Are Atheists "Philosophically Limited"....?

I do believe you are missing the point. Of course they were trying to convince potential converts. That is part of the purpose of Matthew and definitely the purpose of John. This is a weak argument to me. I would again ask, to what end? Why go to the trouble of convincing potential converts? To perpetuate a positive challenge to love enemies? Giving to the needy? To not worry? To resist from judging others? To convince readers that Jesus was a legitimate prophet in order that the readers might do these things? The book perpetuates these challenges.I do not see any excuses here. Your argument does not consider the end, only the means. The facts are all pretty clear. The writers were trying to perpetuate a specific message. They had, realistically, nothing much to gain (one could argue some notoriety as writers but it seems like a lot of work to fib up a bunch of stories for something so short lived.) What is the motive, in your mind? Not at all. I claim he simply did not mention them. How is this a deliberate attempt to deceive? If I am writing a letter to you about my birthday party, there could be multiple reasons why I did not mention a specific person or detail. Perhaps I simply forgot. Perhaps it was not pertinent to the letter. Perhaps I did not have access to the information. Perhaps I was trying to convey a specific message and extra information simply did not matter. You are right, I may hae made light of the differences. They are significant, but honestly we do the same thing all the time; it is not unnatural at all that these things are missing. It is unusual, but definitely not unnatural.The right question to ask is why are these things omitted? Throwing it out simply because there are omissions is pretty lazy. We need to dig deeper than what is apparent and obvious. There is purpose I am comfortable enough to say sure, I have presuppositions. We all do. We're both speaking from ours right now. But what the Bible actually says pretty much validates its reliability. There are differences. There are omissions. There are, dare I say, mistakes! This is fine, it is a book written by humans, for humans, so human error is a thing. This is ok I can agree that I have used a biased source. But honestly, I don't need it. I could cite Wikipedia and it would have all the information I needed to make the same point. There is an idea. We can infer. There is not certainty. This is ok If Jesus was not God, or did not even exist, then it doesn't really matter what he believed about creation. Thus the legitimacy of the historical character Jesus must be demonstrated prior to the connection to creationism.I'm glad you mentioned this. Why does the loading of "I am" statements in John discredit the purpose of the statement? The purpose of John is to convince the reader of Jesus' divinity. The writer uses so many because that is the message he is trying to convey. Does this seem suspicious to you?In case there was any doubt, John writes in chapter 20:

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Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; 31 but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name. - John 20:30-31

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"That by believing you may have life." What an odd purpose. It could be paraphrased to say, "That by believing, PaulK and Raphael may have life." How can you know otherwise? Again, I would ask, for what purpose would they invent speeches about loving neighbors and doing justly to those who treat you unjustly? Honestly, it makes more sense for the speeches to be genuine; to claim forgery is a bit of a stretch.There are many methods for this. Jewish tradition included many oral traditions, passed down, word for word, that are still uttered to this day. Jewish Rabbis would often memorize massive sections of scripture. I wouldn't bank on this, but to memorize a speech, word for word, isnt even really a stretch. Oral tradition, a story passed down, fragments and sections written down perhaps, makes much more sense to me. Sure. Each author paints different pictures of the same Jesus. Each author remembers and emphasizes different things for specific purposes. Instead of throwing up our hands, and shouting "false!' we can work a little harder, and examine the reasons why Mark emphasizes Jesus' instructions to "tell no one." This is a difference, not an invalidating contradiction. It fits with the character of Jesus: everything He did was intentional. So when we come to something like his commands in Mark that appear to not match up with the boldness of John, we have to ask ourselves, for what purpose did Peter/Johnmark emphasize this? For what purpose did John emphasize Jesus' divinity? We have already answered the latter, and the former has a similar, intentional purpose. Or perhaps many purposes. Regards!- RaphEdited by Raphael, : No reason given.

