^^^ We still have slavery today. How do you think all those buildings in Dubai were built? In the USA it's called Minimum Wage where those who are dumb end up working a McJob. That's why many states are raising it, even though that is not the answer. It's on the ballot, will go from $8.46 to $15 by 2026. I'm voting no, but it's probably going to pass.
Floridas 2020 ballot will include $15 minimum wage question

Would have to be what churches are available in your area. And people want to be part of a large group. The major churches have campuses with auditoriums, bands, events. If someone was to follow a smaller religion, they would probably end up at a house with a few people.

Religion goes way back, here's the time line.
Timeline of religion - Wikipedia
Started when they buried people, they put tomb stones to remember, then the Egyptians took it to the next level building pyramids that pointed to the stars.

Most religions seem to focus on One God, and then tell the stories of a prophet (Mohamed) or Son (Jesus). That's the flaw with religion in the USA. Every Sunday thousands of Americans are learning about history of Jerusalem from 2k years ago, when they could be learning about the USA. There can be one God, but the story being told needs to be updated for Americans. All those people going to church on Sunday get nothing out of it, except knowing they need to be good, give all their money, and encourage others to follow (cult). Besides prayer groups and being at church, no one talks about the people in the bible.

Religion is old.

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Combination of a couple reasons.

First, as I said, humans are naturally bad at logic and reason. I've already mentioned agent detection (the lion and the bush). Then there's plain old superstition, a behaviour so ingrained in biology that it can even be cultivated in pigeons. On top of that, human brains are hardwired for pattern recognition, which is how we get all those "I saw Jesus in a piece of toast" stories. Put those three traits together, and you very quickly get a predisposition to the idea that there are great mysterious entities moving the world, and performing strange rituals will make those entities love us and move the world in our favor.

Second, humans are a social species, and for a social species, group cohesion is paramount. Sharing rituals and customs is a great way to achieve group cohesion, so the irrational religious beliefs can survive by piggybacking on the very useful social benefits that derive from them. You yourself admitted however, that we can achieve these same benefits without the religious belief as well.

Third, plain old violence. Religions have a history of putting themselves in a position of power where dissent is impossible. Do you have any idea how many people are out there even today who don't believe in a god, but proclaim to be muslim anyway because the people around them are ready to kill them if they committed apostasy? And even if we're not talking about physical violence, some people in the so-called civilized western world today are still getting completely shunned and even disowned by their parents for coming out as atheists. So much for aligning yourself to a higher ideal.


Nobody's denying that culturally, religions have been deeply integral to human civilization. But that doesn't mean that their claims about supernatural beings existing are true.

You spent a paragraph describing how people have changed the moral standards of society... only to conclude that people can't change their moral compass. Something doesn't add up here. If people can't change their moral compass, and you don't believe in any god's existence that dictates morality to people, then just who changed the morality of the western world?

Again: if you agree that we no longer share the same morals as the peoples of the old testament, but you don't think that people can change their moral compass, then how did this change come about?


And all this waxing philosophical aside: what about all the reformed criminals of the world? People who have willingly committed heinous crimes a long time ago, but are now truly remorseful and have turned over a new leaf? Are you saying those people don't exist? They're all faking it?

God is not imaginary, nor is the reality of God's existence all peaches and cream, quite the opposite in many cases. The notion that everyone believing in God willfully chooses to believe in an imaginary friend in desperate pursuit of comfort is one of the most incorrect and directly false notions that people adhere to. This belief however, does come with a long list of conveniences for those who hold it. There is a certain irony in that.

If we followed the creed that we are not to believe in things that we can't scientifically measure, scientific discovery would come to a crashing halt. There are a long list of truths that this universe holds to that are waiting to be discovered and cannot yet be measured scientifically. All of us directly act upon unmeasurable truths and use them as building blocks to learn more about the universe, despite the fact that they cannot be measured, tested, or observed using the scientific method. There are undiscovered forces that we have yet to learn about and comprehend, let alone measure.

It is often those who dare to believe in the impossible that make the greatest of breakthroughs.

Before the Wright brothers came along, everyone knew it was "impossible" for humans to fly.

Now human flight is a normal things that can be observed, tested, and measured.

I am not at all suggesting that it is a great idea to believe in things without evidence, quite the contrary. I'm just suggesting that if our beliefs were limited to the small percentage of reality that we can actually measure, we would be massively hamstringing ourselves.

