AynRand

The book is amazing, and the movies are alright. Definitely read the book first.

Cracked up so hard. I only watched the first 30 seconds, but he made so many assumptions I couldn't help but break the tension to burst out laughing.

Welcome to the community. If you ever need any clarity on Stefan's newer views I might be able to help although asking him I'm sure would give better results, however I think I'm pretty well caught up.

Not that this is relevant at all, but I am actually not convinced by the big bang model. I realize that I go against the grain on this issue, but I am not entirely convinced. However even if I did support the big bang model that would not lead to a connection to evolution. This is an obvious non sequitur because again the theory of evolution makes no claims on the origin of the universe. It's reasonable to infer that (assuming abiogenesis started at the same time) evolution would be uneffected whether or not the universe was started 1 billion years ago, or 100 quadrillion years ago.

Once again this is a misunderstanding of evolution. The same natural processes that cause micro evolution which is something that it appears you support, are the same processes that cause what you call "macro evolution". The difference between micro and macro evolution is the time scale, and not the natural processes. Funny, but I can make witty substance free one liners about religion as well. Christianity: One woman's lie about having an affair that got seriously out of hand.

Just saying that maybe Kent Hovind might not be an expert on evolution, or even have a most basic grasp of the concept of evolution. "Adolf Hitler, for instance, was an avid evolutionist. In order to comprehend Hitler's reasoning, one must go back to evolution to understand why he did the things that he did, and thought the way he though." - Kent Hovind

I laughed so hard when I read this. Thank you Shirgall.

Is this a serious post? Speaking as a double major in biology, and chemistry, and as a person who has more then 18 months experience working in a biochem lab. I can reasonably say you have some fundamental misunderstandings of what evolution is (assuming that this is a serious post). The theory of evolution makes no claims on the origin of the universe, so I'm not sure why you mentioned the big bang. The theory of evolution makes no claims on abiogenesis because evolution is the change from one population of organisms to another. It is an undeniable fact of nature that organisms change, and I might add that I witness the change of bacteria on a weekly basis. This occurs after thousands of generations. It seems that you are implying that a dog gives birth to a cat or something. Do you mean to deny that organisms change from one population to another?

GuzzyBone I haven now lost all patience that I had for this thread. I find your last post to be unbelievably condescending. You gave me the impression that you believe you were somehow better then the rest of us, and that you were putting forward such great arguments that only idiots could not be persuaded by. I will not dignify myself to respond to you're entire last post, so I'll just briefly hit the highlights. I believe you got your definitions from the oxford dictionary, and if you search anarchy in the same book the definition will be A state of disorder due to absence or nonrecognition of authority: he must ensure public order in a country threatened with anarchy. My point to this is terminology changes from place to place. It may not always be wise to by the dictionary on understanding language. I do thank you for the explanation for me using a book with similar arguments. I must say that is the only significant redeeming quality for you last post. I find it very funny that just when we were getting to the part of the thread were you were going to elaborate on all this great evidence in support of theism you decide that we are not worthy for this evidence. All you have done is attacked common atheist statements, and backed it up with something to the effect of I'll prove it later, and when that time finally comes you decide to not bless us with that information. I maintain that with the exception of my bad manners that I have already addressed you have not validated a single supernatural claim instead you have cited a series of red herrings, and passed it off as evidence. You have shown a fundamental misunderstanding of how science and philosophy are approached in reality. Not that this is relevant anymore, but how does explaining that perfect squares and circles cannot exist result in a conclusion that square circles can exist? You have shown a blatant misunderstanding of Aristotle's law's and attempted to misconstrue the wording in some sad attempt at trying to deceive us. I am amazed at the inability to look in a mirror and apply those same standards that you detail in your 7th or 8th paragraph from the end to yourself. Again I maintain that with a considerable amount of evidence I would be prepared to believe in some sort of supernatural, however you in no way demonstrated the existence of any deity let alone the christian god, and as a result I believe I am fully justified in remaining an atheist. We may have lost a member today, and that is sad and unfortunate, but you missed out on the opportunity to convert an entire online community of atheists which I would argue is equally as bad.

