Ask An Atheist Anything

reply to post by adjensen


My reply equating God to a magical fairy doesn't work? Why not? All the atheists equate him to an invisible old fart who floats around in the sky and peeks behind clouds and laughs at you saying I told you so. They also equate him to pink elephants and unicorns. So I have no idea what you're talking about.

reply to post by C09JayLT


Yes I can, and I just did, didn't you see me? Men and women can be made into Gods. In fact, there were 30,000 gods before Jehova and they were all men and women. The metaphor of them being omnipresent was a reference to the "eyes and ears" of the emperor.

reply to post by traditionaldrummer


And it's not a superstition because the evidence is in the dictionary, which you opened up.

reply to post by C09JayLT


And yes the deities of ancient Ireland include MANY magical fairys.

Isn't Catholicism Atheism?

Didn't atheists completely overthrow the Vatican, thus Catholism, on 2 April 2005?

Is Benedict XVI one of your leaders?

Originally posted by mhorndisk
reply to post by adjensen

 

My reply equating God to a magical fairy doesn't work? Why not?

If you don't see how that is demeaning and belittling, for no reason, you demonstrate immaturity. If you see that it is, but think that it somehow helps your case, you demonstrate ignorance.

Which one would you prefer to be viewed as?

reply to post by adjensen


Maybe you should do some research into the Celtic religion. The God's are a bunch of magical fairys. Literally, and were highly influenced, and influential upon the Abrahamic cult of Braham Aryan.

Originally posted by mhorndisk
reply to post by adjensen

 

Maybe you should do some research into the Celtic religion. The God's are a bunch of magical fairys. Literally, and were highly influenced, and influential upon the Abrahamic cult of Braham Aryan.

Why would I want to do some research into the Celtic religion? Am I to believe that Christianity grew out of Druidism, rather than Judaism? Googling "Braham Aryan" returns no results, either learn how to spell or accept the fact that if you're the only person on Earth with some sort of "divine insight", your insight is almost certainly applicable to you and you alone.

Originally posted by adjensen

Originally posted by mhorndisk
reply to post by adjensen

 

Maybe you should do some research into the Celtic religion. The God's are a bunch of magical fairys. Literally, and were highly influenced, and influential upon the Abrahamic cult of Braham Aryan.

Why would I want to do some research into the Celtic religion? Am I to believe that Christianity grew out of Druidism, rather than Judaism? Googling "Braham Aryan" returns no results, either learn how to spell or accept the fact that if you're the only person on Earth with some sort of "divine insight", your insight is almost certainly applicable to you and you alone.

The Aryan cult of Brahma. Sorry if you've never heard of it. Sorry I mis spelled by a single letter by putting an A in the wrong place. I don't really like your attitude so I'm done talking to you, Ms Self Righteous. You need to go do some research into the connection between the Celtic religion and the Aryan cult of Brahma before you sit here and imply that if I don't give you a history lesson I'm the only one who knows what I'm talking about. You can start by studying the connection between Tuatha de DANann and the Tribe of DAN. Then do some research into the connection between the Sumerian, Aryan, and Celtic. There is no divine insight, just a simple bit of history will suffice. I'm not here to hand everything out on a silver platter to anyone who just comes along and demands I give them a lesson. Every post you say I'm being arrogant and demeaning, and I think you're seeing a reflection of yourself in everything around you. God does exist, and some people just don't want to accept it, because all along, the evidence was right in the face, in the dictionary, and they've devoted a lot of time to declaring their absolutely correct.

Originally posted by adjensen

My understanding (and, again, forgive me if my knowledge is wrong) is that differentials come from random mutations, and natural selection is the process by which the best options move forward and the less good ones fall away.

It's not thought to be random mutations, rather purposeful mutations resulting from natural selection, environmental adaptation and competition amongst and between same and different species.

If I say that something is random, and your response is to say that I didn't say it was random, how are we supposed to understand what your belief is?

I don't have a belief, rather an acceptance of evolutionary theory. I do have a problem with the summation that either things were either "created" or "random"

[edit on 23-7-2010 by traditionaldrummer]

Originally posted by mhorndisk

Originally posted by adjensen

Originally posted by mhorndisk
reply to post by adjensen

 

Maybe you should do some research into the Celtic religion. The God's are a bunch of magical fairys. Literally, and were highly influenced, and influential upon the Abrahamic cult of Braham Aryan.