Good point. Acknowledged. I never said God is outside our ability to experience him. In fact, the God of scripture is very dynamic, active, and involved in humanity, and is "experienced' on a regular basis. What I am stating is God is not "detectable" on our terms. He lives outside of what we control. So while he may be experienced, temporal, and perhaps even "testable," it's not on our terms. The irony is that God has let it be on our terms. Jeremiah 29:13 and Malachi 3:10 are great examples. So sure, God is testable by science. This is not a problem.But that is not even what I am arguing in this thread. My argument is that the Jesus character of scripture, when validated (or at least inferred beyond a reasonable doubt), is my hinge for taking the creationist position. If Jesus was who he said he was, namely God, then it follows that creationism is validated. It seems like you are arguing a sort of typical "god of the gaps" kind of concept? This is not my position. My position is:#1. We do not at this time possess all knowledge.
#2. Knowledge is constantly increasing.
#3. There will never be a point where humanity possess "all knowledge" (omniscience)
#4. Therefore, after examining the validity of claims the character Jesus makes, one may infer that God created.There is reason. There is evidence. Whether it's the type of evidence you want or prefer however, is another matter. Actually, it is the only thing that matters. My creationist position hinges on the claims of the Character Jesus in scripture, not on scientific evidence. So in reality, one must discredit scripture in order to discredit the creationist position, as the position is a faith based one not one based on scientific justification.Stating that my beliefs about a specific deity are irrelevant to the discussion doesn't really make them irrelevant. It's like saying "your decision to abuse cocaine has absolutely nothing to do with you decision about personal health." It is the only relevant piece of information. Let's back up here a bit. The Bible claims that Jesus Christ was God. We have thousands of manuscripts for the NT saying this. If Jesus believed in the Jewish G-D, and actually was God, it follows then that creation happened. How it happened, then is in question. There are many unknowns. Sure, these things can be tested. I see no problem with this. Sure. There are many variables for this. In order to examine whether or not God protects those who pray for protection, we have to look at both the character of God presented in the Bible, including the character of God communicated through the incarnated person of Jesus Christ, and the claims the Bible makes about prayer.Christians claim that God heals them through prayer. Perhaps he does. Have you done the adequate search of the text to determine if their claims of healing are legitimate? Emotionalism is a thing. Hype is a thing. Delusion/self-convincing is a thing. I am not denying these occurrences. But to use christians who claim to be healed as a test is not truly representative of the message of "healing" communicated through scripture. Where? What does scripture say about scientific theories being false? People have claimed many things. Do not let religiosity and close- mindedness blind you from the reality of scripture. Alright. This is fair. Let's drop the assertion that the supernatural is not testable for now. As I have stated to oni, I do not need to say that God is untestable by science, because he has offered many places in scripture by which to test him.

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Bring the full tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. And thereby put me to the test, says the Lord of hosts, if I will not open the windows of heaven for you and pour down for you a blessing until there is no more need. - Malachi 3:10

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You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart - Jeremiah 29:13

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The methods have been given, and they're pretty easy tests to be honest. Just because we don't like the method though, doesn't mean it isn't legitimate. So sure, there are methods to test God. I can say that for me, in my life. I have put God to the test in both of these areas and He has shown up. It wasn't magical, or weird. Simple. Profound. I encourage you to engage in these methods, examining the data. Religious people always quote verses like these and say to "do the same thing" without giving clarification, so I will do that as well.- The first verse, Malachi 3:10, is speaking about tithe, giving 10% of your income to God. He promises that if you do this, he will bless you with more than you can handle, effectively making it a promise where you benefit by trusting God with what you own.- The second verse is speaking about seeking God. When you make an attempt to seek God out with your whole heart (meaning with the authentic intention of actually coming to a conclusion, calling Him out on his apparent non-existance, he will reveal himself. It may not be in the way you expect . It is hard to be vulnerable. I feel this too. It appears that you are locked into this type of reasoning. The kind of mentality you are arguing is very Hellenistic in thought, which makes sense since western thinking pretty much comes from Greek tradition (Socrates, Plato, etc). For you, there is an impenetrable wall between "supernatural" and "natural." This is similar to Greek philosophers emphasis on the dichotomy between "spirit/mind" and "flesh/physical." This is not the case with the God of scripture.The God of scripture is a wholistic, dynamic, involved being. He is within the process as much as an agent who began it. He is both the life-force (breath of life) that permeates human existence and a character with feelings, thoughts, and plans. Do not be so quick to put God in a box, friend. If we are looking at the God of scripture, let's be accurateto the representation. On the contrary, the reality of the situation is that my position is based in scripture. You may attempt to attack another creationist position with an appeal to reality, but at this time, my rationale for creationism is the claims of Jesus Christ in the Judeo-Christian Bible, not some decision I made at some point. In order to argue against this position, you must therefore, discredit these claims. This is reality We may use science to identify and examine these claims, but as you have not discredited any of them, it would make sense for me to continue to base my claims in scripture.Regards!- Raph!