I would appreciate a further elaboration on this subject, but maybe on a different thread as this has little to do with god. Your second paragraph makes little sense in terms of logic. As with the square circle analogy because of it's definition both parties cannot be correct when determining if it is either a square or a circle. In physical reality you have either a square or a circle, but you cannot have both. "God doesn't exist AND God does exist." So in admitted truth, me and Stefan are BOTH right and BOTH wrong. However, adopting one side fully and absolutely is hardly what we could call "understanding truth". That is a huge claim to make. You still have not demonstrated how something can both exist and at the same time under the same conditions not exist. If you are having trouble understanding the concept of Infinity (Paradox) as the ultimate and only constant physical law of the universe, or if you simply refuse to admit or believe it. I believe you are the one having trouble understanding the concept of Paradox's and how they cannot exist in nature. As in all of science, contradictions and paradoxes are generally assumed to be artifacts of error and incompleteness because reality is assumed to be completely consistent. Sorry I think I posting editor is glitching. It should have all your statements in quotes, but for some reason it doesn't appear that they are in quotes. His post was a claim without being backed by evidence. Essentially every claim you have made in this entire thread has been a claim without evidence. I'm not seeing the difference. If this were any other thread I would cite the claims that you have made without being backed by evidence, however I believe I have been very vocal about this issue on this thread, so I think my previous posts will be all the evidence necessary. I don't mean to excuse J. D. Stembal's post, however I will point out the blatant hypocrisy when I see it.

I believe you misinterpreted my post. I did not mean to say that because you are attacking statements generally made by atheists that this this invalidates the bible. I was not trying to be snide by saying I look forward to your arguments for the bible. Although looking back at my post it may have unintentionally come off as snide. I believe that is a reasonable position to hold, however I am a firm believer that if the logic is solid enough then what you call the "wall of myth" can be dismantled if the opposition has even a basic understanding of your position. For example if I say "I am a supporter of free market capitalism, and by that I mean trade without violence" then the opposition comes back and says "then that means you want warlords to take over the world" inherently free market's do not have warlords. If you have warlords then you do not have the free market. This obviously only works whenever both parties are being rational, but I maintain that most members of this community are rational. I honestly meant no disrespect for that particular comment. I am curious why that is disrespectful to point out a book with very similar arguments. I must admit I am not the best with social protocols, and often am oblivious to errors that I unintentionally make. My logic behind this is that if the arguments are sound and reasonable in this book then shouldn't these arguments be used on a much broader scale, and I apologize for any that I offended. I guessing you did not understand my post. I'll try to clarify to use your analogy If a tree falls and nobody witnesses it or it's effects then that is not conclusive evidence that the tree does not exist, but on the flip side then their is no logical reason to support the existence of the tree. I believe that is entirely in line with the reasoning I gave on my last few posts. Still I will try to respond to all of your points. I've just been pretty busy lately. I believe that is another misunderstanding of Stefan's view. I believe what he was saying is that thoughts do not physically exist. Not that because we can't physically see thoughts they don't exist. Similar to how the state does not physically exist. Only buildings and people violating the non aggression principle exist. I don't believe you have supported that claim to my satisfaction. I'm afraid this is a law of logic. I would be very fascinated to hear you explain how a contradictory statement can be proven correct with the usage of physical evidence? In no way have you demonstrated that a square circle can exist. Simply stating that squares and circles are imperfect in reality has nothing to do with the original claim whether or not square circles can exist. Then you try a straw man to explain that because practical numbers are imprecise that we suddenly don't believe math has any basis in reality. I'll point this out again this has nothing to do with the validity of the bible. This is a blatant red herring trying to distract us for the issue at hand. I'm sure that second paragraph is a joke, but I'll still give a real answer. You clearly misunderstood what the terms of the "square circle are" the challenge is to find a square that is at the exact same time with the exact same dimensions a circle. In addition you must find something that is inherently a square and a circle which at the same time cannot be a square and cannot be a circle. Do you understand that the way the challenge is set up it is physically impossible to meet it's conditions. Therefore it is reasonable to conclude that "square circles" do not exist.

