philosophers defense of the classical arguments for the existence of God, from an Atheist source. Being an Evangelical Christian has nothing to do with anything, except perhaps to a bigot. I have the source in my library and don’t see any cherry pickling from any contributor Christan or Atheist. He has debated leading Atheists all over the world. (If he was a Jew I bet you would be just as dismissive. It is called bigotry)

He was one of those that caused Antony Flew, the world famous atheist to become a Theist. He was there when Flew got an honorary doctorate a couple years ago.
“There Is A God” How the world’s most notorious atheist changed his mind.
http://www.amazon.co...=There is a god

Give me an example where he “cherry picked “. You impugn “most” Christian thinkers of doing this, Who?


Why not give us some of the arguments you've learned rather than links to the books you learned them from?

#64 ken_akiba

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Posted 22 May 2010 - 03:57 PM

To Mr. Chrwe,
Oh no, I was refering to the lab man above, with simplistic, or even shallow mind that science is all rational and science answers it all, shoving his belief with no regard to fundamental human decency.

I respect your knowledge, Chrwe :-)

Edited by ken_akiba, 22 May 2010 - 04:04 PM.

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#65 eternaltraveler

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Posted 22 May 2010 - 04:25 PM

I was refering to the lab man above, with simplistic, or even shallow mind that science is all rational and science answers it all, shoving his belief with no regard to fundamental human decency.


so you're calling me a bunch of names and in the same sentence trying to make your point that I'm the one that has no respect for decency.

interesting.

science answers it all


of course it doesn't... We don't know quite a lot. Shadowhawk is quite correct when he asserts that science is a process.

Edited by eternaltraveler, 22 May 2010 - 04:30 PM.


#66 ken_akiba

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Posted 22 May 2010 - 04:52 PM

Instead of frivolous quarrel, I'll leave you with this to think about: If Quantum entanglement is true, and by all means it does seem to be true, then how is it possible that our consciousness does not affect the reality around us and far from us? The very thought to observe something, will instantly change the very state of that something.

#67 chrwe

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Posted 23 May 2010 - 04:09 AM

Hi Ken,

quantum entanglement does not seem to affect the macrocosmos as it does affect the microcosmos. Or, instead, we can postulate the theory that all human and other conscious minds about form the reality that we experience, so that the individual mind only has very little influence. That is a question for philosophers or future scientists to answer. In any case, if you have ever seen a case of severe psychotic illness (I have seen people who suffer from this) and how firmly they believe they can, for example, fly - and sometimes try to fly with the usual result - there are definite limits to influence of the consciousness. Either the individual or the total. Or it is just the microcosmos after all that is influenced by the spectator. Or everything is, but the rules are not what we think they are. Or there are some totally undiscovered things in the equation yet that we don`t know yet (same as we didnt use to know about quarks and quantums). That`s what is so great about this universe and the human mind, this insatiable curiosity and the beautifully complex world to apply it to.

As I said, there are a lot of baffling and unresolved questions. I hope SENS succeeds and I am still around in 300 years to know what is to be known then.

(it`s Mrs chrwe btw, lol)

Eternaltraveller - science may yet answer it all. But it does seem as if we still know that we don`t know a lot, isnt it? Marvellous! I think its great. It will give us something to do once physical longlivety arrives. After all, things are only "meta"physical until physics finds the correct answer - and then refinds the answer - and then corrects it a bit again....it`s great :-D.

Edited by chrwe, 23 May 2010 - 04:11 AM.


#68 eternaltraveler

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Posted 23 May 2010 - 04:39 PM

If Quantum entanglement is true, and by all means it does seem to be true, then how is it possible that our consciousness does not affect the reality around us and far from us?


I'm not really sure what you mean by the question. There have been no experiments that have shown the human brain does any quantum computations (as the quantum states appear to decohere too rapidly to affect neuronal behavior). And even if they don't that still doesn't imply something supernatural. I've already peripherally addressed collapse of the wave function and how there are many possible interpretations too it.

Of course consciousness does indeed affect the reality around us. We build cities and airplanes....

Perhaps you could reword the question, I genuinely don't entirely understand what you're asking.

Edited by eternaltraveler, 24 May 2010 - 02:42 AM.

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#69 .fonclea.

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Posted 23 May 2010 - 05:39 PM

I voted for agnostic. (may be atheist)

Believes stop to exist from a coutry to another. Humans tried to explained by God(s) things that some can't explain even now.

May be there is something but i never heard about somebody coming back from death giving us details about an afterlife.