Sorry to be slow getting back to you. We may not be able to prove we exist but we can know that we are able to perceive our existence. We can know that we are able to perceive our sense of self realization and we are able to perceive our environment in a particular way.Why do we perceive the universe the way we do? Why are we not able to perceive the parts of our universe that science tells us is beyond our direct perception. If all conscious life ceased to exist would our universe still exist as a stand alone universe?I can't prove that my God exists nor can I prove the nature and character that I attribute to the Christian God. Yes it is faith but anybody who thinks of it, (and in order to be an atheist you have to think about it), comes to the conclusion about one piece of evidence. That evidence is that we do perceive our existence, and we do perceive our environment in a particular way. We can ignore the whole question by just opting out and saying that as we can't absolutely know the answer it isn't worth considering and remain agnostic on the issue. Or, we can by faith conclude that there is a pre-existing intelligent basis for our existence, or we can conclude that we exist as a result of fortuitous natural processes.I can accept the possibility of an infinite universe but personally I don't have enough faith to conclude that conscious life, let alone a conscious life with a sense of morality can simply evolve form mindless particles without having a pre-existing moral intelligence at it's root.

I am following this debate with some interest, but I thought of a question about the Bible verse that you keep quoting. I will quote it here so you know of which one I am speaking: My question does not hinge on the inaccuracy of the translation of the words. For the sake of this, let's assume the translation got the words exactly as they should be. However, what if the punctuation was not added in correctly in the translation, such that the verse becomes:"Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was I am."Then all this statement is saying is that before Abraham was the Jewish God, which refers to itself earlier in the Bible as, "I am that I am." This seems to make more sense grammatically and makes it seem like the comma was added to make people assume Jesus was speaking of himself by creating a slight pause in thought. Just a question about this verse and maybe you have a solution...Onto the topic at hand as it has been discussed so far, I will leave the rest of these religious discussions to others more adept, it was just a question I thought of while reading that.I do not see atheists as philosophically limited, rather we (at least myself) are philosophically patient. Many of us, such as myself, have spent a considerable amount of time giving back to our respective churches before leaving the faith and then through thought and searching determined that this use of our time and effort was spent toward a goal that lacks any sort of evidence aside from anecdote. I, along with many other atheists (a majority of atheists), would have no trouble accepting a God as an answer should it be willing to ever present any actual objective evidence about itself. However, myself, I do include a list of the likelihood of this or that God presenting itself in my mind as well. I find the odds of objective evidence being found for the Christian God, as described in the Bible, to be so close to zero as to make no difference. Why? Because this God is logically inconsistent with everything that is stated about him....all-loving, yet willing to massacre an entire planet because one species out of millions wronged him....All-knowing, but still acts like people have a choice to deny him, even though they were made with that already being known.......all-powerful, yet can't control a snake from convincing individuals to eat from a forbidden tree (which he would have known would happen). I find this situation very unlikely...could it be? Sure, but there is no reason to stress myself about this god without a large amount of verifying evidence. A theist God, I could see as requiring a little less evidence for me to buy into it, but it would still require some sort of objective evidence, above and beyond irreducible complexity. Mainly because of all the interesting little quirks in body plans (blind spot, largynal nerve in giraffes, rabbits' method of eating) that show that if this God is responsible for intelligent design, he is neither intelligent, nor a very good designer.So, no I do not think that Atheists philosophically limit themselves, they just require some sort of evidence to back up a claim before it can be given any credence...evidence consisting of natural events or other items that affect the natural world, not anecdote and storytime....I had enough storytime growing up in the Church, I'd prefer good answers based on facts at this point of my life.