I must admit this is an impressive wall of text given. I will try to respond to all of your points, but their is no way I can do that in a single post, so forgive the five or six little posts that I'll try to make throughout today. I noticed that you didn't make any arguments for the bible which is very interesting. I look forward to hearing those arguments. It appears you have just attacked several common atheistic questions which is fine, but I still look forward to reasons why we should follow the bible. Also I'd like to add that while I have not read the bible I have read (if you will excuse my language) a crapload of christian and muslim theology books, and would like to point out that I believe I have read the book you have taken several of your points from which is reasonable faith. I think the best response to that book is from Steve Shives. I'll give the link, but honestly I wouldn't expect anyone to go through his whole series because it's like 8 hours long. Disclaimer if you do watch his videos only watch his videos on atheism because his is a statist, and makes several videos in defense of the state, and feminism. I think it's very mean to link an 8 hour video or like a 200 page book as a response so instead I will try my best to refute as many of your points on my own because I think that's unreasonable to expect people to spend 8 hours on something that isn't really worth the time, but then again people on FDR do like to go the extra mile, so I will give the link. https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL3E7E9155B5404B79 To start off I think this is your first point, but this is a misunderstanding of existence. You state that we know of things that cannot be observed or understood, but I believe the effects of these things can be observed which is what you state in your definition, so I am confused why did you include this in your post. As I understand it no one has ever seen an electron, but humanity believes they exist. The reason we believe electrons exist is because we can see the effects of electrons. If you mean to say that we know of the existence of "microcosms and macroscosms" without seeing their effects or literally seeing these structures then I would appreciate if you would back that claim up with evidence, but then again I think that's kind of pointless because this has nothing to do with whether or not the bible can be validated. Like I said I'll try to keep going, but I don't like posting huge amounts of text in a single post. That's just a personal choice. I just find it difficult to keep my train of thought when there are so many points to discuss. This is a misunderstanding of Stefan's view on existence. He does not mean to imply that only what is currently known to humanity exists, but instead what he means is that without some sort of effect or evidence to support the existence of something then there is no reason to state for certainty that the existence of that object in fact exists. To use your bigfoot example because bigfoot is not inherently contradictory it is possible for him to exist, however because no tangible or physical evidence supports his existence then any person making the truth claim that "bigfoot exists" is to be assumed as wrong. This is a core tenant of logic that the positive claim bears the burden of proof. Once again this is a misunderstanding of Stefan's view. He does not make the truth claim that god or gods do not exist because of lack of evidence. When an atheists says "god does not exist" generally speaking he means to say that "evidence for god does not exist" which is a negative argument. Negative arguments do not bear the burden of proof to support their view. They need to only refute evidence in support of the positive claim. For example If I say "evidence for gravity does not exist" this is a relatively easy argument for the party that supports the positive argument that "gravity does exist" because evidence could be seeing the effects of what happens when any object with mass is placed on the earth. By this I mean very good evidence can be cited to support gravity, so it can be reasonably inferred that gravity exists.

Sorry this is going to be a mean post. I make no real arguments here I'm just satisfying the jerk inside me. I apologize to anyone who takes offense by this post. I'll probably remove this later, but a friend sent me this, and I just can't help myself. "Your word, LORD, is eternal; it stands firm in the heavens" Psalms 119:89. I'm certainly no biblical expert, or honestly even qualified to make any sort of judgment on the bible, but my interpretation of this verse is that the word of god is eternal and unchanging. Sorry to harp on this because I realize this thread is not about immorality in the bible, but again I can't help myself. So when god demands death to gay people 4000 years ago I believe that it is reasonable to infer that since his word is eternal, and he has given little indication of changing his mind that we should in fact kill gay people. Obviously that is a violation of the non aggression principle and as a result I would deem actions like that immoral, but I'm just saying that an interpretation of the bible is that people in 2015 AD are bound to the laws that god has demanded of his creation regardless of the date in which these laws were laid out. I hope you see the issue I'm trying to bring up.