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."

It makes me nervous to hear anyone say that studying history is a waste of time.

Human history is paved with valuable lessons.

Indeed.

It is as old as human beings are.

ur arguing with a robot

No John, you are the robots

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Burden of proof, mother****er, can you bear it?

You're the one saying that having a direct experience with god is a good reason to believe, so you're the one who will have to demonstrate that such a thing is possible.

You may have heard of Hitchens' razor: "that which is asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence". It's not my job to prove your point for you.


Well, here we have a little problem. Because I'm not convinced that the universe is in fact fine tuned. It may appear to be, but it has not yet been demonstrated that this appearance is not a coincidence.

So the question becomes: how did you determine that the universe is in fact fine tuned, and doesn't just accidentally look it? What would a non-fine tuned universe look like?



Aside from the problem with apparent fine tuning described above, the answer to these questions is "I don't know". Are you going to pull god of the gaps now?


...so?



See above. What is the universe fine tuned for, and how did you determine that it doesn't just accidentally appear fine tuned?

I feel like you're glossing over my point just to pick holes in my verbiage. Anyway, we'll put a pin in this until you explain what you think the universe is fine tuned for.



This is patently false. What you're describing here is a spurious correlation, and it plays nicely into my conversation with amRam about how religion comes about as a product of people's hyperactive pattern detection.

Here's a few graphs showing some very strong correlations between two things. Please tell me if you think it would be silly to attribute one with the other:

Spurious Correlations

Some notable examples:

https://i.imgur.com/JGrHlLR.png

https://i.imgur.com/uNkuV2o.png

https://i.imgur.com/4nSW5DB.png

Actually, only that last one is true: if it holds up under scrutiny. Which is what I'm doing.

Speaking of scrutiny: none of what you said is relevant to the point I made about false beliefs risking harm by undermining your view of reality.


Maybe it will. But the time to believe in that thing will be when that experience comes, not a minute before.




And I explained why your example doesn't work. Are you just going to straight up ignore my replies now?



As a matter of fact, you lost super hard.

The rational position is to withhold belief on any claim until sufficient evidence has been presented. I don't need evidence to withhold belief in god, in the same way I (or you) don't need evidence to withhold belief in leprechauns, seven-headed dragons, or tehvul's massive silver cache. The burden of proof is on the one making the claim.

And here I should point out that I never posited the non-existence of a god, hence I don't carry a burden of proof. I'm simply withholding belief, waiting for sufficient evidence.


See, the problem is that you keep proving me right on multiple levels.

First, when you do present your suppposed evidence for god, it's very bad evidence. It doesn't line up with the methods that we otherwise use to reliably arrive at truth.

Second, you continuously fail to admit that you have presented bad evidence, proving my very first point: that if these discussions are a waste of time, it's because of people refusing to admit when they are wrong.

So you'll excuse me if I carry on, because so far, the evidence shows that you're another theist without a good reason to believe.



Good thing I'm not making that argument then.

You said, and I quote, that "all of the scientific evidence that the universe presents to us overwhelmingly points to the existence of an intelligent designer". That statement is at odds with the actual scientists who have actually spent their actual lives actually studying the actual evidence you're talking about, but did not arrive to the same conclusion you did.

I'm not saying you should believe them because there's a lot of them and they all agree. I'm saying you should believe them because through their work, they have much, much, MUCH better informed conclusions on the subject than you, who have never even heard of Carl Sagan until now, do.

Because the principles that drive that work are the same principles that have brought you the very computer you're using to have this discussion. And your house, your car, and pretty much everything you own. They're principles that demonstrably and reliably give us more and more accurate knowledge.

science can't disprove divinity just yet burden of proof

where do the laws of nature come from

how clever the void to employ physics

Victory mentality, can you drop it? Looks like no.

I'm challenging you to think differently than you have been for the past many years. This is something you might not process easily, because you mostly see "victory" and "defeat." Your thought process would lead you to assume that I'm attempting to evade your question because I do not have an answer, or my argument is weak, or I'm scared of "losing." For you, this is a "ranked match" or "scrimmage", for me this is just tossing cat poop around in a sandbox.

Also, for someone who was just getting on my case about "respect" for referring to you as a "secular humanist," sure is awkward to then be referred to as a "mother****er" soon after. Do you hold yourself to your own standards of respect? Seems like not.

