drugs and prostitution

[Guest]

Eric,

 

CS Lewis was an atheist, then a theist (or diest) I believe, then a full blown Christian.

 

I really enjoyed his book Mere Christianity. I'd say that was the one book that changed a lot of my thinking. You being retired and all, I'd recommended it. ;)

[RichardGibbons]

OK, stahley, I understand what you mean.  Thanks!

[ERICOPOLY]

Eric,

 

CS Lewis was an atheist, then a theist (or diest) I believe, then a full blown Christian.

 

I really enjoyed his book Mere Christianity. I'd say that was the one book that changed a lot of my thinking. You being retired and all, I'd recommended it. ;)

 

I am interested at the moment in the idea that praying can bring psychological benefits even if it's just a trick on the mind that you are talking with God.  For example, the Dos Equis "Be Thirsty My Friend" commercial is trying to get you to think that if the World's Most Interesting Man drinks Dos Equis, then you will get more enjoyment from it as well.  There is something in there which I think is related... that we all somewhere yearn to make contact with very important people... and that we'd feel good if we could believe that we've established that ultimate social connection and that he was with us everywhere, and that we talked to him daily, etc...

 

I found a website that has quotes taken from CS Lewis' "Mere Christianity":

 

https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/801500-mere-christianity

 

example:

“If I find in myself desires which nothing in this world can satisfy, the only logical explanation is that I was made for another world.”

 

Personally, I don't come to that sort of conclusion.  I think that "want" creates motivation, and that drives us to invent tools, etc...  However if I were to speculate on why "all roads lead to Rome" with his conclusions, I would suggest that he is benefitting from the situation I described before -- the more he believes in God, the more feel-good drugs he gets in his brain when he prays to God.  It tends to make sense that the more you believe, the more it would reinforce the effect.  Thus he would tend to see God everywhere and everything would be viewed as evidence of such.  The motivation is there.

 

The question is... does prayer really simulate conversation in the brain, and does it really deliver the feel-good drugs... or am I just guessing.  I would be very motivated to read C.S. Lewis' works if he was delving into that topic.

 

Suppose it works in the brain like a drug.  You mentioned that he was a skeptic, and now he is a believer.  Okay, but I could think coffee tastes bad as a child, but later start drinking five cups a day after being persuaded by the caffeine.  It's easy to say that about caffeine, but I know less about the effects of prayer on the mind.  I'd like to know more.

 

Just some 1 cent video on the idea that brain scans change after prayer:

http://www.wltx.com/story/news/health/2014/05/15/studies-show-the-physical-effects-of-prayer/9151157/

 

 

[Guest]

I'd encourage you to read it, Eric.

 

I'm not saying it will convert you but I do think it will give you some things to think about.

 

From what I've read it was instrumental in converting Francis Collins (one of the leads on the Human Genome Project) and philosopher CEM Joad.

[Liberty]

 

example:

“If I find in myself desires which nothing in this world can satisfy, the only logical explanation is that I was made for another world.”

 

 

Proof by desire?

 

I've heard that argument often, and it never made sense to me. What's the logic that makes it follow that because we have desires that can't be satisfied, that it means that some magical way to satisfy them exists. How about some things just can't be satisfied? How about our imagination is powerful enough to think of things that aren't real (which you can clearly see by looking at the world of fiction)?

 

We can also dream of un-assisted flying and magic and dragons and other dimensions and superpowers and immortality and such, and that doesn't mean they're real.

 

Seems like bad logic and wishful thinking to me.

[ERICOPOLY]

 

example:

“If I find in myself desires which nothing in this world can satisfy, the only logical explanation is that I was made for another world.”

 

 

Proof by desire?

 

I've heard that argument often, and it never made sense to me. What's the logic that makes it follow that because we have desires that can't be satisfied, that it means that some magical way to satisfy them exists. How about some things just can't be satisfied? How about our imagination is powerful enough to think of things that aren't real (which you can clearly see by looking at the world of fiction)?