Life is a mystery, let say there are just coincidences lol


#70 ken_akiba

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Posted 23 May 2010 - 05:52 PM

"as the quantum states appear to decohere too rapidly to affect neuronal behavior"
Are you aware that we can now even able to stack light particles using quantum entanglement? Quantum states do not decohere.
http://www.physorg.c...s185372336.html

Edited by ken_akiba, 23 May 2010 - 06:07 PM.


#71 eternaltraveler

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Posted 23 May 2010 - 08:51 PM

Quantum states do not decohere.


you do realize if that were true there wouldn't be such a thing as classical physics...

you haven't clarified what you were trying to ask.

#72 ken_akiba

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Posted 23 May 2010 - 09:04 PM

Straw manning seems to be norm or even encouraged here. Read the recent quantum breakthrough below and learn why Quantum states do not decohere nor our everyday life (or what you call classical physics). We are stacking light particles via quantum entanglement now.

http://www.physorg.c...s185372336.html

#73 eternaltraveler

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Posted 24 May 2010 - 02:12 AM

Straw manning


you keep using this word, I don't think it means what you think it means.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man

though again, I really have to stress that I did not entirely understand what you were asking or your point, and you still haven't clarified this. So I suppose its possible I was addressing something entirely different from whatever it is your intention was.

Read the recent quantum breakthrough below and learn why Quantum states do not decohere nor our everyday life (or what you call classical physics). We are stacking light particles via quantum entanglement now.

http://www.physorg.c...s185372336.html


are you going to state your question in an understandable way or continue to post the same article (blog entry?) that doesn't even address your own point? Quantum states do decohere in normal environments, most importantly they do at 37 degrees C in an aqueous environment.

http://pre.aps.org/a.../v61/i4/p4194_1

And even if quantum states didn't decohere and the human brain does indeed function as a quantum computer, so what? Quantum physics isn't magic, it wouldn't suggest anything like what you seem to think (though I admit I am still having trouble understanding what it is you think).

Please present evidence that the human brain does any quantum computations, you also may wish to present evidence quantum entanglement plays any role in the brain as well. Either that or just continue to post the same article where some physicists used entanglement to do weird things (we all already know quantum physics is weird).

btw here is the source your blog entry is based on
http://arxiv.org/PS_...0908.4113v1.pdf

which doesn't support half of what they write in the blog entry and certainly doesn't support anything you are saying (its nothing at all like stacking photos like legos). Primary sources are important.

After you've done that please present further evidence that the correct interpretation of quantum mechanics is that consciousness causes wave function collapse (which is the interpretation mostly espoused by "the Secret").

After you've done that I will return to the discussion.

Edited by eternaltraveler, 24 May 2010 - 02:59 AM.


#74 eternaltraveler

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Posted 24 May 2010 - 02:50 AM

But it does seem as if we still know that we don`t know a lot


believe those who seek the truth. Doubt those who find it.
-Gide

#75 shadowhawk

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Posted 24 May 2010 - 09:07 PM

*sigh*

You have yet to produce any evidence


I haven't made any claims...

attacking me because of my faith.


I never attacked you in any way shape or form. I attacked your viewpoint which is not at all the same thing. This is not personal.

Do you want to have a discussion and leave the ad hominems out of it? I'll retract my regrettably heated response that I was done with you if you desire. You're intelligent, and I'm not dismissive of you as a human being at all. I do think you hold one viewpoint that is unsupported. I'll even go through your article and address it's points if you wish (as time permits). I will be blunt, and if that is something that will make you upset then I'll wish you well and end this conversation more amicably.


The topic of this forum is a poll, what is your “Faith?” That is the topic. I don’t know how many Christians, who are members of ImmInst, answered the poll but I did and I think I am one of few from the results of the poll.

This means the majority have views (faith) other than mine and for that matter different than each other. No one was asked to defend the answer. Take Duke Nukim for example. He is one of my favorites, the main reasons I came to the ImmInst, and continue to be interested and involved. I like his intelligent comments and health views. His answer to the “Faith” poll, is “Atheist,.” (He has his own unique take). Again, this answer is in response to what is your Faith? I find this perfectly logical and consistent with the topic even though it is not my faith.. I didn’t feel like it was my or anyone elses job to correct him. It was His Faith. I am not sure if it is off topic or not but I am perfectly willing to discuss reasons for belief and faith.

Let me return again to the Kalam argument for the existence of God. There are many others in the article I gave but I have already started with this. It says:

1. Everything that begins to exist has a cause of its existence.
2. The universe began to exist.
3. Therefore the universe has a cause of its existence.