I understand that it might be irritating to discuss these matters with someone that knows a lot and doesn't immediately yield to your pre-hashed canned statements devoid of factual basis such as "extraordinary measures," but when you resort to name-calling,
it makes your argument look even weaker. It is an indication that you are losing the argument, not that I care if you are or not, but for someone that wants to win, I would think that would be undesirable. Might want to abstain from calling the opposing party
a "mother****er."

Your worldview is just like any other, full of positive assertions that you do not bear a burden of proof for, so why should I? You really do not hold yourself to your own standard, though I'm certain you think you do.

BTW, do you believe in the big bang? yes/no?

You are welcome to dismiss my statement entirely if you wish. I'm certain you had dismissed the notion entirely years before I even brought it up anyway. I'm not going to burn my tires towards futility. If you are actually curious as you claim to be, there are plenty of books on the topic that you can read, though I'm sure you will not.

More than likely everything you have seen from me in this discussion has only served to push you further towards your secular humanist worldview. More than likely my words are being filtered into a pre-created box labeled "Theist" where all my words are associated with all the other "idiotic Theists" that you have come across before.

You will go and tell your friends "I asked him one simple question and he wouldn't even answer it, because he knew he couldn't" and feel like a winner. I will be Theist #101 that couldn't provide a single good reason to believe in God, right? Just another notch in your belt of "ultimate surrender."

I used to think exactly like you for a long number of years. Then I found out I was wrong about everything I believed.

Anthony Flew is not an exception, there are droves of people like me, that were once Atheists, and were guided by logic, science, and overwhelming evidence towards an inevitable knowledge of the truth that an intelligent creator exists.

I'm not asking you too. Nor would I. Nor would answering your question in any form yield any admission from you. You would only then move the goal post again and counter with another question.

You might want to consider a different approach than always trying to win if you want to learn, grow, and adopt new information and new perspectives.

In other words, start seeing discussion as less about "winning/proving" and more about "learning/playing with new ideas."

After all, there are so many things that can't be proven in the world that you already believe, such as the likely non-existence of God. Discussion on the non-provable nature of negative assertions is not necessary, I am well aware.

Lastly, the question you asked, anyone with a rudimentary imagination could answer it.

Are you admitting that you couldn't even conceive or imagine what a direct experience with a being far more intelligent than you might be like?

I think you can.

Please tell me what you think it might be like.

Well then you disagree with most every scientist, cosmologist, astrophysicist, etc.., which is fine.

I myself said that it is ok to disagree with mass opinion. That is well within your right and I do not find it foolish. Often it can be highly intelligent.

The suns rays cross millions of miles across a vast vacuous space and end up on your property just hot enough to ripen a tomato, within a few degrees.

If that is not fine-tuning, what is?

If you are curious what a non-fine tuned universe might look like, throw a water balloon full of dog-poop on an open canvas, and then imagine something with 100x less order and structure.

More than likely a giant blob of crap composed of a singular chemical composition, all the same color, filling up the entirety of empty space. Since my imagination is limited, I would say that it probably has even less structure than I just described.

You can have plenty of fun with this topic. It's a great one.

There are lots and lots of books on the topic. I'm sure the authors could do a much better job than I could explaining it. Read about what all the scientists say, they have interesting ideas.

However, scientific minds pretty much all agree that it is very finely tuned.

The math behind it is insane as well. The probability of it happening is next to impossible.

Your own worldview will work against you in this case, if you choose to believe otherwise, you will have to go against your own school of thought, which is fine.

Nope. I have no intention of baiting or "trapping" you. Nor did I have any such intention of mentioning gap theory, as I do not find it very compelling at all. I fear you have talked with too many people with a victory based mentality, so you have learned to expect it from others.

I was just honestly curious what you thought.

Those are some of the questions my mind is fascinated with...

So, many secular humanists believe in the supernatural without realizing it.

Fine tuning:
https://www.amazon.com/Fortunate-Uni...s=books&sr=1-1
Geraint F. Lewis - Wikipedia

Not fine tuning:
https://www.amazon.com/Fallacy-Fine-.../dp/1616144432
Victor J. Stenger - Wikipedia

Read for yourself and draw your own conclusions. I would recommend reading the book on fine-tuning first, as we are all guilty of having an inclination to read the information that lines up with our own world-view.

I do not believe that either of these books are written from a Theistic worldview, so they might be a smooth read for you. I tried to find both books written by Atheists but I am not certain if I succeeded.