 

We can also dream of un-assisted flying and magic and dragons and other dimensions and superpowers and immortality and such, and that doesn't mean they're real.

 

Seems like bad logic and wishful thinking to me.

 

 

Well, that particular quote would be a good one for a fortune cookie.  As kids, we would always add "in bed" to the end of every fortune.

 

So it then becomes:

“If I find in myself desires which nothing in this world can satisfy, the only logical explanation is that I was made for another world... in bed”

 

[Guest]

 

example:

“If I find in myself desires which nothing in this world can satisfy, the only logical explanation is that I was made for another world.”

 

 

Proof by desire?

 

I've heard that argument often, and it never made sense to me. What's the logic that makes it follow that because we have desires that can't be satisfied, that it means that some magical way to satisfy them exists. How about some things just can't be satisfied? How about our imagination is powerful enough to think of things that aren't real (which you can clearly see by looking at the world of fiction)?

 

We can also dream of un-assisted flying and magic and dragons and other dimensions and superpowers and immortality and such, and that doesn't mean they're real.

 

Seems like bad logic and wishful thinking to me.

 

Did you ever read the book? I think we talked about it a while ago.

 

For what it's worth, here is more of the passage:

 

“The Christian says, 'Creatures are not born with desires unless satisfaction for those desires exists. A baby feels hunger: well, there is such a thing as food. A duckling wants to swim: well, there is such a thing as water. Men feel sexual desire: well, there is such a thing as sex. If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world. If none of my earthly pleasures satisfy it, that does not prove that the universe is a fraud. Probably earthly pleasures were never meant to satisfy it, but only to arouse it, to suggest the real thing. If that is so, I must take care, on the one hand, never to despise, or to be unthankful for, these earthly blessings, and on the other, never to mistake them for the something else of which they are only a kind of copy, or echo, or mirage. I must keep alive in myself the desire for my true country, which I shall not find till after death; I must never let it get snowed under or turned aside; I must make it the main object of life to press on to that country and to help others to do the same.”

 

Personally, I do find it strange that man desires a deity, regardless of time, culture or location if none exists.

[Mikenhe]

Personally, I do find it strange that man desires a deity, regardless of time, culture or location if none exists.

 

Surely its nothing more than a manufacturing an answer to the unexplained. A deity can be anything you want so you can shape it to fill the vacuum that your knowledge cannot fill.

[Guest]

Personally, I do find it strange that man desires a deity, regardless of time, culture or location if none exists.

 

Surely its nothing more than a manufacturing an answer to the unexplained. A deity can be anything you want so you can shape it to fill the vacuum that your knowledge cannot fill.

 

Possibly but why is that vacuum there? I don't see another animals with that vacuum.

[Mikenhe]

Personally, I do find it strange that man desires a deity, regardless of time, culture or location if none exists.

 

Surely its nothing more than a manufacturing an answer to the unexplained. A deity can be anything you want so you can shape it to fill the vacuum that your knowledge cannot fill.

 

Possibly but why is that vacuum there? I don't see another animals with that vacuum.

 

are you claiming to know their thought process? I don;t see how you can possibley  try to draw parallels  there.

[Liberty]

Did you ever read the book? I think we talked about it a while ago.

 

I'm a bit ashamed to say that I didn't, though I researched it and can't say I found any of the arguments convincing. Even though I usually read a couple books in parallel, my "to read" pile keeps growing rather than shrinking, and I'll admit that C.S. Lewis wasn't quite at the top of my priority list.

 

For what it's worth, here is more of the passage:

 

“The Christian says, 'Creatures are not born with desires unless satisfaction for those desires exists. A baby feels hunger: well, there is such a thing as food. A duckling wants to swim: well, there is such a thing as water. Men feel sexual desire: well, there is such a thing as sex. If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world. If none of my earthly pleasures satisfy it, that does not prove that the universe is a fraud. Probably earthly pleasures were never meant to satisfy it, but only to arouse it, to suggest the real thing. If that is so, I must take care, on the one hand, never to despise, or to be unthankful for, these earthly blessings, and on the other, never to mistake them for the something else of which they are only a kind of copy, or echo, or mirage. I must keep alive in myself the desire for my true country, which I shall not find till after death; I must never let it get snowed under or turned aside; I must make it the main object of life to press on to that country and to help others to do the same.”