Why would I want to do some research into the Celtic religion? Am I to believe that Christianity grew out of Druidism, rather than Judaism? Googling "Braham Aryan" returns no results, either learn how to spell or accept the fact that if you're the only person on Earth with some sort of "divine insight", your insight is almost certainly applicable to you and you alone.

The Aryan cult of Brahma. Sorry if you've never heard of it. Sorry I mis spelled by a single letter by putting an A in the wrong place. I don't really like your attitude so I'm done talking to you, Ms Self Righteous.

My attitude? You said to research "Braham Aryan". I did, and there is nothing to it, since you spelled it wrong. And yet I'm to blame for your mistake. If it's so revolutionary and exciting, try calming down and, at the very least, get your words right. Oh, and you misspelled "misspelled", as well.

You need to go do some research into the connection between the Celtic religion and the Aryan cult of Brahma before you sit here and imply that if I don't give you a history lesson I'm the only one who knows what I'm talking about. You can start by studying the connection between Tuatha de DANann and the Tribe of DAN. Then do some research into the connection between the Sumerian, Aryan, and Celtic. There is no divine insight, just a simple bit of history will suffice. I'm not here to hand everything out on a silver platter to anyone who just comes along and demands I give them a lesson.

Throwing out a dozen unrelated theories that are all over the map and saying "do some research" is fruitless. Research what? Why is it my responsibility to sort through the dozens and dozens of unrelated facts that you toss out, in order to try and make sense of what you're saying?

Why would you think I give a hoot about the connection between the Celtic religion and the Aryan cult of Brahma? You've given me zero reason to think it's at all relevant to anything.

Every post you say I'm being arrogant and demeaning, and I think you're seeing a reflection of yourself in everything around you. God does exist, and some people just don't want to accept it, because all along, the evidence was right in the face, in the dictionary, and they've devoted a lot of time to declaring their absolutely correct.

You clearly have never read any post that I've made.

Originally posted by mhorndisk
reply to post by traditionaldrummer

 

And it's not a superstition because the evidence is in the dictionary, which you opened up.

Evidently you have difficulty understanding the definitions of the various uses of the word "god". "God" comes into play in describing people as in "guitar god" or Chris Matthews referring to Obama as "sort of a god".

Originally posted by bruxfinn
Isn't Catholicism Atheism?

Didn't atheists completely overthrow the Vatican, thus Catholism, on 2 April 2005?

Is Benedict XVI one of your leaders?

No.

No.

and no.

Originally posted by mhorndisk
God does exist, and some people just don't want to accept it, because all along, the evidence was right in the face, in the dictionary, and they've devoted a lot of time to declaring their absolutely correct.

Sorry, but the definition of "god" in the dictionary is not objective evidence of the existence of any god or deity.

Originally posted by traditionaldrummer

Originally posted by adjensen

My understanding (and, again, forgive me if my knowledge is wrong) is that differentials come from random mutations, and natural selection is the process by which the best options move forward and the less good ones fall away.

It's not thought to be random mutations, rather purposeful mutations resulting from natural selection, environmental adaptation and competition amongst and between same and different species.

How do mutations have purposes? I think that you're correct otherwise, but I question the nature of the mutations.

Let's think of dogs again, and for simplicity's sake, let's constrain our evolution just to them. They have four legs, but we'll say that they started with none. Are you saying that, at one point, there were simultaneous mutations to cause different dogs to exist with one, two, three, four, five, six .. to, let's say one hundred legs? Nature didn't start making dogs with one leg, see how that worked, then move on to two and so on until it found that four worked. So either there was random chance that produced a dog with four legs, and that worked out, or every option would have had to simultaneously come into existence, because nature can't decide which mutation should happen in the first place, and neither can the dog.

And why legs at all, why not dogs with tentacles or wheels?

Here's how some guy in the James Randi forum describes it:

Evolution is not a random process. The genetic variation on which natural selection acts may occur randomly, but natural selection itself is not random at all. The survival and reproductive success of an individual is directly related to the ways its inherited traits function in the context of its local environment. Whether or not an individual survives and reproduces depends on whether it has genes that produce traits that are well adapted to its environment.

