Let's cut to the chase. Do you have any evidence?

[no evidence no belief]

I feel like we've been beating around the bush for... 6000 years!

Can you please either provide some evidence for your supernatural beliefs, or admit that you have no evidence?

If you believe there once was a talking donkey (Numbers 22) could you please provide evidence?

If you believe there once was a zombie invasion in Jerusalem (Mat 27) could you please provide evidence?

If you believe in the flying horse (Islam) could you please provide evidence?

Walking on water, virgin births, radioactive spiders who give you superpowers, turning water into wine, turning iron into gold, demons, goblins, ghosts, hobbits, elves, angels, unicorns and Santa.

Can you PLEASE provide evidence?

[help3434]

[Replying to post 2896 by olavisjo]

You say you are very skeptical by nature, yet you believe that dna disproves evolution and that biologists over the last 60 years have somehow missed that, while you and whatever creationist website you got this idea from has got it right.

[Danmark]

.

Darwin is saying that every case he looked at was "formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications." And that is the case.

So, can you support your claim?

You have been given ample evidence to support the claim of evolution and that creationism (ID) is not even science.
But there is more. In the law we have a principle called res judicata. It means the thing has already been decided. In Dover vs Kitzmiller the issue you claim there's no proof of was decided:
A portion of the decision in that case:
ID is not science. We find that ID fails on three different levels, any one of which is sufficient to preclude a determination that ID is science. They are: (1) ID violates the centuries-old ground rules of science by invoking and permitting supernatural causation; (2) the argument of irreducible complexity, central to ID, employs the same flawed and illogical contrived dualism that doomed creation science in the 1980s; and (3) ID's negative attacks on evolution have been refuted by the scientific community. …It is additionally important to note that ID has failed to gain acceptance in the scientific community, it has not generated peer-reviewed publications, nor has it been the subject of testing and research.

The case is closed. It is over. You lose. No matter how many slogans from non scientific creationist blogs you continue to cite, no matter how many times you say, 'prove it,' Game Over.

BTW, the judge, a Christian, found key witnesses for 'ID' perjured themselves repeatedly.

May I be the first to congratulate you for being chosen as the best debater from 2013. I also have to say that I am very disappointed that you would choose to deliberately avoid your obligation to provide evidence for your claims. If you feel that you have provided evidence and I missed it, please provide a link to the post where this evidence was provided.

This is not a court of law and what happens in a Pennsylvania court house is irrelevant here. However, you may want to introduce the evidence that was presented there as your evidence and we can look at that, but you can't just consider the conclusions that they reached as evidence.

Your whole argument can be reduced to...
1. The courts have said it.
2. I believe it.
3. That settles it.

I am sure you can see how inappropriate such an argument would be.

So, can you support your claim?

I interpret your question as: "You have not yet supported your claim sufficiently for my satisfaction. This is one reason a court of law is a superior forum for proving an proposition or allegation than is an ad hoc discussion or debating forum.

You are free to demand a level of 'support' that someone else deems 'unreasonable.'

I don't assume I can show you anything about evolution than you are already aware of. I've given you several internet sites that have summaries of the process, with evidence, from general to very specific. I've given you a small part of the findings from the court's 139 page decision.
http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Kitzmille ... rict_et_al.

I suppose I could copy out the entire text, with footnotes, of any standard college text on evolution. I could show you "The National Science Teachers Association (NSTA) strongly supports the position that evolution is a major unifying concept in science and should be emphasized in K–12 science education frameworks and curricula. Furthermore, if evolution is not taught, students will not achieve the level of scientific literacy needed to be well-informed citizens and prepared for college and STEM careers. This position is consistent with that of the National Academies, the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), and many other scientific and educational organizations."

I could refer you to the dozens of subtopics on this forum presenting evidence for evolution. But I doubt any of this would matter.

What would you consider sufficient support for this fact and theory that is accepted by virtually every scientific organization on Earth?

I ask in part because I got in a discussion recently with some very nice, intelligent people who don't believe in evolution. Eventually they simply admitted they don't believe in science and are not interested in finding objective truth. They quite calmly and happily announced 'we can all have our own truth.' There is no point in having any discussion about science with people who really believe that.

So I ask, is there any kind of 'support' that would be meaningful to you on this subject?

[no evidence no belief]

I feel like we've been beating around the bush for... 6000 years!

Can you please either provide some evidence for your supernatural beliefs, or admit that you have no evidence?

If you believe there once was a talking donkey (Numbers 22) could you please provide evidence?

If you believe there once was a zombie invasion in Jerusalem (Mat 27) could you please provide evidence?