So lets start with premiss one By the way, it is only fair that you also have to give reasons for your faith, (I know you claim to not have one)
Everything that begins to exist has a cause of its existence




#76 shadowhawk

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Posted 25 May 2010 - 12:28 AM

I am not an evangelical Christian but William Lane Craig's Article is a good example of a contemporary philosophers defense of the classical arguments for the existence of God, from an Atheist source. Being an Evangelical Christian has nothing to do with anything, except perhaps to a bigot. I have the source in my library and don't see any cherry pickling from any contributor Christan or Atheist. He has debated leading Atheists all over the world. (If he was a Jew I bet you would be just as dismissive. It is called bigotry)

He was one of those that caused Antony Flew, the world famous atheist to become a Theist. He was there when Flew got an honorary doctorate a couple years ago.
"There Is A God" How the world's most notorious atheist changed his mind.
http://www.amazon.co...=There is a god

Give me an example where he "cherry picked ". You impugn "most" Christian thinkers of doing this, Who?


Why not give us some of the arguments you've learned rather than links to the books you learned them from?


The reason I believe most people cite sources is because not everyone who reads the writing is interested in reading a repeat of the source. No use repeating sources over and over. Some people want more and they can go to the footnote or link. I do it all the time, even here on the ImmInst. If someone cites something, and I am interested, I check out the link and often I bookmark it or in the case of a book, I may buy it. Flew is well worth the read. I recommend you check it out.
“There is a God” Antony Flew
http://www.amazon.co...-...0197&sr=1-1

Here is a interesting illustration that comes after Flew has finished tracing his journey from atheism to Theism.. He claims to have followed where the evidence leads and examines Atheism, a position he held for most of his life. He claims to having through this process, eventually discovered the Divine.

Flew calls this process, “a Pilgrimage of Reason..”

Here is the parable he starts with: Pg. 85
Imagine a cell phone is washed upon a shore of a remote island where primitive natives live. This tribe has had no contact with modern society. The natives play with the phone and hit the buttons. To Their amazement there are sounds and they hear voices. They believe that the sounds and voices are properties of the phone.

Being clever natives they decide to make an exact copy of the phone and they do. To their amazement it works exactly like the original! Some Natives were convinced, obviously the voices come from the combination of crystals and metals, chemicals and shapes. The noises and voices are simply other properties of the device.

The Natives call a council of the best and brightest to discuss this. Soon disagreements sprang up. The Witch doctor believes the voices were coming through the device and there must be other people somewhere that were talking. He is condemned as less intelligent there being a rule of logic known as Ockmans Razor which states the simplest explanation is to be preferred. No reason to complicate things by postulating the existence of other beings.

The Witch doctor insisted that if you did not have faith in other unseen beings you would never understand the phone. He is rejected when he asks “What would have to occur, or to have occurred to you, to constitute a reason to at least consider the existence of an unseen, or other greater minds?”Posted Image
Posted Image

#77 eternaltraveler

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Posted 25 May 2010 - 01:14 AM

No one was asked to defend the answer


1. You asked me to respond to your questions after i was more than happy to leave well enough alone.
2. You should be prepared to defend absolutely anything you say here.

#78 eternaltraveler

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Posted 25 May 2010 - 01:18 AM

1. Everything that begins to exist has a cause of its existence.
2. The universe began to exist.
3. Therefore the universe has a cause of its existence.


So the default option for a cause of the universes existence is a (infinitely) complex god? Why in the world should we make this assumption?

Why not just admit that we really don't know a damn thing about the cause of the universes existence and wait for more data?

#79 eternaltraveler

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Posted 25 May 2010 - 01:23 AM

you also have to give reasons for your faith, (I know you claim to not have one)

My faith is that I don't have a clue other than being reasonably sure some ancient peoples didn't have a clue either? What am I supposed to give reasons for exactly? My lack of knowledge? Isn't not knowing enough of a reason to claim not to know? :)

In order to get an idea of what flavor of christian you are can I ask how old you think the world is, and do you think the earth was flooded? Are you a creationist?

Edited by eternaltraveler, 25 May 2010 - 11:20 AM.


#80 drus

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Posted 25 May 2010 - 01:28 AM

regarding quantum theory and human consciousness i suggest reading 'the emperors new mind' and 'shadows of the mind' by roger penrose. very interesting books on the subject.

#81 ken_akiba

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Posted 25 May 2010 - 02:02 AM

Hmm.. Where to start..
Well anyway it was you who came up with 'quantum computation - brain acitivity' association. Forget about that.

