You admitted that your comment was ad hom. You haven't explained away how you know what other people think. You just claim they do. What else is there?
um... okaaay... Where would you put god, if not into the universe?
Secondly, The unproven assumption "everything has to have a cause" is disputed. It is very much disputed in this case, as it requires time.
One can't wave away this problem simply by saying "its undisputed".
The bible teaches nothing about morality that we can't discover for ourselves.
The fact that religions all attempt to teach morality, does not mean that morality can only be had from religious thinking.
It's disputed especially by theists who rely heavily on the notion that their god isn't contingent.
+1
I believe mine is the most rational as well. One kind of has to.
That is the way all people work, and why we hash these things out.
Far, far, over his head.
Are we to believe that a grit takes longer to cook in your kitchen than in any other kitchen in the world?
I would agree with Dilahunty in this case. The bible is not a moral system, it is merely a collection of moral pronouncements.
X is moral
Y is not moral
But it doesn't provide a system or set of general guidelines by which to determine things NOT in the book.
Meh. More failed reasoning.
Which eternity of torture do I avoid? the hindu ? the muslim ? the X , the Y ?
Further, wouldn't singing the praises of some narcissistic magic man for eternity be considered torture in and of itself?
What if you decide, some day 2 trillion years down the road, that you didn't WANT to sing the praises of this yutz that day? What if you wanted to leave this heaven place? Could you? Where would you go, if you could?
The way I see it, is that you are worried about just one less out of all the possibilities than I am.
Not much of a gamble now is it?
I know you don't spend time worrying about other s, or do you?
Last edited by RandomGuy; 10-21-2014 at 12:28 PM. Reason: spelling.
This is true, very profound, despite what the ignoramuses say to the contrary.
Ah ... that's a movie quote, hmmm.
found it. hehehehehehehe
http://m.imdb.com/ le/tt0104952/quotes?qt=qt1653289
Surprisingly good movie. Pesci is the man.
No. Your response was ad homenim. Your criticism of my point was based on your criticism of me, which is what the ad hom fallacy addresses.
I don't think that makes a ton of sense to try to answer. If god made the universe, then he clearly wasn't there when he made it.
I don't believe that's a valid criticism. Cause and effect do require sequence, but I don't think they have to have time in the way we experience it. It's like asking how an individual was born. Time as a perceptional concept doesn't exist to a person before they were born, but time as a physical concept does. In the same way, time as a physical concept depends on a universe, but time as a logical concept does not. Time is connected to the universe, but that doesn't help it move past a need for a first cause.Secondly, The unproven assumption "everything has to have a cause" is disputed. It is very much disputed in this case, as it requires time.
I think I can. Atheist want to argue about the null being that god doesn't exist. Essentially we shouldn't believe something interesting occurred unless we have enough evidence to think so with confidence. We have no evidence that things can happen without cause, so it doesn't make sense to assume they can. The universe is a giant Rube-Goldberg machine, and science depends on our ability to ascertain previous steps by looking at present conditions. The moment you start introducing causeless effects, things risk breaking down.One can't wave away this problem simply by saying "its undisputed".
I've yet to see anyone show evidence of a state without a cause. That's why I say it's undisputed.
You mean my admittance that god might not exist? I've never gotten why you take issue with that. Any rational person concedes they may be wrong about their beliefs. I could be swayed to believe there is no god, but I'd need some good evidence to get off my need for a prime mover. I might even have enough doubt to move into the atheist camp if we found evidence "proving" that the universe is eternal/cyclical, though I'd still have my inclinations. But I'm not gonna hop on someone else's magic theory when mine makes more sense to me and wouldn't leave me with as many doubts.
did you buy your grits from the same guy that sold jack his beanstalk beans?
http://www.foxnews.com/science/2014/...tcmp=obnetwork
500-million-year-old swimming filter-feeders called vetulicolians have been a mystery since their discovery more than a century ago.
Newfound fossils may solve a century-long mystery over the iden y of a bizarre 500-million-year-old animal.
Strange figure-8 shaped creatures from the Cambrian Period are actually very distant cousins of humans, according to a new study. These vetulicolians, as they are known, appear to have possessed a notochord, a hollow nerve structure just like modern vertebrates, including humans.