I take Thomasio's side on this. I wouldn't go so far as to say in every instance religion has been on the wrong side of morality, but I will say the majority of what should be the most basic uncontroversial morals have had to been fought tooth and nail against religion. I find it incredibly hilarious when religious people claim we get morality from their respective holy books. I think that is a great line. I am curious is that from a speech or something, or did you just think of that. Either way I applaud you for most of your comment.

I don't make the claim that god could not be proven. What I say is that their is insufficient evidence supporting your god hypothesis. I think you might be surprised to see that when you finally do make rational arguments then people will convert to your cause, but until a rational argument is put forward we will remain atheists. I've interpreted this as meaning evidence is not necessary to prove god which I need not say more than I disagree with that. If god can not be shown directly to you then why would you support the notion of god? What did you hope to accomplish by this line? Instead of saying this I would recommend saying something to the effect of "Atheists are wrong because of the non fallacious well reasoned logical sequence of" ...(then proceed with an actual argument). So far you have not mentioned a single argument in favor of the bible, and as a result I find it strange that you will call us atheists ignorant. That's a mighty big assumption you just made there. Care to back that up with something existing in reality? Also which god do you refer to Zeus, Allah, Horus? My point is that again that is not an argument but a thinly veiled facade trying to distract us from the lack of arguments that you haven't presented. I eagerly look forward to an argument that you will hopefully eventually present.

I will retract my statement because I did not word it as clearly as i should have, however I will stand by the sentiment I was trying to convey. Whether or not the holy books support what the state was doing and in my opinion holy books do support the state, but whether or not that is true, states cite religion as an excuse for what they do. Staes citing religion as an excuse does not inherently mean that religion perpetuates state violence, but I still believe religion is a contributing factor to the evils of statism. By this I mean states will tend to follow the path of least resistance to further their own power. Universally states have done this (with the exception of a few quote unquote "communist" countries including the soviet union) by allying themselves with the church in some form or another. Whether it be tax incentives or a establishing a national religion historically states support religion. Once again I realize this is not evidence against the bible, so I will emphasize that I did not mean to imply that this was, but I do support the sentiment behind "statist power and religion go hand in hand". In addition I was curious what is your interpretation of "render unto ceaser what is ceaser's, and render unto god what is gods"?

This quote makes me question your intentions. At any point did I say the people are not responsible for their actions? If an insane person truly believes that reading catcher in the rye will tell you to murder john lennon then I believe that person is responsible for his actions, however I would argue then that catcher in the rye will be a contributing factor to the death of john lennon, but the person is still responsible for all immoral acts done in the name of catcher in the rye. I will add that obviously that is a gross misinterpretation of catcher in the rye, and if the murderer had never read catcher in the rye then he would have used another medium to justify the murder of john lennon. But once again and this is the most important part I realize this is not evidence for or against the bible. None of the atrocious acts were supernatural in nature, and as a result I have not and never will use atrocious acts as inherently disproving the bible. This whole quote is a non sequiter. My only reason for being an atheist is lack of evidence supporting the bible or any holy book for that matter.