Now you say "its nothing at all like stacking photos like legos". It's funny because it is exactly what they have achieved.
http://www.chemie.de/news/e/113458/

I thought about it: How in universe this person is not grasping the earthshattering importance/implications of this experiment?
Answer: Maybe this guy does not know that photon is a 'force carrier' of all elementary particles (electrons, protons, neutrons, and such).
I'll try to explain real simpe, hopefully...

All matter are made of electrons, protons, neutrons etc. including brain, and photon is a force carrier or 'messenger' between(among) these particles. And now the experiment above conclusively proves that quantum entanglement phenomenon is a 'physical-reality' enough to warrant a 'lego stacking' experiment. Now what you really need to understand is that entangled photons are everywhere as countless numbers of entangled photons were produced at the time of Big Bang. Now this means in your brain and also in the object you are about to observe, are huge number of photons that are entangled.

Now what does this mean?

PS
Whoever is authorized do so, please deactivate my account. I chose to delete my reallife avatar because, about a week ago, one of my s******s found me here. Also 'hangin' around' in this forum is rapidly becoming my fruitless addiction, and my life at this point of time, cannot afford such distraction, not to mention I am starting to spill out pieces of my potential future income :-) And above it all, I do not feel that I belong here. Too much of mean-spiritedness. I have requested this to one of the directors, I got no answer. So I would appreciate it if you could just deactivate my account. Thank you.

Edited by ken_akiba, 25 May 2010 - 02:23 AM.


#82 bobdrake12

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Posted 25 May 2010 - 03:12 AM

One believes matter is eternal (physical universe) and the other believes an eternal God did it. Posted Image


Both solutions are illogical since both violate causality.


True, Adam!

There are a lot of things that we don't know.

#83 chrwe

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Posted 25 May 2010 - 04:41 AM

That`s why I keep saying that the only position of the truly open and critical mind at the moment can be: 100% agnostic.

One has to accept that this means allowing for the possibility that there might be a conscious force in the universe that we might regard as "God" in relation to ourselves, and to also allow for the possibility that there might not be such a force.

Because we just don`t know enough about the "big 8" as brokenportal names them.

#84 Cameron

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Posted 25 May 2010 - 07:07 AM

1. Everything that begins to exist has a cause of its existence.
2. The universe began to exist.
3. Therefore the universe has a cause of its existence.


So lets start with premiss one By the way, it is only fair that you also have to give reasons for your faith, (I know you claim to not have one)
Everything that begins to exist has a cause of its existence


Let's assume God exists, and let's assume he is and has always been omniscient. Then in his mind exists the knowledge of each and every state of a photo-realistic simulation of the world indistinguishable from it, and also how it runs, everything about it would be present. Basically the entire information that defines the universe would exist, and would've existed outside of time without a beginning. For those inside the simulation they would feel an apparent beginning, but the fact is the simulation would be atemporal. If the universe does prove to be but information deep down, then we can assume that if we assume God exists, then some form of the universe too is eternal, though again from within there would be an apparent beginning.

An apparent beginning does not mean something is not atemporal. The sentence "A boy woke up today and ran to school" would appear to have a beginning from within, but it is part of one of many possible sequences in the landscape of possibilities. Even if you didn't search for it, even if no one wrote it, it would exist as a possible combination of letters, and possible combinations are atemporal.

Information and ideas do not seem to need a beginning.

#85 AdamSummerfield

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Posted 25 May 2010 - 04:30 PM

Here is the parable he starts with: Pg. 85
Imagine a cell phone is washed upon a shore of a remote island where primitive natives live. This tribe has had no contact with modern society. The natives play with the phone and hit the buttons. To Their amazement there are sounds and they hear voices. They believe that the sounds and voices are properties of the phone.

Being clever natives they decide to make an exact copy of the phone and they do. To their amazement it works exactly like the original! Some Natives were convinced, obviously the voices come from the combination of crystals and metals, chemicals and shapes. The noises and voices are simply other properties of the device.

The Natives call a council of the best and brightest to discuss this. Soon disagreements sprang up. The Witch doctor believes the voices were coming through the device and there must be other people somewhere that were talking. He is condemned as less intelligent there being a rule of logic known as Ockmans Razor which states the simplest explanation is to be preferred. No reason to complicate things by postulating the existence of other beings.

The Witch doctor insisted that if you did not have faith in other unseen beings you would never understand the phone. He is rejected when he asks “What would have to occur, or to have occurred to you, to constitute a reason to at least consider the existence of an unseen, or other greater minds?”Posted Image
Posted Image


I don't think this is original. It's simply the teleological argument. It has been refuted.