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I do believe you are missing the point.

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I think that it is fairer to say that you are evading the issue. You're certainly not addressing - nor seem interested in addressing - the actual differences between the texts. Instead you seem to be arguing that the authors can only have motives that you approve of and therefore the actual differences don't count.

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t at all. I claim he simply did not mention them. How is this a deliberate attempt to deceive? If I am writing a letter to you about my birthday party, there could be multiple reasons why I did not mention a specific person or detail. Perhaps I simply forgot. Perhaps it was not pertinent to the letter. Perhaps I did not have access to the information. Perhaps I was trying to convey a specific message and extra information simply did not matter. You are right, I may hae made light of the differences. They are significant, but honestly we do the same thing all the time; it is not unnatural at all that these things are missing. It is unusual, but definitely not unnatural.

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But of course we are not talking about omitting mere details. We are talking about Matthew not only omitting everything from the Road to Emmaus encounter to Pentecost, but implying that they never happened, substituting his own stories.Again, you show no interest in considering what the Bible says at all.

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I am comfortable enough to say sure, I have presuppositions. We all do. We're both speaking from ours right now.

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It's quite clear that at least I'm not putting my presuppositions about the Bible ahead of the actual text - and that you are.

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But what the Bible actually says pretty much validates its reliability. There are differences. There are omissions. There are, dare I say, mistakes! This is fine, it is a book written by humans, for humans, so human error is a thing. This is ok

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If you really believed that, you wouldn't be evading discussion about the actual differences.

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I'm glad you mentioned this. Why does the loading of "I am" statements in John discredit the purpose of the statement? The purpose of John is to convince the reader of Jesus' divinity. The writer uses so many because that is the message he is trying to convey. Does this seem suspicious to you?

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It certainly makes me suspect that John's statements may be more based in bias than reality. And I note that you aren't addressing the issue of Mark.

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How can you know otherwise? Again, I would ask, for what purpose would they invent speeches about loving neighbors and doing justly to those who treat you unjustly? Honestly, it makes more sense for the speeches to be genuine; to claim forgery is a bit of a stretch.

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Herodotus invented speeches that he thought that the subjects might have said. If that's good enough for Herodotus why should it be out of bounds to the Gospel authors ?

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There are many methods for this. Jewish tradition included many oral traditions, passed down, word for word, that are still uttered to this day. Jewish Rabbis would often memorize massive sections of scripture. I wouldn't bank on this, but to memorize a speech, word for word, isnt even really a stretch. Oral tradition, a story passed down, fragments and sections written down perhaps, makes much more sense to me.

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Memorising a tradition, after it has solidified, is quite different from memorising a single speech as it is said. And how many of your presumed "eyewitnesses" had any special training in memorisation ?

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Sure. Each author paints different pictures of the same Jesus. Each author remembers and emphasizes different things for specific purposes. Instead of throwing up our hands, and shouting "false!' we can work a little harder, and examine the reasons why Mark emphasizes Jesus' instructions to "tell no one." This is a difference, not an invalidating contradiction.

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Or the author of John is misremembering, whatever the source of his information, based on his own biases. Let us not forget that John is dated to the END of the first century, sixty plus years after Jesus' death.Edited by PaulK, : No reason given.

