Atheism's Weakness

[dloubet]

How can anyone prove that the sun and earth were made billions of years ago? Were you there?

Of course I was there. Where do you think I came from, Alpha Centauri? The atoms in my body were in the cloud of hydrogen and supernova debris that collapsed to form the sun and solar system. You were there too.

Okay, that was facile, but do you really believe that you cannot know anything about the past that you were not personally there to witness? That we cannot know something happened in the past by examining the current state of the universe? Are you really willing to sacrifice all claims to knowledge, just to defend your evidenceless beliefs?

[kcrady]

How can anyone prove that the sun and earth were made billions of years ago? Were you there? Does science prove evolution? No, it's a theory. So before anyone says how old the earth is and  that science proved this and that, find some real proof because otherwise you are staging your arguments over nothing and you yourself is a sheep following someone who decided that hydrogen and helium just poofed itself into a sun... That sounds completely reasonable.

Well, we know Christianity is ridiculous because it claims there are five Gods who are in an eternal state of having gay sex with one another, that the Cosmos was created last Thursday, and we're saved from the threat of Christmas fruitcake by the fact that Vlad the Impaler died for us.

What's that?  That's not what Christianity teaches?  How do you know?  Were you there at the Council of Nicea? 

There.  Now you know what we feel like when we see "arguments" like what you just posted.  Maybe now you can have an idea how persuasive an "argument" based on complete ignorance and misrepresentation of one's position really is. 

Question for you: would you like to actually try to persuade anyone that your position is correct?  If your answer is yes, then if you want to make arguments about cosmology and evolution, you should read up enough on those theories from writings of people who agree with them, that you can describe those theories in a way that people like us would agree is accurate.  If you can't do that, then you don't even understand what it is you're trying to refute, and your arguments will miss the target, the same way my "5 gay gods" argument would fail to debunk Christianity.

If you lack the requisite curiosity to try to find out what your opponents' position actually is, you really shouldn't try to engage it.  You're better off just saying, "I believe in the stuff I was taught in Sunday School as a little kid, and I don't wanna learn nuthin' more than that, and you should be like me!"     

[jaimehlers]

Raymond, just wanted to point out that the Earth doesn't drift; it orbits.  The rate at which the sun's gravity attracts it inward is effectively canceled out by the rate at which it moves forward in its orbit.

You are certainly correct in saying that the Earth neither floats (implying that there is some medium that it floats in, which is not correct), nor is it suspended (implying that it doesn't move, which is also not correct).  But it does have a gravitational force to overcome, which it does by falling forward so that it stays in a stable orbit.

[Astreja]

How can anyone prove that the sun and earth were made billions of years ago? Were you there?

Oh, come on, now. You can't possibly be that ignorant of science.

Does science prove evolution? No, it's a theory.

In science, the word "theory" does not mean "wild-assed guess that we made just for the heck of it." It actually means "an attempt to explain facts that we have already observed."  Evolution itself is a fact, but we're still working out the details of how it happens.  That, not evolution itself, is the "theory" part.

...So before anyone says how old the earth is and  that science proved this and that, find some real proof because otherwise you are staging your arguments over nothing and you yourself is a sheep following someone who decided that hydrogen and helium just poofed itself into a sun... That sounds completely reasonable.

I've seen a small amount of hydrogen explode in a test tube, in My high school chemistry class circa 1973.  I can quite easily imagine an immense amount of the stuff aggregating, pulled together by gravity, and then igniting.  I can also imagine hydrogen atoms fusing into helium. 

Please don't mix science and religion, especially if you don't understand science well enough to present a well-reasoned critique of the theories you're questioning.  Calling people "sheep" and sarcastically saying "That sounds completely reasonable" just makes you sound like a petulant teenager trying to defend the anti-science that her parents or pastor fed her under the guise of knowledge.