 

Personally, I do find it strange that man desires a deity, regardless of time, culture or location if none exists.

 

I'll just say two things:

 

"Creatures are not born with desires unless satisfaction for those desires exists."

 

Is this falsifiable? If so, then it's not true. Then the premise on which the rest is built falls down.

 

Don't we all wish we could fly? Or be invisible at will? Move objects at a distance or speak to others via telepathy? Have infinite strenght, eternal youth, perfect beauty and health, the ability to read other people's minds, walk through walls, teleport, know everything, etc?

 

Second, if you study evolutionary psychology (some good layman introduction texts: The Moral Animal by Robert Wright and The Blank Slate by Steven Pinker), you'll see that many adaptations have side effects that weren't directly selected for, but can nonetheless be very powerful. That's why we sometimes see something that is clearly evolved, but we can't figure out what fitness advantage comes from it. Most of the time, it's because a useful adaptation has this side effect. And since we're not fitness-maximizers but rather adaptation-executers (http://lesswrong.com/lw/l0/adaptationexecuters_not_fitnessmaximizers/), we still tend to execute those adaptations unless we learn better and consciously reject them. And even things that were directly selected for can be for things that aren't true (our intuition about physics is wrong on many levels -- natural selection only wants our genes to be passed on, not to give us an accurate view of the world -- see the list of cognitive biases and optical illusions that we suffer from).

 

So I can very well imagine that we've evolved in a social tribal setting, and it helped the band survive to all stand behind and pledge allegiance to a strong leader. Mix that in with pre-scientific beliefs in the supernatural (witchcraft, the sun is a god, hearsay about various myths and legends that people supposedly saw) and you get people who make up ever more powerful gods to claim as their leaders, culminating with a unique, all powerful god that can't be topped.

[Guest]

Personally, I do find it strange that man desires a deity, regardless of time, culture or location if none exists.

 

Surely its nothing more than a manufacturing an answer to the unexplained. A deity can be anything you want so you can shape it to fill the vacuum that your knowledge cannot fill.

 

Possibly but why is that vacuum there? I don't see another animals with that vacuum.

 

are you claiming to know their thought process? I don;t see how you can possibley  try to draw parallels  there.

 

I'm claiming that I see no evidence of other animals worshiping a deity, yes.

[Mikenhe]

Personally, I do find it strange that man desires a deity, regardless of time, culture or location if none exists.

 

Surely its nothing more than a manufacturing an answer to the unexplained. A deity can be anything you want so you can shape it to fill the vacuum that your knowledge cannot fill.

 

Possibly but why is that vacuum there? I don't see another animals with that vacuum.

 

are you claiming to know their thought process? I don;t see how you can possibley  try to draw parallels  there.

 

I'm claiming that I see no evidence of other animals worshiping a deity, yes.

 

So is that your argument for or against deity’s?

Sounds dumb and obscure enough to be used by either ends of the believe spectrum.

 

[Guest]

Did you ever read the book? I think we talked about it a while ago.

 

I'm a bit ashamed to say that I didn't, though I researched it and can't say I found any of the arguments convincing. Even though I usually read a couple books in parallel, my "to read" pile keeps growing rather than shrinking, and I'll admit that C.S. Lewis wasn't quite at the top of my priority list.

 

For what it's worth, here is more of the passage:

 

“The Christian says, 'Creatures are not born with desires unless satisfaction for those desires exists. A baby feels hunger: well, there is such a thing as food. A duckling wants to swim: well, there is such a thing as water. Men feel sexual desire: well, there is such a thing as sex. If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world. If none of my earthly pleasures satisfy it, that does not prove that the universe is a fraud. Probably earthly pleasures were never meant to satisfy it, but only to arouse it, to suggest the real thing. If that is so, I must take care, on the one hand, never to despise, or to be unthankful for, these earthly blessings, and on the other, never to mistake them for the something else of which they are only a kind of copy, or echo, or mirage. I must keep alive in myself the desire for my true country, which I shall not find till after death; I must never let it get snowed under or turned aside; I must make it the main object of life to press on to that country and to help others to do the same.”