We perceive as we do because the senses we evolved were necessary and sufficient for our survival. We see in the 430 — 750 THz range because these are the peak frequencies our sun puts out. Our olfactory and gustatory senses are tuned to a great range of molecules because there were a great range of molecules around and perceiving what molecules were predators upwind and what were poison to eat enhanced our survival.We do not perceive any 5th dimension (even with Aquarius up, up and away) because either such a perception was not crucial to our survival or multi-dimensions do not exist. Personally I’d bet on the former.Because we cannot perceive some dimension that may or may not be there is not sufficient reason to assume a deity. We are ignorant in that area so you are want to imagine your deity there. Because I cannot perceive the dark side of the moon this is not sufficient reason to assume an alien colony there. If we are ignorant of the dark side of the moon then we can only imagine that the dark side of the moon is something of which we are presently ignorant. I know it doesn't take a lot of imagination to imagine that but being ignorant is the only truthful statement we can make in either the "why do we perceive" case or the "can't see the dark side" case. It did so for about 13.8 billion years before we imagined a concept we call universe and I see no reason it should not continue without us. Despite the "philosophers" with their extreme extensions of quantum theory, we really are not necessary for the survival and functioning of this universe. So we perceive our existence and we perceive our environment in the way we evolved to perceive. I still see no sufficient reason to assume a deity. Or, as you do, we can use this area of human ignorance to imagine a deity. If that area (or some other area) were not there, if the entire universe could be solved by an equation, there would be no place for any kind of deity. Your answer, of course, would then go to our ignorance of the outside of the universe.As I surmise, human ignorance, the classic god-of-the-gaps, is essential for the survival of religion. It was developed around human ignorance, has thrived on human ignorance, grows weaker with each discovery in science and would perish without some place of which humans are ignorant. Unfortunately for you and your imagination, personal incredulity carries no truth value in this universe. No need to ever appologise for this. Only when real life has been placated by our presence and our actions is it appropriate to be here. We should take all the time we need "out there." This can always wait.

No problem with that, but once again you are confusing process and agency. You are assuming that there are only additional natural processes as a root cause. It is atheism of the gaps. If we could prove that another dimension/universe exists it wouldn't prove the existence of a deity. I have not claimed that it would. It would however be roughly consistent with the Christian idea that God exists all around us in ways that we don't directly perceive. If there is no conscious being to perceive or measure particles wouldn't they just exist in an indeterminate wave form leaving a universe that doesn't look at all like we perceive it? I'm easily in over my head here as my only background involves reading several books by the likes of Brian Greene. ..on the other hand, I see no reason to believe that there is an infinite series of natural processes resulting in that evolutionary process. Not really. I would simply ask who or what is responsible for the fact that the equation exists in the first place. An equation is knowledge Is it more reasonable to assume that knowledge has mindless or intelligent roots? Seeing as how this is a forum with evolution in its title - let's look at that. People like Dawkins argue that now that we essentially understand the evolutionary process we have done away with the need for any deity. That is simply, again, atheism of the gaps. He has no evidence of any process that produced the evolutionary process let alone any evidence for the process that produced the evolutionary process. If you want to argue that suggesting I am using a god of the gaps argument for suggesting that ultimately God is responsible for the evolutionary process then I suggest that it is no different for anyone who wishes to fill the gap with atheistic conclusions. True, but it is also true for someone that can't conceive of an intelligent moral life that is responsible for our existence. Thanks.

It doesn't follow. How can you say humans can experience god but then also say this:

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It's not that God is outside the universe, it is that God is simply untestable with science
  —Raphael

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How then are humans experiencing god that makes it untestable by humans doing science? Wait!!!Now here you contradict yourself and change your position entirely: So now you say we CAN test the supernatural?Then when you said this:

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The reason for this perspective is science cannot test the supernatural. It's not that God is outside the universe, it is that God is simply untestable with science. This is the first thing I learned in Biology. Science examines the natural world and creates hypotheses about how it works. You cannot find any proof for the supernatural, and I cannot demonstrate any, because it is the supernatural.
  —Raphael

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You were just talking out of your ass? Not trying to be rude I just don't know another what to say that. Yes, I get that. But I have already countered that when I said that the scriptures, the Bible and specifically the OT are based on ignorance. I then explained the difference which you aknowledged.So we continue to make the point that your creationism requires there to be ignorance for it to flourish. The Bible is only evidence that some many years ago, a group of people ignorant to the world they lived in wrote a book and made up stories to create a perspective of their reality. It was clearly inaccurate to say the least. It is clearly based on ignorance.This is not evidence based. It is based on stories written by men who were without a doubt ignorant about their world.So I get that it is evidence TO YOU but when examined properly, unbaisly, it proves to not be evidence at all.- Oni