If you believe in the flying horse (Islam) could you please provide evidence?

Walking on water, virgin births, radioactive spiders who give you superpowers, turning water into wine, turning iron into gold, demons, goblins, ghosts, hobbits, elves, angels, unicorns and Santa.

Can you PLEASE provide evidence?

Since we're cutting to real chases, or the nut of the matter - do YOU really care if evidence is presented or not? I see no 'evidence' at all that any explanation, however well defined or presented, will be seriously considered.

It is not the lack of evidence that is the real issue here, it is the suppression of it.

And in that do you err and in that will you trip up yourself. For in the end the only soul that you are responsible for is your own and if you don't care to explore your own eternal possibilities you deserve the fate you get - because you asked for it.

and that's just me, hollering from the choir loft...

Dear Choir Loft, I give you my word that whatever evidence you present will be considered by me with the most respectful and critical approach, and I will do my very best to suppress any biases I may have, and look at the data you present with as close to objectivity as I am able.

You ask if I care about evidence. The answer is yes, and I am as sure that the answer is yes as I am of anything in the world. I love the truth. Assuming you are a theist, we have diametrically opposed and mutually exclusive positions with regards to several claims such as flying horses if you're a muslim, talking donkeys if you're a Christian and many more. Because our opinions are mutually exclusive we can't both be right. Either there was a zombie invasion in 30AD Jerusalem (Matt 27:51) or there wasn't. Either you are right, or I am right. If you are right and I am wrong, I want to know!

So please, please, please do clearly define what supernatural claim you believe is true, and present the evidence you have available. I can't stress enough my absolute commitment to examining your evidence as carefully and open-mindedly as possible.

I also wanted to make a note not about me personally, but about history of religion, as related to your comment that there is "suppression of evidence" for Bible claims. For the better part of the last 2000 years, Christianity controlled the western world. Until a century ago, and to this day in some countries, I would put my very life in peril by announcing my atheism. After 2000 years of book burning, torturing of witches and burning of heretics and scientists at the stake, for you to claim that it is us suppressing your attempts at justifying your beliefs is beyond preposterous. At its core isn't your baseless and utterly counterfactual attempt at playing the victim nothing more than a violation of the Commandment not to bear false witness?

You live in a world where anybody who claims that Elvis is still alive or that lightning is caused by Zeus will be laughed out of town, and yet you are free to make equally outlandish statements completely devoid of evidence about a corpse of a carpenter coming back to life and flying into the sky or Yahweh making a donkey talk, and society considers it politically incorrect to question or impinge upon your religious faith. You don't get to say that anybody is suppressing your views, ever. At most, we are suppressing your right to suppress others' views, like for example with gay marriage.

Lastly, I don't appreciate your veiled/implied threat of eternal torment at the hands of your loving imaginary friend ("in the end the only soul that you are responsible for is your own and if you don't care to explore your own eternal possibilities you deserve the fate you get "). I am an adult of sound mind living in the 21st century, not an ignorant child. You cannot scare me with the boogieman. It's possible that I will be tortured for eternity for not believing that Jesus is the Son of God, and it's possible that you will cook in the eternal fire for not believing that Mohammed is the prophet of Allah the one true God. Veiled threats and innuendo based on what desert nomads scribbled on sheep skin will get us nowhere. If you believe that the hundreds of millions of Muslims who are ready to die for the belief that Christianity will get you in hell are wrong, please provide tangible evidence.

Thanks

[no evidence no belief]

I feel like we've been beating around the bush for... 6000 years!

Can you please either provide some evidence for your supernatural beliefs, or admit that you have no evidence?

If you believe there once was a talking donkey (Numbers 22) could you please provide evidence?

If you believe there once was a zombie invasion in Jerusalem (Mat 27) could you please provide evidence?

If you believe in the flying horse (Islam) could you please provide evidence?

Walking on water, virgin births, radioactive spiders who give you superpowers, turning water into wine, turning iron into gold, demons, goblins, ghosts, hobbits, elves, angels, unicorns and Santa.

Can you PLEASE provide evidence?

It makes more sense that religious descriptions have (or may have) occured, than looking at things in a laboratory and demanding that everything there created itself.

If there is no first cause, then the universe is like a great chain with many links; each link is held up by the link above it, but the whole chain is held up by nothing.

If there is no first cause, then the universe is like a railroad train moving without an engine. Each car's motion is explained proximately by the motion of the car in front of it: the caboose moves because the boxcar pulls it, the boxcar moves because the cattle car pulls it, et cetera. But there is no engine to pull the first car and the whole train. That would be impossible, of course. But that is what the universe is like if there is no first cause: impossible.

http://www.peterkreeft.com/topics/first-cause.htm

If you believe that anything can come from nothing, will you please provide evidence?