I'm sorry but once again this is not an argument (and again I'm sorry if this was not meant to be an argument in which case my bad again), but if you replace the word god in that paragraph with santa claus would you be pursuaded to believe in santa clause, or what if you replaced god with allah, or zeus? What you seem to leave out in this is that the vast majority of people believe that they have had a close personal relationship to a diety that is entirely different from the one you believe in. Similar to saying a lot of people support my postion because they are human, and I'm a human has nothing to do with the original claim, but again even if every single person in the history of mankind believed in not only the deity you believe in but the specific interpretation of the holy book that you support that still would not be evidence for your god. People can be wrong, on many basic things. A good example is that just 130 years ago no one in all of history knew what DNA was. People had many beliefs on what encoded genetic information, but everyone is wrong. Forgive me for being cynical, but I do believe an underlying motive of yours is to not neccesarily convert atheists to christians, but to at least make a point that Christianity is a reasonable position to hold. You speak of evidence, and I must admit it has not been shown to me. Sorry to plagurize Christopher Hitchens here but "saying that we have free will because our boss says we have free will makes a mockery of the whole idea". Honestly this is embarassing, but I have never fully read the bible, so I won't argue in depth on what it says, but I am curious are you saying the the new testament cancels out the old testament. I believe that the ten commandments are only in the old testament does this mean they are no longer contingent to gods standard of morality? Also are you implying that the new testament is less immoral then the old because I do believe many verses will contradict that idea? I am sorry but this sounds like meaningless platitudes. Would you mind explaining this a little better because again I think you could say this about literally any idea. Again I am searching for truth, and as I have little ways to find objective truth I have to rely on my senses, and since god in not immediately available to any of my senses evidence is needed to confirm his existence. I must say I feel left out that others can have such a close and personal relationship with a deity, and yet when I think thoughts in my mind nobody replies. I'll try to respond to the rest of your points later, but I need to do homework now. I would like to thank you for opening up about your upbringing I find it very interesting.

I find this thread facinating, but I'm confused ss this thread supposed to be a discussion for evidence that supports or refutes the bible? I'm interested you have pointed this out. Would you agree though that statist power and religion go hand in hand. By that I mean that many times religions will be used to justify statist power instances such as "give to Ceasar what is Ceasar's". and many times states will use religion to justify it's actions for instance "god will create more earthquakes if we allow gay marriage so that's way gay people aren't allowed rights." My point to this is that religion was not necessarily a primary cause to these atrocious human events, but was a contributing factor. But again that doesn't matter as this is not solid evidence against the bible. What does matter is the evidence that can be provided whether or not the bible can be validated. I'm sorry if I've mistaken your point of view, but I've interpreted your posts as you believe that parts of the bible are true when put in the correct historical context. Sorry if I've missed this part of your post, but again I'm working off the assumption that you believe the bible is somehow in line with god's thinking. So if god wanted death to gay people 4000 years ago wouldn't it still be reasonable to infer that gay people should be put to death today because god hasn't told us that he has revised his opinion?

I'm confused by your post. Truth is the goal that we strive for in this community. Religions, or at least holy books have no compelling evidence to follow them. The lack of evidence combined with being definitionally false (omnipitant omnipresent is an oxymoron same as saying you have found a square circle) leads me to believe that very little truth has been placed in holy books. None of your four points are arguments (although maybe they weren't meant to be arguments in which case my bad). They are essentially appeal to majority fallacies. If people can get a sense of morality from being "spiritual" then good for them, but I would rather search for truth. I'm confused by the last paragraph where you say the "teachings, beliefs, and messages" are not being addressed from atheists. I disagree, granted that i'm only going off my own anecdotal evidence, but I believe that the atheist community is very vocal about expressing the immoralities of the old testament and new testament. In fact I believe that Hitchens made a very compelling lecture on how the 10 commandments are immoral, and why I think 6 or 7 of them shouldn't even be followed. I realize that it is very difficult to understand a position by just identifing yourself as a christian, but I'm going to presume that you believe the bible was written by god or is inspired by god, or in line with gods thinking, or something to that effect. I realize that many christians do not believe the bible is related to god in any way, but I'm not exactly sure what they believe. If I am wrong, and you don't believe the bible is in line with gods thinking then please don't read my next paragraph. The Bible is filled with what appears to be god morally justifing violations of the non agression principle. I'm sure I don't really need to go into to many details, but a lot of evil occurs in the bible.

Just awful. The message of that article is "if we just beat our kids more then all our problems will go away". How can this get any worse?

Great article. I look forward to reading your new blog.

An irrational belief that statist run police enforcers are the best way to "keep the peace" did this to Baltimore.

I'm confused. What is the purpose of this post?

I would like to say that I think I have been respectful and polite every time we have talked. I would like to add that I'm always open to conversation just PM me or find me on the chat room.