#86 shadowhawk

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Posted 25 May 2010 - 07:10 PM

Here is the parable he starts with: Pg. 85
Imagine a cell phone is washed upon a shore of a remote island where primitive natives live. This tribe has had no contact with modern society. The natives play with the phone and hit the buttons. To Their amazement there are sounds and they hear voices. They believe that the sounds and voices are properties of the phone.

Being clever natives they decide to make an exact copy of the phone and they do. To their amazement it works exactly like the original! Some Natives were convinced, obviously the voices come from the combination of crystals and metals, chemicals and shapes. The noises and voices are simply other properties of the device.

The Natives call a council of the best and brightest to discuss this. Soon disagreements sprang up. The Witch doctor believes the voices were coming through the device and there must be other people somewhere that were talking. He is condemned as less intelligent there being a rule of logic known as Ockmans Razor which states the simplest explanation is to be preferred. No reason to complicate things by postulating the existence of other beings.

The Witch doctor insisted that if you did not have faith in other unseen beings you would never understand the phone. He is rejected when he asks "What would have to occur, or to have occurred to you, to constitute a reason to at least consider the existence of an unseen, or other greater minds?"Posted Image
Posted Image


I don't think this is original. It's simply the teleological argument. It has been refuted.


I don't believe you have this right. The above did not say there were other natives, only asked the question. There is much more than this parable and it itself is not an argument for anything. Aside from this, you state the teleological argument has been refuted, how? Posted Image

#87 shadowhawk

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Posted 25 May 2010 - 09:03 PM

*sigh*

You have yet to produce any evidence


I haven't made any claims...

attacking me because of my faith.


I never attacked you in any way shape or form. I attacked your viewpoint which is not at all the same thing. This is not personal.

Do you want to have a discussion and leave the ad hominems out of it? I'll retract my regrettably heated response that I was done with you if you desire. You're intelligent, and I'm not dismissive of you as a human being at all. I do think you hold one viewpoint that is unsupported. I'll even go through your article and address it's points if you wish (as time permits). I will be blunt, and if that is something that will make you upset then I'll wish you well and end this conversation more amicably.



This is insincere given your last posts,and nonsense responses I’ll be blunt, you are nothing but a flamer without the slightest sincerity with no evidence or logic.
For those who might be further interested in the argument I put forth, read, “The Kalam Cosmological Argument” for the existence of God.
http://www.amazon.co...n...8688&sr=1-2

Here is another good book by aother Christian Philosopher that relate to some of the issues that have been raised.
Contending with Christianity's Critics: Answering New Atheists and Other Objectors
http://www.amazon.co...yhuc__sbs_02_03

Contending with Christianity’s Critics is book two in a series on modern Christian apologetics that began with the popular Passionate Conviction. This second installment, featuring writings from eighteen respected apologists such as Gary Habermas and Ben Witherington, addresses challenges from noted New Atheists like Richard Dawkins (The God Delusion) and other contemporary critics of Christianity concerning belief in God, the historical Jesus, and Christianity’s doctrinal coherence. Contending with Christianity's Critics and Passionate Conviction are the result of national apologetics conferences sponsored by the Evangelical Philosophical Society (www.epsociety.org).
Posted Image

#88 eternaltraveler

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Posted 25 May 2010 - 09:25 PM

Right. Bye.

#89 AdamSummerfield

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Posted 25 May 2010 - 09:32 PM

Aside from this, you state the teleological argument has been refuted, how? Posted Image



Order or "fine-tuning" that we observe does not imply an orderer or tuner. To argue that it does would be to affirm the consequent, a classical logical fallacy. It implies only that processes exist that are non-random, such as laws governing evolution or the four fundamental forces.
Teleological arguers would point out that the laws themselves are the order they originally pointed to, but to suggest that an orderer or tuner is the cause of such laws coming into place is illogical. This owes to the fact that to do so is to attempt to solve complexity by inserting more complexity. Since any creator had to be as complicated or more complicated than the universe in preposition for arranging it. This also leads to an infinite regress, since any originator of the creator we supposed had to be as complicated or more complicated than said creator in order to bring that creator into existence, ad infinitum.

Edited by AdamSummerfield, 25 May 2010 - 09:33 PM.


#90 revenant

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Posted 25 May 2010 - 11:47 PM

I do not believe in gods, spirits, or afterlife. I think we only get the one life we have now...then nothing.




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