I do not believe that everything came from nothing, therefore I do not have to provide evidence for that. You are just creating a straw man.

I honestly and genuinely do not know how the universe came into existence. I am not being deliberately vague or facetious. I truly do not know.

I am saying "I do not know how the universe came into existence"

You are doing a spectacular job of butchering and twisting my words and implying that I am saying "The universe came from nothing".

That's like me saying "I don't know what the capital of Ghana is" and you alleging that I am saying "Ghana doesn't have a capital city".



As a side note, I know with an extremely high degree of confidence that the capital of Ghana is not London and it's not Paris. Saying "I don't know what the capital of Ghana is, but it isn't Paris" is not the same as saying "Ghana has no capital". Similarly, saying "I don't know how the universe came to be, but it was not created 6000 years ago in the course of 6 days" is not the same as saying "the universe was created from nothing".

I hope this analogy was clear. If not, here's another one: I don't know what the square root of 44477388449 is, but I know it's not 5. The fact that I don't know the square root of 44477388449 but I reject the notion that it's 5 is NOT the same as saying that the square root of 44477388449 is ZERO.

Similarly, the fact that I don't know how the universe came to be but reject the notion that it was created 6000 years ago over the course of 6 days is NOT the same as saying that I believe the universe came from nothing.

Just because I disbelieve your ludicrous answer to a question it doesn't mean I believe an equally absurd answer.

There is no doubt in my mind that you understand this. The question is: Will you verbalize your understanding and stop making this outlandish argument? What would Jesus do?

[no evidence no belief]

It's no strawman argument. It is an absolute truth. For all of the blustering and anti Christian efforts of the new atheism in the 21st century, or when cave men grunted their way through everyday life, there is the fact that the materialist posits that non thinking stuff created itself from that non existence and then became us.

I choose reality over madness and I choose God over emptiness filling itself with stuff.

Let's analyze this post.
You start with a gratuitous insult to atheists and a jibe at what you call 'the new atheism. Fine, an introductory insult or two that does not advance any argument.

Then begin your argument: 'non thinking stuff created itself and that became human.' This you call 'madness' and announce you choose God over 'emptiness filling itself with stuff.'

It appears to me you have claimed this label "God" for the creative force that somehow made 'stuff' from nothing. Where did this 'God' come from?

Has he simply always been? If so, why can't you say the same about the universe?

If 'God has no beginning and no end' why can't we say the 'universe' has no beginning and no end? Whether you name it 'God' or 'Universe' you are talking about the same process. Humans, 'thinking stuff' to use your expression are here. How did we get here? You say 'God made it happen.' The non theist says 'The universe made it happen' or "thinking beings" are a product of the universe.

Do you understand how putting a label "God" on this process adds nothing to the equation? It's just a name, just a label. Whatever you attribute to this 'God' who is beyond definition, one can attribute to the universe just as easily, but without any unnecessary and unsupported additions such as 'personal' or 'consciousness' or 'personality.'

I think I understand your point. It is just as easy for one to believe in an infinite universe or an infinite God...or god....or gods. Is that it? For me personally it is easier for me to believe in God since He and I "talk" to each other everyday. For someone who has never had any kind of divine revelation i can understand how they may tend to not believe in God or gods especially if they put their faith in science.

Ok. So you hear voices in your head. You were born in a Christian family and brought up to believe in Jesus. Hence you associate these voices in your head with that.

I think it's safe to say that if you had been born in a Muslim nation, you would associate those same voices with Allah, and if you were born a 12th century viking you would associate them with Odin.

If I claimed I believed that the universe was caused by a gigantic diamond-studded platinum magical eagle, and further claimed that I believed this on the basis of this eagle routinely talking to me inside my head, in what way would my statement be inferior to yours in terms of explanatory power or justification of veracity?

You just "talk" to imaginary entities, buddy. Millions of people do, and they get "truths" through these "talks" that are fundamentally incompatible with the "truths" you get. What are the implications of this fundamental incompatibility of the discoveries made by people who use the "talking to imaginary friends" method to discern the truth?

If one million people use a calculator to figure out what 575784 x 333627 is, they will all get the same answer. That's because using a calculator is a good method for figuring out mathematical truths.

If one million people sacrificed a goat to the Math Gods and waited for the answer to appear to them in a mystical dream to find out what 575784 x 333627 is, they would all get different answers. That's because sacrificing goats to the Math Gods is not a good method for figuring out mathematical truths.