[Add Homonym]

How can anyone prove that the sun and earth were made billions of years ago? Were you there? Does science prove evolution? No, it's a theory. So before anyone says how old the earth is and  that science proved this and that, find some real proof because otherwise you are staging your arguments over nothing and you yourself is a sheep following someone who decided that hydrogen and helium just poofed itself into a sun... That sounds completely reasonable.

(Approaching your question with an answer it does not deserve.)

Hebrew cosmology put the sun and moon and stars in the "firmament of the heavens", otherwise known as the atmosphere, on the 4th day, after creating plant life. We have firm evidence that the heavens are not in the Earth's atmosphere, under a layer of water.

By observing photons from billions of years ago, a system which God gave us to observe, we can see ancient stars evolve from the dust of supernovas.

Why are you so allergic to the idea that the universe was created 14billion years ago, when the Hebrew cosmology gives us no answers, and the real God of the universe has given us ancient photons to witness the real creation? Why would the real God deceive us that way?

You call us sheep! Who is the greatest sheep; the one who follows a fad based on incorrect knowledge from an incorrect god, or the ones who follow a fad based on observation of the facts that the real God has given to us?

I tell you, the atheist God has more explanatory power than your false god, Yahyuk.

[Historicity]

And here I thought atheism's weakness was chocolate.

Though mine's those little chocolate chip cookies with ice cream sandwiched between.  Trader Joe's sells 'em with little chocolate chips rolled in, around the edges.

OMD[1], I think you've got something there.  Except it's that peanut butter & chocolate or chocolate mint or bananas on chocolate ice cream.  I wish I had some now so I can sit back and watch my spectator sport of watching you others work.

1.	OH, MY DARWIN

[ParkingPlaces]

Sorry folks, I'm on an iPad and the quote thing doesn't work, so I'm just cutting and pasting this from the OP:

There are some things in the world that are better to not know, but these questions are very important so we should have the right to know, because we are in existence

I have no idea what this means, but overall, SoulSaved seems to think that being wowed by the mystery of it all is further enhanced by maintaining a certain air of ignorance, even though our right to know is involved. How one combines curiosity with a lack of knowledge for the sake of having both all the answers AND a god is beyond me.

From the atheist point of view (or at least mine), we are NOT "in existence" if we spend all our time believing made up stuff.  I don't read the bible for the same reason I don't limit my book choices at the library and bookstore to the children's section. If I'm going to bother being here on this planet, I'm not going to soak my brain in ignorance.  And that's exactly what religion does. 

Whether it is the religious right or the republican right, the overall assumption appears to be "if it doesn't feel good, it can't be true".  The reason we can't explain science to either group is that reality is just too gosh durned complex and interesting to appeal to them. And they're scared. Not a good combination.

Lacking a soul and having no need to be saved, I'm guessing the OP and I have nothing in common.

Well, I'm not actually guessing...

[plethora]

How can anyone prove that the sun and earth were made billions of years ago? Were you there? Does science prove evolution? No, it's a theory. So before anyone says how old the earth is and  that science proved this and that, find some real proof because otherwise you are staging your arguments over nothing and you yourself is a sheep following someone who decided that hydrogen and helium just poofed itself into a sun... That sounds completely reasonable.

So let me see if I got this straight .... if no one saw an event happen, that means there's no way to prove anything and so therefore "God did it".

Now I get it ... yeah ... I like this approach!

It sure makes the job easy for homicide detectives and forensic investigators. Just check to see if there are any witnesses at the crime scene and if there are none then ...  God did it! Case closed, pack up and let's go home and pray!

Doctor: "You have Leprosy. Okay, here's a prescription for Rifampicin, Ofloxacin & Minocycline. Follow this treatment ... "

You: "Oh no doctor, I wasn't there to witness the clinical trials that approved this medication as an appropriate treatment for Leprosy. So my only alternative is to rely on the bible ... let's see ... (flips through bible) ... Leviticus 14 ... I'm going to need 2 birds, fresh water, a clay pot, cedar wood, scarlet yarn and hyssop... "

Thank you, SoulSaved ... for teaching us how not to use common sense. 