The gaps are our ignorance. We do not assume these gaps justify anything. They are just (temporary) lapses of knowledge. Atheism-of-the-gaps has no meaning.In this specific case, though, the process was evolution and the agency was survival. There you go, again. We lack the knowledge. Instead of saying "we don't know" you say "maybe god". Seems there is "maybe god" in all our areas of ignorance according to religion. By extension, if there were no gaps, no ignorance, there would be no god. That state of complete knowledge will never be, of course.You jump the logic from the true "we don't know" to the fantasy "maybe something" without any justification. Where the philosophers go off the rails in the extremes, which is what philosophers seem required to do thus making them useless to reality, is that an "observation" is not limited to human intellect seeing a result, thus collapsing the wave function, but by anything, like aggregates of particles where the probability curves for each particle peak sharply at one point. Aggregates of particles collapse into classical mechanics.Yes, that supernova actually did happen even though we did not see it until 5 million years later. The moon really does not disappear when no one is looking. Yes, the universe was full of stars, planets, explosions and collisions, just like we see now, well before humans developed any capacity to observe.

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The observer has, rather, only the function of registering decisions, i.e., processes in space and time, and it does not matter whether the observer is an apparatus or a human being; but the registration, i.e., the transition from the "possible" to the "actual," is absolutely necessary here and cannot be omitted from the interpretation of quantum theory.

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-- Werner Heisenberg

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I might be able to go with that if it wasn't for literally trillions of verifiable observations that have only shown nature vs zero such observations for anything "beyond". This universe seems to only allow extrapolations into the unknown from the reality that is known.Even with this heavy preponderance of data indicating that only natural explanations have, and thus will, be found, isn't there a logical scientific rationale to keep open the possibility of something "beyond"? If the data were weak or sparse then maybe, but it is not. The evidence is overwhelming and exclusively in one direction so no, there is no logical scientific rationale to entertain that possibility. An equation is merely our symbolic representation of observed processes. Any intelligence behind it is purely the human ability to get the observations right. Why does α take on the value it does? We don't know, yet. And, again, in that ignorance you wish posit your deity. Why do you assume the processes we observe are intelligently designed? Personal incredulity? Emotional desire? The only rational response is "we don't know why α is the value it is" not "maybe god done it". Not atheistic conclusions, GDR, just extrapolation from known natural explanations into natural explanations, where as you wish to extrapolate into La-La land. All that evidence, in the trillions of data points, all point to here, while you are, without reason, emotionally driven to want to go there. There is no path to there, GDR. It doesn't exist. No, not really. There is no rationale to conceive of such a thing. The truth value of what we know is quite good. None of it goes there.Edited by AZPaul3, : spl, title

Great question! The first thing to note is there is not punctuation in greek. Commas and such were added later by interpreters so, as you have noticed, sometimes punctuation was placed specifically to communicate a specific theological concept. You're pretty justified to be wondering about it.To answer this I need to do a quick word study:

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εἶπεν αὐτοῖς Ἰησοῦς Ἀμὴν ἀμὴν λέγω ὑμῖν πρὶν Ἀβραὰμ γενέσθαι ἐγὼ εἰμί

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So, roughly translated, this would be: "said to them Jesus truly truly I am saying to you before Abraham was I am."You are right to wonder about this, but the way Greek works pretty much answers your question. Jesus uses the word "ἐγὼ" which is a word that always means "I." Meaning, the person using "ἐγὼ" is always speaking about himself. For added clarity: The "ὼ (omega)" is a personal, 1st person ending that can only mean the user is referring to himself. So, together with the word "εἰμί"(to be, exist), ἐγὼ εἰμί means ,"I am existing."Hope this helps! This is honorable. To be patient seems like determination to wait for more evidence, constantly with an open mind. I greatly respect your mentality friend. I understand your frustration with this concept. I wrestle with the same thoughts. In my searching, I have discovered that many of our frustrations with God come from misconceptions about him, and about what scripture actually says about him. I don't have time for a huge response but just quick: It seems like you're speaking about the Flood in Genesis 6 here?