 

Personally, I do find it strange that man desires a deity, regardless of time, culture or location if none exists.

 

I'll just say two things:

 

"Creatures are not born with desires unless satisfaction for those desires exists."

 

Is this falsifiable? If so, then it's not true. Then the premise on which the rest is built falls down.

 

Don't we all wish we could fly? Or be invisible at will? Move objects at a distance or speak to others via telepathy? Have infinite strenght, eternal youth, perfect beauty and health, the ability to read other people's minds, walk through walls, teleport, etc?

 

Second, if you study evolutionary psychology (some good layman introduction texts: The Moral Animal by Robert Wright and The Blank Slate by Steven Pinker), you'll see that many adaptations have side effects that weren't directly selected for, but can nonetheless be very powerful. That's why we sometimes see something that is clearly evolved, but we can't figure out what fitness advantage comes from it. Most of the time, it's because a useful adaptation has this side effect. And since we're not fitness-maximizers but rather adaptation-executers (http://lesswrong.com/lw/l0/adaptationexecuters_not_fitnessmaximizers/), we still tend to execute those adaptations unless we learn better and consciously reject them. And even things that were directly selected for can be for things that aren't true (our intuition about physics is wrong on many levels -- natural selection only wants our genes to be passed on, not to give us an accurate view of the world).

 

So I can very well imagine that we've evolved in a social tribal setting, and it helped the band survive to all stand behind and pledge allegiance to a strong leader. Mix that in with pre-scientific beliefs in the supernatural (witchcraft, the sun is a god, hearsay about various myths and legends that people supposedly saw) and you get people who make up ever more powerful gods to claim as their leaders, culminating with a unique, all powerful god that can't be topped.

 

I've heard the flying argument before but I don't agree with it. I think the desires Lewis talks about deeply held desires for most of humanity - let's say it's universal in that the vast majority of people have it. I can't think of anyone who doesn't desire food or sex (well, unless they've been married along time - just kidding married folks!). However, I don't think the ability to fly or invisibility are those universal needs. Even something like staying youthful, I don't think is universal. In many culture (not in North American, obviously) age is held in much higher regard. Heck, when we're young, almost all of us want to be older! :P

[Guest]

Personally, I do find it strange that man desires a deity, regardless of time, culture or location if none exists.

 

Surely its nothing more than a manufacturing an answer to the unexplained. A deity can be anything you want so you can shape it to fill the vacuum that your knowledge cannot fill.

 

Possibly but why is that vacuum there? I don't see another animals with that vacuum.

 

are you claiming to know their thought process? I don;t see how you can possibley  try to draw parallels  there.

 

I'm claiming that I see no evidence of other animals worshiping a deity, yes.

 

So is that your argument for or against deity’s?

Sounds dumb and obscure enough to be used by either ends of the believe spectrum.

 

That is my argument for a deity's existence. I find it strange that we are the only animals that act the way we do when we all start out from the same primordial soup. We're not talking about an extra leg or arm here.  After all, man is supposedly made in "God's image."

[Liberty]

I've heard the flying argument before but I don't agree with it. I think the desires Lewis talks about deeply held desires for most of humanity - let's say it's universal in that the vast majority of people have it. I can't think of anyone who doesn't desire food or sex (well, unless they've been married along time - just kidding married folks!). However, I don't think the ability to fly or invisibility are those universal needs. Even something like staying youthful, I don't think is universal. In many culture (not in North American, obviously) age is held in much higher regard. Heck, when we're young, almost all of us want to be older! :P

 

I think those things are pretty universal, especially in children (and if they were nurtured in them, they'd persist). But even your desire for a god isn't entirely universal; many people claim to have never felt the need.