[pingnak]

Ooh, yeah.  Minty chocolate. 

The only problem that I have with chocolate (or ice cream, for that matter) is it makes me sick...

If I have enough of it, I'll eat it until I get sick.

[Illuminatus99]

I think that it's hilarious that people are saying that the bible is so wrong and anyone could have written it. Did anyone read that the bible said that the earth was round and floated? This was centuries before scientists 'discovered' that the earth was round and you couldn't fall off the edge of the earth.
Job 26:10 <- Hebrew at the time interchanged the word circle for sphere!!
Isaiah 40:22
He spreads out the northern [skies] over empty space; he suspends the earth over nothing" (Job 26:7, NIV)
Psalm 8:8 <- Says that there are paths of  the seas, referring to the ocean currents
Job 36:26-29 <-Water cycle is clearly explained even though it was not understood by scientists until 30 B.C. by an engineer!
 There are so many more references you can read here...
http://www.godlessgeeks.com/LINKS/ScientificBible.htm

Remember, the bible was written thousands of years ago before scientists 'discovered' all of these things, even though it was right in front of them!

The greeks measured the circumference of the earth to a high degree of accuracy and knew it was a sphere long before the bible was written. For the most part people never really believed the world was flat, that was something cooked up by people after the renaissance to make it seem as if people during the dark ages weren't too bright.

[Illuminatus99]

I've seen a small amount of hydrogen explode in a test tube, in My high school chemistry class circa 1973.  I can quite easily imagine an immense amount of the stuff aggregating, pulled together by gravity, and then igniting.  I can also imagine hydrogen atoms fusing into helium. 

An even better example would be the fusing of hydrogen into helium in a thermonuclear bomb

[Cyberia]

I've seen a small amount of hydrogen explode in a test tube, in My high school chemistry class circa 1973.  I can quite easily imagine an immense amount of the stuff aggregating, pulled together by gravity, and then igniting.  I can also imagine hydrogen atoms fusing into helium. 

An even better example would be the fusing of hydrogen into helium in a thermonuclear bomb

I agree, but didn't want to say anything until you did.  Astreja gave an example of combustion, in which hydrogen combines chemically with oxygen in an exothermic reaction.  However, the source of power for all stars is nuclear fusion where hydrogen (or in heavy stars, other elements) fuses into helium and releases a MUCH greater amount of energy than simple combustion.

[Historicity]

Remember, the bible was written thousands of years ago before scientists 'discovered' all of these things, even though it was right in front of them!

The greeks measured the circumference of the earth to a high degree of accuracy and knew it was a sphere long before the bible was written.
[/quote]
No,  Isaiah lived about 650 BC and Pythagoras about 500.  Pythagoras has the oldest statement we know of that the world was round.

However, Eratosthenes, working in Egypt measured the size of the Earth about 240 BC and (assuming he meant his measurements as Egyption stadions) got it right to 2%.  Or maybe within 20% if he intended some other city state's stadion.

Now, the pagan Greeks did have a Bible.  It was never bound in a volume nor did a priesthood canonize or edit it.  But as you read the ancient Greeks they refer (as in the Trial of Socrates) to "Homer and Hesiod".  "Homer" did not mean his Illiad and Odyssey but a pagan Book of Psalms he wrote called the Homeric Hymns.  Hesiod (about 700 BC) was the undoubted author of a wisdom book, Works and Days and the (doubted) author of The Theogony.  According to Zeno of Elea (famous for Zeno's Paradoxes) who lived about 500 BC, said Hesiod had said words to the effect that the world was a sphere.

Hesiod was about the same time as Isaiah -- maybe before him.  I don't know what the lines of Hesiod which Zeno said showed he knew the world was round.  Possibly Zeno was like SoulSaved, trying hard to attribute scientific truth to a sacred writing because he wanted to believe it.

So, Illuminatus99, much of the Bible was written about the same time as, not before the Greeks writing.

