Apologists Ask Churches to Step Up Response to Militant Atheism

infidel57 »

Thu Feb 14, 2008 6:31 am Agree: 0   Disagree: 0

I read Strobel's book, "Evidence....", and was astonded that anyone would be persuaded by its arguments. Most of his evidence came from the Bible with some mention of Josephus (a suspected forgery) and Tacitus.

I wasn't alone in finding "Evidence" lacking. There are many sites on line taking the book apart line by line, and as I understand it, Strobel isn't well regarded among Bible scholars. He does, however, like Behe and Dembski of intelligent design infamy, strike a responsive chord among those who are two lazy to think for themselves.

Pro-Evolution Book Says Science and God Compatible

infidel57 »

Thu Jan 10, 2008 8:24 pm Agree: 0   Disagree: 0

maranatha7593

This is called the "Argument from Authority", a logical fallacy. This is not suprising since Ann Lamont is a member of Creation Ministeries International, a fundamentalist organization which believes in a literal interpretation of the Bible. They are the nuttiest of the religious nut jobs who believe in young earth creationism.

The reason that the Argument from Authority is an idiotic ploy by creationists because it actually works against them since most real scientists recognize evolution as the foundation of modern biology.

Pro-Evolution Book Says Science and God Compatible

infidel57 »

Thu Jan 10, 2008 6:04 pm Agree: 1   Disagree: 1

Hawk49

Flew's conversion to being a deist his highly suspect. Indications were that he, in his delcining mental state, came under undue influence by Christians who helped him write his book.As far as Behe's book is concerned, Flew is not an evolutionary biologist. He was just as incapable as you or I in unraveling the deceit. That's what Behe and Dembski count on, writing stuff that is impossible for the laymen to refute.

But both Dembski and Behe have been destroyed by other scientists. And Behe was humiliated at the Dover trial. There a federal judge found that, legally, ID was not science, it was religion.

Again, I urge you to read the Wedge Document. It is the blueprint from the Discovery Institute. It admits that there is no science involved in ID. That's why the "teach the controversy." They can't teach anything else. These guys are unprincipled slime, and if they have their way, our country will suffer because other, more enlightened country will be doing real science while we will be wallowing in superstitious nonsense.

Pro-Evolution Book Says Science and God Compatible

infidel57 »

Thu Jan 10, 2008 7:51 am Agree: 1   Disagree: 0

Hawk49

Here is what one real scientist says about "Explore Evolution."

"In general, the book presents the subjects superficially, cherry picks examples, and sets up shallow hypotheses that bear little resemblance to what scientists actually think about the subject, and then shoots down the examples in such a way as to cast doubt on entire disciplines. It's a dirty, dishonest book in a slick package. It's gonna sell like hotcakes to every lazy, stupid teacher who wants to substitute vacuous c... for an honest and serious examination of a difficult and important subject.[16]


One of the co-authors, Stephen Meyers, keeps trying to pass himself off as a scientist. His Phd is in the history of science.

Suspect anything which comes from the Discovery Institute. Their dishonesty is legendary. They try to promote ID as science while undermining real science. Don't take my word for it. Google "Wedge Document" and do your own research.

Pro-Evolution Book Says Science and God Compatible

infidel57 »

Thu Jan 10, 2008 5:56 am Agree: 0   Disagree: 1

Slaker,

False god? You've got to be kidding! Every religious person believes everyone else's god is false. There is not even agreement among Christians about the nature of God. As a result, some Christians worship a kind, loving and forgiving God, while other Christians are more attracted to the Old Testament God, mean, capricious and vindictive. So, even Christians aren't worshipping the same god.

As for Biblical errancy, there are several sites documenting errors and contradictions:

http://members.aol.com/ckbloomfld/

http://www.skepticsannotatedbible.com/

The last link also links to a dissection of the Quoran.

This is not a new view. Thomas Paine, who wrote Common Sense, also wrote Age of Reason and was jailed for it because of his views of the Bible.

Thomas Jefferson made his own New Testament by cutting out all the supersitious nonsense and leaving the ethical teachings of Jesus.

Unless you've been conditioned since birth to believe that the Bible is "God's word", you can't help but see the absurdity of the Bible (or Quoran) as inspired by some divinity.

Pro-Evolution Book Says Science and God Compatible

infidel57 »

Wed Jan 09, 2008 8:33 pm Agree: 2   Disagree: 0

"Yes a childlike faith is important..."

Of course theist stress the importance of faith. When you don't have evidence, if you don't have faith, then you don't have religion.

If you admire people of faith, then you've to to admire suicide bombers. Their faith in those 72 virgins has to be pretty strong to do what they do. And how about the Heaven's Gate cult who believe that a space ship awaited them on the other side of a comet. That turned out well, didn't it.

I'm thinking that if these people of faith had asked for evidence, we would all have been better off.