 

You can go "no true Scotsman"* on me all you want, but it's still no proof of anything at all. Occam's razor: What's more likely, an all-powerful invisible hidden being that never gives us any good evidence of its existence yet more or less runs everything, or a non-supernatural world where our evolved desired for a powerful leader/protector/father figure and our bad intuition for what is real and what isn't (look at humanity before science disproved all kinds of beliefs) are making us want god(s)?

 

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman

 

For emphasis: I really hate how much of the religious edifice is built on things like "Creatures are not born with desires unless satisfaction for those desires exists". How does he know that? Where does he get the information from, truly? Because he can list desires and ways to fulfill them? Oh, that makes it an ironclad law of the universe..? Even if 99.99999% of desires could be fulfilled, and I've just listed a bunch that can't be, it still wouldn't mean that the 0.0000001% left (god) would be true. This is just rhetoric, not evidence.

[Guest]

Liberty, are you telling me that many people would rank a desire for invisibility on similar level as a desire for food or sex? I can't that any of those things are really universal - regardless of time, culture or geography.

 

I think there is decent (but not definite) evidence that is suggestive of a deity.

 

The human desire for God.

The idea of objective morality

The fine turning of the universe

Life from non life

matter from nothing.

 

Now, perhaps sometime we'll have all this figured out and learn that God doesn't exist someday. However, I think belief in God is perfect reasonable.

 

I think though that Occam's razor fits more on the side of a deity. What's more likely: the universe came out of nothing, it stays fine tuned for no (apparent) reason, life is created from non-life, man has a deep longing for bigger answers, good and evil (seemingly) exist or that an all powerful deity created the world and exists outside of space and time. I don't have a definitive answer to that. I find it a little strange that if no God exists, we'd even worry about religion at all.

 

Another Lewis quote: "If the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning: just as, if there were no light in the universe and therefore no creatures with eyes, we should never know it was dark. Dark would be without meaning."

 

[writser]

Now, perhaps sometime we'll have all this figured out and learn that God doesn't exist someday. However, I think belief in God is perfect reasonable.

 

Only your deity or are others acceptable too?

 

Bit strange that all men have a desire for sex and then the church opposes premarital intercourse, anti-conception, abortion, and prostitution. Makes it a bit more difficult to enjoy it ...

[Mikenhe]

 

Bit strange that all men have a desire for sex and then the church opposes premarital intercourse, anti-conception, abortion, and prostitution. Makes it a bit more difficult to enjoy it ...

 

luckily that doesn't seem to bother politicians.....

[Liberty]

Liberty, are you telling me that many people would rank a desire for invisibility on similar level as a desire for food or sex? I can't that any of those things are really universal - regardless of time, culture or geography.

 

I think there is decent (but not definite) evidence that is suggestive of a deity.

 

The human desire for God.

The idea of objective morality

The fine turning of the universe

Life from non life

matter from nothing.

 

Now, perhaps sometime we'll have all this figured out and learn that God doesn't exist someday. However, I think belief in God is perfect reasonable.

 

I think though that Occam's razor fits more on the side of a deity. What's more likely: the universe came out of nothing, it stays fine tuned for no (apparent) reason, life is created from non-life, man has a deep longing for bigger answers, good and evil (seemingly) exist or that an all powerful deity created the world and exists outside of space and time. I don't have a definitive answer to that. I find it a little strange that if no God exists, we'd even worry about religion at all.

 

Another Lewis quote: "If the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning: just as, if there were no light in the universe and therefore no creatures with eyes, we should never know it was dark. Dark would be without meaning."