Think it through, buddy

[Sir Hamilton]

It's no strawman argument. It is an absolute truth. For all of the blustering and anti Christian efforts of the new atheism in the 21st century, or when cave men grunted their way through everyday life, there is the fact that the materialist posits that non thinking stuff created itself from that non existence and then became us.

I choose reality over madness and I choose God over emptiness filling itself with stuff.

Let's analyze this post.
You start with a gratuitous insult to atheists and a jibe at what you call 'the new atheism. Fine, an introductory insult or two that does not advance any argument.

Then begin your argument: 'non thinking stuff created itself and that became human.' This you call 'madness' and announce you choose God over 'emptiness filling itself with stuff.'

It appears to me you have claimed this label "God" for the creative force that somehow made 'stuff' from nothing. Where did this 'God' come from?

Has he simply always been? If so, why can't you say the same about the universe?

If 'God has no beginning and no end' why can't we say the 'universe' has no beginning and no end? Whether you name it 'God' or 'Universe' you are talking about the same process. Humans, 'thinking stuff' to use your expression are here. How did we get here? You say 'God made it happen.' The non theist says 'The universe made it happen' or "thinking beings" are a product of the universe.

Do you understand how putting a label "God" on this process adds nothing to the equation? It's just a name, just a label. Whatever you attribute to this 'God' who is beyond definition, one can attribute to the universe just as easily, but without any unnecessary and unsupported additions such as 'personal' or 'consciousness' or 'personality.'

I think I understand your point. It is just as easy for one to believe in an infinite universe or an infinite God...or god....or gods. Is that it? For me personally it is easier for me to believe in God since He and I "talk" to each other everyday. For someone who has never had any kind of divine revelation i can understand how they may tend to not believe in God or gods especially if they put their faith in science.

Ok. So you hear voices in your head. You were born in a Christian family and brought up to believe in Jesus. Hence you associate these voices in your head with that.

I think it's safe to say that if you had been born in a Muslim nation, you would associate those same voices with Allah, and if you were born a 12th century viking you would associate them with Odin.

If I claimed I believed that the universe was caused by a gigantic diamond-studded platinum magical eagle, and further claimed that I believed this on the basis of this eagle routinely talking to me inside my head, in what way would my statement be inferior to yours in terms of explanatory power or justification of veracity?

You just "talk" to imaginary entities, buddy. Millions of people do, and they get "truths" through these "talks" that are fundamentally incompatible with the "truths" you get. What are the implications of this fundamental incompatibility of the discoveries made by people who use the "talking to imaginary friends" method to discern the truth?

If one million people use a calculator to figure out what 575784 x 333627 is, they will all get the same answer. That's because using a calculator is a good method for figuring out mathematical truths.

If one million people sacrificed a goat to the Math Gods and waited for the answer to appear to them in a mystical dream to find out what 575784 x 333627 is, they would all get different answers. That's because sacrificing goats to the Math Gods is not a good method for figuring out mathematical truths.

Think it through, buddy

What ridiculous analogies. Why are you such a hater of Christianity? Ok so you don't believe there is a God or gods or whatever....so what? You can't prove that God doesn't exist. You can't prove that people don't have divine revelations but it sure seems that you despise those who do make that claim. So please tell us the origin of the universe, of life, of man? And enlighten us as to how you found out those answers. Are you 100% sure that God does not exist?

[no evidence no belief]

[Replying to post 2509 by iamtaka]

This "uncreated intelligent designer who is almost infinitely more complicated than an RNA molecule" is not the god of Christianity. Christian theism adheres to a doctrine of divine simplicity.

I am sorry, but "divine simplicity" is just a fancy way of declaring that God is logically impossible.

If you wish to assert that an entity capable of creating the universe in all its trillions of stars is not complex, then you have a lot of explaining and justifying to do.

Seriously.

The God of the Bible, if it existed, would be capable at any instant to monitor and alter at will the random movement of any of the trillions of trillions of trillions of trillions of trillions (continue writing "of trillions" about a trillion trillion times) of atoms in the universe. The computational power necessary to accomplish such a feat is so beyond the complexity of anything we could possibly imagine to exist in the universe, that to call such an entity "simple" is so beyond preposterous, so beyond ridiculous, so beyond absurd, that only the desensitization to basic common sense that comes with dogmatic faith could make it possible for it to gain any traction whatsoever.

[no evidence no belief]

I think you are a bit confused. I was not argueing over whether or not the universe exist. I agree with you that the universe exist. What we are disagreeing over is the origin of the universe. What evidence do you have that proves the universe has always been? Are you serious when you say you have no idea what the word God means?? Even small children can grasp somewhat of the idea of what God means.