I agree with everything in that paragraph, save the first sentence. I really fail to see how he thinks that sentence is valid, given the highlighted words (my highlight, btw, not his.) If whatever genetic variation happened that gave our dogs legs, which is, by this admission, random, natural selection never has an opportunity to test whether wheels would have been better.

Given that the natural environment itself came into being the way that it is through more random mutations, one can even argue that natural selection is affected by randomness, but I'll give it a miss.

Funny, we have a theist arguing that the world was created via a chaotic evolution, and an atheist arguing that evolution happened via purpose, lol.

Originally posted by traditionaldrummer

Originally posted by adjensen

My understanding (and, again, forgive me if my knowledge is wrong) is that differentials come from random mutations, and natural selection is the process by which the best options move forward and the less good ones fall away.

It's not thought to be random mutations, rather purposeful mutations resulting from natural selection, environmental adaptation and competition amongst and between same and different species.

Actually, I just thought of a way that your (and the other guy's) belief about randomness works.

In our dogs example, do you believe that ONLY dogs with four legs would succeed? That dogs with wheels, or twelve legs, would always inherently fail, so we'd keep getting failure after failure until random mutation finally popped out a four legged one?

If so, it definitely solves your problem (given enough time, we'd have mutated a dog with glowing fur, 1200 legs and lasers shooting out their eyes,) but I think it opens some kind of unpleasant doors, mostly on your end of things.

I don't have a belief, rather an acceptance of evolutionary theory.

Acceptance of a proposition, as many native speakers of English use the words, is to believe the proposition.

I also think you're out of step with other atheists on this one. Most that I have encountered are happy to attest that they believe in evolution by natural selection. Just like most non-atheists.

In fact, I don't think I've ever met, in real life, an adult native speaker of English who would deny "I believe in the theory of evolution by natural selection."

You are also the only advocate of evolution by natural selection I have encountered who attributes purpose to mutation. Metaphorically, one reads about a gene "wanting to be passed on," but the usage is plainly figurative, and often appears in works written for non-scientists.

It's not thought to be random mutations, rather purposeful mutations resulting from natural selection, environmental adaptation and competition amongst and between same and different species.

There is scientific interest in exploring the dependencies in genetic mutation. That is, the probabilities of some chemical events inside a living organism may well differ from the corresponding probabilities in other reaction environments. To explore that possibility does not impute "purpose" to inanimate objects.

If by "it's not thought" you meant to describe current scientific consensus, then your statement is simply false. If you were describing your own personal thoughts, then fine.

But it wasn't clear that that was what you meant. You seemed to be speaking on behalf of others, but by adopting the passive voice, you avoided specifying which others. As always, any clarification you see fit to provide will be welcomed by this reader.

Originally posted by adjensen

Actually, I just thought of a way that your (and the other guy's) belief about randomness works.

In our dogs example, do you believe that ONLY dogs with four legs would succeed? That dogs with wheels, or twelve legs, would always inherently fail, so we'd keep getting failure after failure until random mutation finally popped out a four legged one?

If so, it definitely solves your problem (given enough time, we'd have mutated a dog with glowing fur, 1200 legs and lasers shooting out their eyes,) but I think it opens some kind of unpleasant doors, mostly on your end of things.

The same argument can be used against you just as effectively. Why are some humans born without eyes, arms and legs? Why are some born blind, dumb or mentally retarded? How do you explain these anomalies when you believe there is a Creator that has designed all living things in a specific way?

[edit on 24/7/2010 by Dark Ghost]

Originally posted by AProphet1233
I get it!

Ask an atheist anything and he'll tell you there's not enough evidence.

Wowzers.

But seriously, what are dreams made of?

Ask a non-believer in fairies and he'll tell you the same.

WOWZERS...goon.

What are dreams made of? they arn't physical, they are mental perceptions that occur while our body is under paralysis. Another hot philosophical topic...like what is the meaning of life etc.

reply to post by mhorndisk


Ok, you can use words incorectly, but that does not make you correct in your deductions thereof.