 

I'm rapidly losing interest. Let's just say that I disagree with pretty much everything you've said and have trouble imagining how someone could be truly convinced by those weak arguments (I guess science has taken everything else away that religious people used to say, so now it's all about logically fallacies like proof by desire, platonic concepts that somehow prove something and the god of the gaps), and if you think Occam's razor falls on the side of a deity, it's pointless to try to use reason with you; you try to explain complexity with more complexity, rather than with simplicity, which is what evolution is; it means you don't understand both occam's razor and evolution. Even if you could use god to explain other things, then how do you explain god? With a meta-god? God or god did it is always a non-answer because it doesn't elucidate, it just raises bigger questions. We know how evolution works - a series of simple incremental steps that, over very long periods, lead to complexity. How does god work? As for the existence of matter, we're working on that, but I've already talked about the "god of the gaps" concept -- it's like saying "we don't know thus god", which is retarded because everything we discovered so far that we used to think was supernatural turned out not to be (the sun, planets and stars, life, weather, whatever) and one can never be said to follow from the other. When you don't know something, you don't know it.

 

I'll leave you on this:

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abiogenesis

 

http://lesswrong.com/tag/seq_evolution/

[Guest]

Now, perhaps sometime we'll have all this figured out and learn that God doesn't exist someday. However, I think belief in God is perfect reasonable.

 

Only your deity or are others acceptable too?

 

Bit strange that all men have a desire for sex and then the church opposes premarital intercourse, anti-conception, abortion, and prostitution. Makes it a bit more difficult to enjoy it ...

 

Oh, I'm not sure which deity exists. However, the case for Jesus is the most convincing (due to quite a few arguments). Granted, I could be biased since I grew up in the west.

 

Let's look at sex though through the eyes of theism. This is the idealistic view but here it goes. God created man. God is love. God created our perfect mates. By having sex with someone other than who we are married to, it dilutes the meaning (ie your first million is usually a lot more special than your 10th million).

 

By waiting (and sacrificing) it also builds up the value. After all, things we wait and sacrifice for tend to have more meaning for us (if you work your life for your wealth, it means a lot more than when someone gives you a few million). By waiting, you're also respecting God's desire in your life and reducing pain in the world (I'm sure most of us have plenty of heartache stories - the superficial "fun" doesn't override the pain and heartache for most people, in my experience). There's plenty of research that the "hook up" culture is causing a lot of psychological harm in students these days, too. It also reduces the likelihood of having children book out of wedlock (who, on average, tend to be less successful than their peers with parents who are married).

 

 

 

 

[Guest]

Liberty, are you telling me that many people would rank a desire for invisibility on similar level as a desire for food or sex? I can't that any of those things are really universal - regardless of time, culture or geography.

 

I think there is decent (but not definite) evidence that is suggestive of a deity.

 

The human desire for God.

The idea of objective morality

The fine turning of the universe

Life from non life

matter from nothing.

 

Now, perhaps sometime we'll have all this figured out and learn that God doesn't exist someday. However, I think belief in God is perfect reasonable.

 

I think though that Occam's razor fits more on the side of a deity. What's more likely: the universe came out of nothing, it stays fine tuned for no (apparent) reason, life is created from non-life, man has a deep longing for bigger answers, good and evil (seemingly) exist or that an all powerful deity created the world and exists outside of space and time. I don't have a definitive answer to that. I find it a little strange that if no God exists, we'd even worry about religion at all.

 

Another Lewis quote: "If the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning: just as, if there were no light in the universe and therefore no creatures with eyes, we should never know it was dark. Dark would be without meaning."

 

I'm rapidly losing interest. Let's just say that I disagree with pretty much everything you've said and have trouble imagining how someone could be truly convinced by those weak arguments (I guess science has taken everything else away that religious people used to say, so now it's all about logically fallacies like proof by desire, platonic concepts that somehow prove something and the god of the gaps), and if you think Occam's razor falls on the side of a deity, it's pointless to try to use reason with you; you try to explain complexity with more complexity, rather than with simplicity, which is what evolution is; it means you don't understand both occam's razor and evolution. Even if you could use god to explain other things, then how do you explain god? With a meta-god? God or god did it is always a non-answer because it doesn't elucidate, it just raises bigger questions. We know how evolution works - a series of simple incremental steps that, over very long periods, lead to complexity. How does god work? As for the existence of matter, we're working on that, but I've already talked about the "god of the gaps" concept -- it's like saying "we don't know thus god", which is retarded because everything we discovered so far that we used to think was supernatural turned out not to be (the sun, planets and stars, life, weather, whatever) and one can never be said to follow from the other. When you don't know something, you don't know it.