Relativity has already shown that the universe has always been. It has shown that time is part of the universe, so there exists no point in time in which the universe has not existed.

So yes, the universe has "always been". This is true regardless of whether the universe extends finitely into the past or infinitely.

How has Relativity shown the universe to always have been? Isn't it all relative anyways? You speak as if Relativity is a god....it is a theory....maybe it is wrong.

The theory of Relativity is what makes the GPS in your smartphone work. Does the GPS in your smartphone work? If so, it's possible that there is something wrong in our understanding of the universe as per the Theory of Relativity, but there clearly is something right with it as well, otherwise your GPS wouldn't work.

Relativity shows that "time has always been" (although that's a gross simplification) by demonstrating that gravitational fields warp space-time. This has ACTUALLY been measured: Time passes slightly more slowly 30 miles above earth than it does on the surface of the planet. This is because Earth's gravitational field is stronger at its surface than it is 30 miles out and thus warps space-time at a greater intensity, causing time to slow down ever so slightly. When you enhance the strength of the gravitational field you also enhance the effect on space-time. At a singularity such as a black hole or the big bang the density of mass is so enormous and thus its gravitational field so gigantic, that space-time is so fundamentally warped that time effectively stops. Thus it's not entirely inaccurate (though simplistic) to claim that time doesn't exist "prior" to the big-bang or locally at a black hole.

Of course, what I wrote above will sound completely unintelligible lacking a sufficiently advanced scientific education. If what I write above doesn't make sense, I strongly recommend that you look up Relativity. It's a fascinating subject.

[Sir Hamilton]

[Replying to post 2509 by iamtaka]

This "uncreated intelligent designer who is almost infinitely more complicated than an RNA molecule" is not the god of Christianity. Christian theism adheres to a doctrine of divine simplicity.

I am sorry, but "divine simplicity" is just a fancy way of declaring that God is logically impossible.

If you wish to assert that an entity capable of creating the universe in all its trillions of stars is not complex, then you have a lot of explaining and justifying to do.

Seriously.

The God of the Bible, if it existed, would be capable at any instant to monitor and alter at will the random movement of any of the trillions of trillions of trillions of trillions of trillions (continue writing "of trillions" about a trillion trillion times) of atoms in the universe. The computational power necessary to accomplish such a feat is so beyond the complexity of anything we could possibly imagine to exist in the universe, that to call such an entity "simple" is so beyond preposterous, so beyond ridiculous, so beyond absurd, that only the desensitization to basic common sense that comes with dogmatic faith could make it possible for it to gain any traction whatsoever.

Yet the odds of life just randomly occurring by blind chance is one in trillions and trillions and trillions and trillions...

[Sir Hamilton]

I think you are a bit confused. I was not argueing over whether or not the universe exist. I agree with you that the universe exist. What we are disagreeing over is the origin of the universe. What evidence do you have that proves the universe has always been? Are you serious when you say you have no idea what the word God means?? Even small children can grasp somewhat of the idea of what God means.

Relativity has already shown that the universe has always been. It has shown that time is part of the universe, so there exists no point in time in which the universe has not existed.

So yes, the universe has "always been". This is true regardless of whether the universe extends finitely into the past or infinitely.

How has Relativity shown the universe to always have been? Isn't it all relative anyways? You speak as if Relativity is a god....it is a theory....maybe it is wrong.

The theory of Relativity is what makes the GPS in your smartphone work. Does the GPS in your smartphone work? If so, it's possible that there is something wrong in our understanding of the universe as per the Theory of Relativity, but there clearly is something right with it as well, otherwise your GPS wouldn't work.

Relativity shows that "time has always been" (although that's a gross simplification) by demonstrating that gravitational fields warp space-time. This has ACTUALLY been measured: Time passes slightly more slowly 30 miles above earth than it does on the surface of the planet. This is because Earth's gravitational field is stronger at its surface than it is 30 miles out and thus warps space-time at a greater intensity, causing time to slow down ever so slightly. When you enhance the strength of the gravitational field you also enhance the effect on space-time. At a singularity such as a black hole or the big bang the density of mass is so enormous and thus its gravitational field so gigantic, that space-time is so fundamentally warped that time effectively stops. Thus it's not entirely inaccurate (though simplistic) to claim that time doesn't exist "prior" to the big-bang or locally at a black hole.

Of course, what I wrote above will sound completely unintelligible lacking a sufficiently advanced scientific education. If what I write above doesn't make sense, I strongly recommend that you look up Relativity. It's a fascinating subject.

Thanks it does sound interesting but I have moved on.....that post was old