Here's a hilarious site of Koranic Science which claims that Mohammed Allah revealed the sphericity of the Earth in the Koran long before science knew about it.

How's that you wonder?  The Koran is later than the Bible or the Greek scientists, right?  Oh, thou foui unbeliever, may a thousand camels defecate on your lawn[1]  Here is the true history:

Koran     650 CE
Sputnik 1957 CE.  For it was not until Sputnik I sent back photos that scientists knew the world was round.

If you think I'm exaggerating here is the link:  Quran-m.com -- Sphericity of the Earth

1.	That's not from a real Islamic source.  That's from Johnny Carson's mentalist act, Karnak the Magnificent.

[Astreja]

Astreja gave an example of combustion, in which hydrogen combines chemically with oxygen in an exothermic reaction.  However, the source of power for all stars is nuclear fusion where hydrogen (or in heavy stars, other elements) fuses into helium and releases a MUCH greater amount of energy than simple combustion.

This is true; thanks for pointing this out.  What I saw in the chem lab is not at all what goes on in a star.

If I understand the process correctly, it's the high core temperature of a nascent star that begins the process of fusing hydrogen into helium.  And I learned two new things today, the proton-proton chain reaction and the CNO cycle.

[RaymondKHessel]

Is it OK to use the Pink Floyd 'Dark Side of the Moon' album cover prominently as part of a religious nutjob website?

FUCKING NO, IT IS NOT.

Holy s**t, I... I don't even have words.

That offends me to a degree that must be comparable to the way a Christian would feel if somebody put a picture of Jesus ass-raping an 8 year old outside the NAMBLA clubhouse.

I don't even know if that analogy is accurate or not, I can't fucking think straight I am so unbelievably pissed off right now.

HOW FUCKING *DARE* THEY!?

Can something be blasphemous to an atheist? If not, this is as close as it gets man. Ooooooh I want to break something SO bad. LIKE THE FACE OF WHOEVER DID THIS SHIT!!!!!!!!!!!! 

[Hatter23]

And here I thought atheism's weakness was chocolate.

Though mine's those little chocolate chip cookies with ice cream sandwiched between.  Trader Joe's sells 'em with little chocolate chips rolled in, around the edges.

Atheism's weakness is that it attempts to operate from a position of reasonableness. Logic has rules and reasonableness has a dedication to truth.

The opposition does not need to abide by any rules. Not Logic. Not Reason. No proscription against lying. It may Cherrypick. It can threaten. It can appeal to emotion. And when one goes off in a huff, another will come in with, as the expression I recently read here, P.R.A.T.T.

[Hatter23]

Can something be blasphemous to an atheist? \

So far, I've only noticed the use of oversized text being treated as such.

So that post was blaphemous

[pingnak]

Noooo!  Not BIGTEXT!

[Historicity]

goes off in a huff, another will come in with, as the expression I recently read here, P.R.A.T.T.

rationalwiki.org -- PRATT

"Refuting the antiscience movement" is the website's slogan.

http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Main_Page

It's a good source to look up antiscience nuts like Dana Ullman or Ken Ham.

About once a week I checked their page What is Going On in the Clogosphere? for a sampling of things said by silly sites.

[Hatter23]

goes off in a huff, another will come in with, as the expression I recently read here, P.R.A.T.T.

rationalwiki.org -- PRATT

"Refuting the antiscience movement" is the website's slogan.

http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Main_Page

It's a good source to look up antiscience nuts like Dana Ullman or Ken Ham.

About once a week I checked their page What is Going On in the Clogosphere? for a sampling of things said by silly sites.

I like it, though I think they may undermine themselves by having such an obvious viceral hatred for Conservapedia, and a "jokey" tone about it.

[ksm]

If one cannot truly understand a grain of sand, then one cannot understand the beach.

What the heck that actually supposed to mean?

[Xero-Kill]

rationalwiki.org -- PRATT

"Refuting the antiscience movement" is the website's slogan.

http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Main_Page

It's a good source to look up antiscience nuts like Dana Ullman or Ken Ham.