 

I'll leave you on this:

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abiogenesis

 

http://lesswrong.com/tag/seq_evolution/

 

I don't believe abiogenesis has been conclusively proven (at least it wasn't when I was reading about it a while ago). Funny, Liberty, that you "know" how the universe works (at least what you stated previously). I don't and can admit to that.

 

Idiots such as Francis Collins accept many of these arguments. Perhaps he's a bit more humble though.

 

http://www.amazon.com/Language-God-Scientist-Presents-Evidence/dp/1416542744

 

I'd encourage you to at least read Mere Christianity. Lewis lays down his argument much more eloquently than I can.

[writser]

Oh, I'm not sure which deity exists. However, the case for Jesus is the most convincing (due to quite a few arguments). Granted, I could be biased since I grew up in the west.

Agreed. For starters, you assume there is only _one_ deity.

 

if you want to reduce the # of kids born with single parents (which I agree would probably be a good thing) why wouldn't you encourage the use of the pill, condoms and abortions? Better safe than sorry, right? Not to mention condoms help with battling AIDS.

[Guest]

Oh, I'm not sure which deity exists. However, the case for Jesus is the most convincing (due to quite a few arguments). Granted, I could be biased since I grew up in the west.

Agreed. For starters, you assume there is only _one_ deity.

 

if you want to reduce the # of kids born with single parents (which I agree would probably be a good thing) why wouldn't you encourage the use of the pill, condoms and abortions? Better safe than sorry, right? Not to mention condoms help with battling AIDS.

 

I'm assuming there is only one deity. Otherwise, I think things would be more chaotic as they battle each other (or something along those lines). :P

I'm not arguing with that. Just remember that dogma doesn't actually mean it's from God. ;)

[Liberty]

I don't believe abiogenesis has been conclusively proven (at least it wasn't when I was reading about it a while ago). Funny, Liberty, that you "know" how the universe works (at least what you stated previously). I don't and can admit to that.

 

Idiots such as Francis Collins accept many of these arguments. Perhaps he's a bit more humble though.

 

http://www.amazon.com/Language-God-Scientist-Presents-Evidence/dp/1416542744

 

I'd encourage you to at least read Mere Christianity. Lewis lays down his argument much more eloquently than I can.

 

More rhetoric, twisting what I said, and never countering any specific arguments...

 

Look, I have physics, biology, cosmology, and everyday experience of how things consistently happen in the world showering me with gigatons of evidence that things work a certain way (seen any supernatural lately?). You have 'proof' by desire, the god of the gaps, appeal to authority, and some old books written by people who thought the Earth was flat and that magic was real and no concept of journalistic reporting of the facts as they were.

 

You'll say: "Oh, but these sciences don't prove that god doesn't exist!" Indeed, and neither do they prove that invisible dragons don't exist, but they don't have to. The burden of proof is always on the person making an extraordinary claim. You can never prove a negative, yet you can't live your life as if all unprovably false things were real. If I claim that there's an invisible dragon in my garage or a magic teapot orbiting Jupiter, it's not up to you to prove that there's none, it's up to me to prove that there is one. So when religion comes up with any evidence that is remotely convincing, anything other than mental contortions based on premises that are rapidly passed over as givens but are actually not solid at all, I'll reconsider. In the meantime, I see no reason to believe in any popular god any more than I see evidence for me to believe in zeus or thor or odin (gods that you don't believe in either, I assume - you still haven't said why).

 

btw, http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Abiogenesis#Artificial_abiogenesis

 

"In the 1950s, several experiments by Stanley Miller and Harold Urey verified that the natural formation of amino acids, components of DNA, and other organic compounds out of inorganic materials was possible under the atmospheric conditions of Primordial Earth."