When I hear someone say "have faith," I think of an oily con man saying "trust me."

Pro-Evolution Book Says Science and God Compatible

infidel57 »

Wed Jan 09, 2008 8:27 pm Agree: 0   Disagree: 0

"*by fully above I mean that there is an intellectually satisfying explanation for the so called contradictions in genesis creation. "

Well, it's not intellectually satisfying to those of us who have resisted religious brain washing. There are, in fact, many contradictions and the fallacies in the Bible and a whole branch of Christian apologetics are devoted to these. Non believers, when we read these explanations, can only shake our heads at the breathtaking inanity of these explanations. You'd have to be so emotionally invested in religion that you are blinded in order to the obvious to accept these "explanations."

Pro-Evolution Book Says Science and God Compatible

infidel57 »

Wed Jan 09, 2008 10:35 am Agree: 2   Disagree: 0

"Many pro-evolution reports, including the latest book, often mistakenly portray intelligent design as a sister concept to creationism, injecting a religious element where none exists."

This is no mistake. ID was created as an end run around the prohibition of teaching creeationism. Don't take my word for it. Google "Wedge Document" and do the research yourself. There is no science, just data mining, the same ploy embraced by creationist frauds like Gish and Hovind.

ProfessorX says:

"Since their is no evidence on mutational advance from common ancestors, all we are left with is God Created. (period)"

Two factually wrong statements in one sentence. Thee is both fossil evidence and genetic evidence of common descent. And even if there was no such evidence, the default answer is not "Godidit." The correct answer would be, "we don't have enough information yet to answer the question."

The Atheist Leap of Faith

infidel57 »

Sat Jan 05, 2008 12:40 pm Agree: 1   Disagree: 1

Chris333
Why didn't you just stop your post when you took the trouble of looking up the definition of atheism and saw that the 2nd definition is exactly as I defined it? Wait a minute. I said non belief, and your definition says disbelief. Did the prefixes confuse you?

As Wiggy says, when you posit a god, I am entitled, without having to furnish proof, that I don't believe you. You have the same right to "disbelieve" in Vishnu or Oden or Baal. You are under no obligation to disprove the existence of those creations.

The Atheist Leap of Faith

infidel57 »

Fri Jan 04, 2008 4:11 pm Agree: 4   Disagree: 3

"Science is not an exact study..."

Science is a method, the best one we have, for gathering information. If someone could come up with a better method, it would become the scientific method. A hypothsis is formed, experiments designed and performed and observations are made. This is repeated to test the hypothesis, and the results are recorded for other scientists review. If mistakes are made, or fraud is committed, sooner or later it will be discovered.

Religion, on the other had, suffers mightily for that inexactness. My evidence. Just look under the Yellow Pages under "churches" and see how many interpretations of the scriptures lead in so many different directions.

"I might add that atheism is the most irrational faith of all because it asserts a negative "

Nope. Atheism is merely non belief. Everyone is an atheist in some respect. I could name 1000 "gods" that man has worshipped through the ages, and you would be atheistic toward 999 of them, and I would agree with you. Where we would disagree is on the particular god you believe in. The problem? There is just as much objective evidence of the 999 other gods as there is of your particular god.

So you see, we are 99.9 percent in agreement.

Mounting Evidence for Intelligent Design Discovered in 2007

infidel57 »

Thu Jan 03, 2008 12:08 pm Agree: 4   Disagree: 2

ARN executive director Dennis Wagner noted that science is still recovering from a whole generation of people who have been raised according to "Darwinian fairy tales," such as the teaching that human and chimpanzee genetics only differ by 1 percent and that the appendix is a leftover evolutionary vestige.

"These are Darwinian 'arguments from ignorance' that continue to be discarded as scientists uncover the incredible design and purpose of biological systems," he said.

Has this man never taken a course in logic? Does he even know what the "argument from ignorance" is?
Argument from ignorance

The two most common forms of the argument from ignorance, both fallacious, can be reduced to the following form:

* Something is currently unexplained or insufficiently understood or explained, so it is not (or must not be) true.
* Because there appears to be a lack of evidence for one hypothesis, another chosen hypothesis is therefore considered proven.

An adage regarding this fallacy from the philosophy of science is that "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence": Not having evidence for something is not proof that something is not or cannot be true. Similarly, merely not having evidence for a particular proposition is not proof that an alternative proposition is instead the case. This is not the same as arguing against something that can, by its nature, never be proven.

Science is the exact opposite of the argument from ignorance. If a scientist doesn't know something, he will say that there is not enough data or something hasn't been observed. If he makes something up to fill in the gaps of his knowledge, like, say a creator, is he would be arguing from ignorance. In other words, "we don't know how this occurs, so goddidit." Then, he wouldn't be a scientist any more. He would be a theist trying to get stuff to fit into his world view. He would be a "creation scientist" or an advocate of ID.