About once a week I checked their page What is Going On in the Clogosphere? for a sampling of things said by silly sites.

I like it, though I think they may undermine themselves by having such an obvious viceral hatred for Conservapedia, and a "jokey" tone about it.

Hmmm, and I thought it was one of their more redeeming qualities. I hate how almost every site out there has to have a sort of "kid gloves" approach to handling these topics for our side.[1] It flies against the common conception that the opposition must be afforded some automatic level of respect, no matter how trite their subject matter is. It is one of the qualities of religion that irks me the most... their "opinions" are given WAY more weight than they deserve, because... well I really don't know why other than they demand it and for some reason we feel compelled to give it.

For me, it was refreshing to find an unabashed stance from our side for once. They make no apologies for the defense of rational thought, as well they shouldn't.

1.	Our side being rational thinkers.

[Historicity]

I like it, though I think they may undermine themselves by having such an obvious viceral hatred for Conservapedia, and a "jokey" tone about it.

From what I read some of them were on Conservapedia when it started (I don't know what they thought it would be) but found it such a weird vanity project that they kept watching it. 

Some of the articles such as the one on Conservapedia's attack on the Theory of Relativity are worth the read.

[Historicity]

If one cannot truly understand a grain of sand, then one cannot understand the beach.

What the heck that actually supposed to mean?

Why, Grasshopper, it allows you to snap someone's spine without contention.  Even I, who am blind, can see that. 

[Mr. Blackwell]

Why, Grasshopper, it allows you to snap someone's spine without contention.  Even I, who am blind, can see that.

"Ahh, I see!", said the blind man as he picked up his hammer and saw.

[Hatter23]

rationalwiki.org -- PRATT

"Refuting the antiscience movement" is the website's slogan.

http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Main_Page

It's a good source to look up antiscience nuts like Dana Ullman or Ken Ham.

About once a week I checked their page What is Going On in the Clogosphere? for a sampling of things said by silly sites.

I like it, though I think they may undermine themselves by having such an obvious viceral hatred for Conservapedia, and a "jokey" tone about it.

Hmmm, and I thought it was one of their more redeeming qualities. I hate how almost every site out there has to have a sort of "kid gloves" approach to handling these topics for our side.[1] It flies against the common conception that the opposition must be afforded some automatic level of respect, no matter how trite their subject matter is. It is one of the qualities of religion that irks me the most... their "opinions" are given WAY more weight than they deserve, because... well I really don't know why other than they demand it and for some reason we feel compelled to give it.

For me, it was refreshing to find an unabashed stance from our side for once. They make no apologies for the defense of rational thought, as well they shouldn't.

1.	Our side being rational thinkers.

I didn't mean that at all. Just that a site championing rationality should be a little less emotional about it. A bloodless dissection, so to speak, of the errors of woo.

[Xero-Kill]

Hatter,

I get what you are saying, and to a point I agree... but I think it helps to humanize our plight. I mean, we ARE humans after all and we do have emotions as well as a sense of humor. Every source of rationality need not always be characterized like a Vulcan from Star Trek; with pure logic and zero emotion.

Also, Conservipedia is a loathsome project that deserves to be reviled[1], so I feel no love-loss there. Taking the high road gets tiresome after a while... especially when the opposition delights in its own ignorance. I do get what you mean when you say it doesn't help in gaining any traction with the opposition... but then RationalWiki isn't a site FOR the opposition. It is more like our own blatant indulgence with an "in-group" where we can say it how we want without having to pander, appease, and sugar coat everything.

Agree to semi-disagree? Call it a matter of personal taste?

1.

IMO

[Hatter23]

Hatter,


Agree to semi-disagree? Call it a matter of personal taste?

Sure, I just want to add, it isn't like I don't like...hell..it isn't like I don't write humor mocking the insipid stupidity of theists and neo-cons. I just think a place called "Rational" should remain bloodless.