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The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually - Gen. 6:5

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There really is no easy answer to this one. In Genesis we get to see that the very being of man was 100% evil. Every thought was "evil continually." Another phrase for this could be "a living hell." I don't really even think we can imagine how awful this was. A great tragedy, but praise God for Jesus and the salvation and eternal life given to those of us who were too lost in darkness to see it. (dang that sounded super religious lol). Paul makes it a little more clear in Romans:

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For all who have sinned without the law will also perish without the law, and all who have sinned under the law will be judged by the law. - Romans 2:12

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Basically what this means is that those who were so far gone as to not even have a concept of morality are not judged according to the law, they are covered by the blood of Christ. They will inherit eternal life. So, I guess what I'm trying to say is that while, yes, God did massacre an entire planet, he did this because he has something better for those killed. He has something better for all of us. I know what it is like to be so far gone you cannot even see that light or hope exists. I've been at that place in my life. What amazing redemption for those of us who didn't even know that something better existed, and it is freely given. The best part about all of this is that God will be judged at the end of time. (no time, check out Revelation 20!) Another tough one to answer. This sounds like a reaction to a strictly Calvinist position, that God has foreknowledge of anything and everything and has predestined people for hell, has already decided who will choose him, etc. This position isn't really consistent with scripture. In fact, we find that hell was not even made for humans in the first place. (thats a long conversation, no time ) We like to think that the whole thing is about us, but it really has nothing to do with humans. I understand your confusion with this one. But this is probably one of the best examples of freewill. God gives mankind the option to opt out of His love, even though it is so much better and incredible than we can ever imagine. He does this because God is a lover. He wants us to love him not out of programming, or fear, but love. In order to do this He must give us the option to not choose Him. That is what He did in the garden. And we opted out. But praise God, because He still has something better for us despite the fact that we turned our backs on him. Dang. Im starting to preach . Will return with texts later! Something important to note is that with the fall of mankind, sin entered the word. Im not sure how to explain this ithout sounding cheesy or religious. But Sin is not "doing bad things," it is essentially a disease humanity and creation has been infected with, when we chose to opt out of God's love. Sin has corrupted and destroyed many things. This world is a broken one. But one day, everything will be made new . I get you here. I have had a similiar experience. The hard part is, is the answers are often a lot more simple than we want them to be. And it takes faith, honestly it does. Sometimes I wonder If I have enough faith to believe all of this. Its probably not possible. But with God...you probably know the rest Regards!- Raph

The gaps may be our ignorance but we have both come to very different conclusions about that area of our ignorance. Survival is part of the process it is not the agency. The agency is either a designer or natural processes. OK but it is exactly the same for the atheistic position. You simply involve the fantasy of maybe an infinite series of mindless natural processes. It seems to me that Heisenberg's quote argues against your point. It may be millions of years later that we observe it but the fact remains that we did observe it. From my minimal understanding of QM when we observe or measure a particle then at that time the history is created that brought about the final result. Sure, but that is what science does. It works with natural processes. It has learned a lot about evolution and maybe some day it will discover a narural process for abiogenesis and then it can go looking for the process that allowed for that. and so on infinitely. Ultimately we have to come to a conclusion about what is unknown. Are we the result of an an infinite series of natural processes or the result of an intelligent designer who is part of an multi time dimensional existence. I don't know. It sorta goes back to the old question which is: did we discover mathematics or did we invent it? An infinite regression of natural processes isn't La-La Land?The fact that intelligence exists, that morality exists, that consciousness exists or that any form of life exists at all are data points that cry out for an explanation. However the explanation is obscure to us and so we come to our own conclusions and we have come to different conclusions. I believe that our origins involve a pre-existing intelligence and you presumably believe that we are the result of mindless natural processes. IMHO your position requires a great deal more faith than mine.

This has probably been discussed ad nauseam but can you give your reasoning for basically setting little-knowing people for a certain failure. Often used comparison is that of parents leaving candy next to a child and then punishing him for taking it.