"It finally puts to rest the position of this weird-looking group of animals," study researcher Diego Garcia-Bellido, an invertebrate paleontologist at the University of Adelaide in Australia and an honorary research associate at the South Australian Museum, wrote in an email to Live Science. The findings also suggest that chordates, or creatures with notochords, were diverse and successful from the beginning of animal evolution, he said. [Gallery: See Images of the Bizarre Swimming Animals]
Weird life
Vetulicolians were truly bizarre: They lacked eyes, but had a wide mouth and a segmented tail. Like miniature whale sharks, these early animals swam through the oceans, filter-feeding off plankton and other microscopic tasties. Fourteen species have been found in the fossil record since 1911, including specimens from Greenland, southern China and western Canada.
Now, Garcia-Bellido's team has discovered a new species of this group on Kangaroo Island, Australia, a hotspot for Cambrian-age fossils with soft parts like musclesand guts preserved in stone. They dubbed their find Nesonektris aldridgei. "Nesonektris" is the Greek word for "island swimmer," while "aldridgei" honors late University of Leicester geologist Aldridge, who studied vetulicolians extensively.
The most complete specimen of the new species measures about 4.9 inches long; most of the 150 or so fossils the researchers found were fragmented into tails and bodies, with tails usually measuring around 3.5 in. long. It was in these tails that the researchers noticed something very strange.
Running through the tails were long, rodlike structures. They might have been part of the gut, but they were unusually long and wide, the researchers reported in September in the journal BMC Evolutionary Biology. More mysteriously, the rods appeared segmented into strange block-shaped structures.
"This finding is inconsistent with it being a gut (which is a hollow tube), but consistent with the way a cartilage (notochord) would break, which allowed us to realize where the group might belong in the tree of life," Garcia-Bellido said.
Tied by a chord
Notochords are present in the embryos of all vertebrates, acting as a cartilaginous sort of skeletal support before the bones form. Some boneless invertebrates, including filter-feeding sea squirts, retain the notochord throughout life. All animals with notochords (vertebrates included) are called chordates.
By comparing the Kangaroo Island fossils with animals such as sea stars, sea squirts, jellyfishlike salps and vertebrates, the researchers were able to position the vetulicolians as close relatives of tunicates, a group made up of sea squirts and salps. This puts vetulicolians in the same chordate category as vertebrates, including humans not humans' direct ancestors, Garcia-Bellido said, but "cousins."
Paleontologists will need to re-evaluate other vetulicolian species in search of notochords, Garcia-Bellido said. The ultimate goal is to reconstruct the family tree of some of the first animals ever to evolve.
"On our part, we will continue to excavate the [Kangaroo Island] locality, searching for more clues about the oldest animals in the world," he said.
Papa...
Owned by Rob, as usual.
Pascal's wager is still a decent argument. It's been refuted, but not defeated. I don't follow it, but that isn't because it's poorly done.
Even a marginal increase in possible benefit is enough to make a decision. Like if being christian gave a person a one-percent better chance of being saved than being an atheist, then it makes sense to be a christian, all other things equal. It's all about how much that one-percent increase is worth. Is it worth your reason or liberty? I don't think so. But some do.
But being a Christian doesn't entail chasing percentages. If that's your goal, you've already lost in Christianity. It's not even about self preservation, even if it's been morphed into that. So you spend your life thinking you're saved, going to church every Sunday, singing bull songs and all that, only to learn you're not and you end up in anyhow, vs the person who parties his ass off and ends up in the same place.
What does "all other things equal" mean? Is that your "I'm right" card? What other things?
Pascal's Wager has been destroyed. Get over it.
He has given up the pima causa and natural law arguments. It's why I quit responding to him. He doesn't even defend them on merit.
I have actually been prepared for him to put out the arguments formally. I looked up Russell's proofs against them and was going to shove him in his face but I think he knew that and has been dissembling ever since.
He is a coward and I mean that very truly. He is a small man that thinks that winning every small battle is more important than winning the war and is unaware of the futility.
The of course there is xmas and mouse who chime in with assertions of affirmation and not much else.
No offense meant, but your arguments would carry more credibility and competence if you steered clear of the cussing, accusations, and invectives.
They do nothing to support your contention except make you look childish.
If it's been refuted and you have no response to the refutation then there is no reason to give it merit. You can characterize the disposition how you like but it is categorically unsubstantiated. There is a nice box for you to understand, box boy.
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