Atheist have no position. We don't say "maybe there is an infinte series of natural processes". You always try to force this position on us to put us at equal plane with you, since you never defend how illogical your position is. Why do you constantly misrepresent atheist?All we say is FOR NOW the evidence shows us natural processes. That is all. Nothing more. No further conclusions. No we don't. There is no reason to come to a conclusion about what is unknown. In fact, that seems nonsensical. How can one make any conclucions about the unknown? Or magical fairies, or a matrix, or some experiment, or created last Thursday, or inside an atom, or....etc, etc, etc.There is no limit to what we can be the result of. But there is no need to create scenarios or imagine supernatural concepts. There is no need or logical reason why we should conclude anything about the unknowns. If there is a limit to our knowledge then good, there is more to discover. Atheist don't "believe" anything. We've gone over this in other threads. For now there is only evidence of natural processes, so we understand that. That is all. No further conclusions. When in doubt compare atheism to religion.- Oni

You make up your own definition of atheism and then use it as a cop-out so that you don't have to defend your position.This is from the Merriam Webster dictionary.

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a : a disbelief in the existence of deity
b : the doctrine that there is no deity

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Here is the definition for an agnostic from the same dictionary.

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: a person who does not have a definite belief about whether God exists or not

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: a person who does not believe or is unsure of something.

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What you call atheism is actually agnosticism.

We could get into one of those dueling dictionary interpretation holes, here.Survival (ie, fitness, successful reproduction through the +1 generation) is the natural process that spurs evolution. It is the driving impetus, the overriding agent, that causes evolution to occur.I suppose one could chose any of the processes and claim that to be the key (mutation/selection, reproductive advantage, etc) but all other processes in evolution affect the one overarching cause of evolution. Evolution comes with its own built-in agency.Now, if you want to backup one step to abiogenesis then the agent is natural organic chemistry. Behind that is basic elemental chemistry and behind that is the fine structure constant (α).To go back another step and ask why α takes on the value that it does, what agent caused α to come into being at that value, the answer is "we do not know". The answer is not "god done it" nor even "maybe god".That is not some "atheist conclusion" or atheism-of-the-gaps BS, it is the only valid conclusion we can possibly make. We do not know.And up to this point there has been no god nor any need for a god. But, now, at this edge of our knowledge overlooking this chasm of ignorance, this is where religion says "god".Back to my main point. Without an area of ignorance there is no place for any flavor of god. Religion requires ignorance to survive. Shakespeare wanted to kill all the lawyers. Maybe not a bad idea, but it would also be to society's great benefit to add all the philosophers to that list.Standard Copenhagen interprets the wave function as a set of probabilities. The particle could be anywhere, with higher probabilities in some places than in others. But, for a single particle, we do not know all these probabilities prior to observation. The wave function is spread such that, without an observation, the particle could be anywhere, thus, mathematically, it is everywhere at once. The superposition of Schrdinger's poor little pussy. But Schrdinger's cat is only mathematically in both states, because the reality is unknown. The act of observation collapses the probabilities, the wave function, to one objective reality. What actually collapses is not some objective thing called a wave function, but the knowledge of the observer from a superposition to a hard reality.The philosophers take this to the absurd extreme of saying this applies not just to quantum particles but to cats, moons and ice cream bars. That these things have no "reality" until they are observed and the universe does not exist without the observation of the human intellect. Buulll Shhitt!When it comes to particles, in the mathematical sense we must accept the state of superposition. Philosophically, then, the reality for the particle does not exist until it is observed. If we kill the philosopher, then the reality is the particle is anywhere/everywhere within the superposition we just do not know where until it is observed.The supernova happened whether anyone is ever there to see it or not. Just like the sound of the tree falling in the forest. The only thing QM has to say about the supernova is that an electron that finally reaches us here on earth is in a superposition of states until we observe the thing. It says nothing about the past history of the electron nor any superposition of the supernova that spawned it. It is the aggregate of observations of photons and electrons, together with our models, that tells us the reality of the supernova happening, not Quantum theory.Edited by AZPaul3, : titleEdited by AZPaul3, : clearer? Edited by AZPaul3, : moreEdited by AZPaul3, : more