If you would like we can read them together and discuss them. Just let me know.

That's a fair point.

I'm happy to indulge a bit more on the fine-tuning:

You walk into a hidden control room in your own house you never knew was there.

On the wall you see eight dials, each of them with 1 million settings on them.

If you were to touch any single one of these dials and move them to even one notch to the right or left, the universe would explode.

This is the universe we live in.

If you were to adjust any of the natural parameters that are held constant by an unknowable force, the aftermath would be cataclysmic.

If you think of a car and how fine-tuned it is, our universe is exponentially more fine-tuned than that to a laughable degree. All the parts must work together in tandem for our universe to function as it does.

Every well-read science-based-thinker and Atheist I have spoken to has quickly agreed to this fine-tuning and it has always served as common ground. Believing in fine-tuning does not logically force you into a Theistic world-view at all. It is simply facts about the math and physics behind the universe and how it operates.

If you are well-informed on the topic and adhere to the universe not being fine-tuned, I'd be super curious as to how/why you drew those conclusions.

Indeed it is a spurious correlation. Often these correlations get us into trouble.

I definitely yield on this point and agree that I drew a spurious conclusion.

And yet, if someone knocked on your door, and you opened it, and they beat you up. The next time you saw that person, you would not open the door for them?

Why not?

It's just a spurious correlation after all right? It could have been sheer luck/chance that the guy beat you up. Maybe he was having a bad day?

Pattern seeking is a survival tool that we all use to get by.

There is nothing foolish about not opening the door when that dangerous individual came back.

I'm not saying that all spurious correlations are correct.

You are welcome to argue that my previous correlation between Theism and Scientific Discovery doesn't hold up. That's a totally acceptable argument.


Sounds good to me!

The way I came to be a Theist was by researching both sides of the argument, and selecting the worldview that had far more evidence.

Atheism loses easily on the evidence front.

The fact that you claim there is not even one piece of good evidence to support Theism is a scholastic nightmare.

Before I solidified my worldview, I found compelling arguments on both sides, though it took me a very long time to realize that the Theistic arguments and evidence were far more compelling. Many many debates and books were consumed before I was swayed one way over the other.

No, I just disagree with you, and you have moved towards a bottomless pit. By that I mean, define extraordinary?

Your entire counter argument was that a burning car was not extraordinary when indeed it is.

Marriam-Webster - extraordinary: very unusual or remarkable.

Your car suddenly lighting ablaze is quite unusual and remarkable indeed. If you want to say otherwise it's just semantical nonsense. This is just more evidence to me that you are willing to dismiss things outright because they don't line up with your worldview.

You said it's not extraordinary enough and then you mentioned the belief in supernatural things, but that's a discussion on the "supernatural" when we were discussing the "extraordinary". Your words, not mine.

If you wanted to use supernatural, you should have said "Supernatural claims require extraordinary evidence," but you did not. Your argument was "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence," and I gave a very clear, brief, and concise example proving that they do not. You are fine to reject it and turn a blind eye. But I used pure logic that anyone could understand.

If you want to be an ostrich with its head in the sand, it's fine by me.

Try the "extraordinary" thing the next time you are in a formal debate in front of a large group of people and see what happens... you will not like the result unless the other person is a giant noobsicle.

See? Victory mentality. A clear indication of a closed-mind. Told you I was right about that.

Also, nobody can win or lose. It's a discussion, not a tennis match.

If we were to say it was "winnable," the real winner would be whoever learns and grows the most from the interaction.

Yes, and irrational people can stare at any amount of evidence and simply dismiss it regardless of how compelling it actually is.

A: "There's jim the murderer, look he has a bleeding dagger in his hand."
B: "Naw, someone probably put the dagger in his hand."
A: "But we've got video footage of him commiting the act."
B: "Naw, it was all CGI."
A: "But we have DNA evidence."
B: "Obviously planted."
A: "But he admitted to the crime himself!"
B: "Obviously forced into a confession."
A: "Uhhhhhh... But look, there he goes doing it again, he's murdering someone right now!"
B: *has already walked away having "won" the discussion using "science and logic"*

In short, people can believe however they please and slap a "science" and "logic" label on it, when it's really faith and religion.

Atheists are mostly faith based in their worldview, more so than Theists. They are just keenly unaware of their own plight.

When overwhelming evidence comes at them, they simply do the above, then they hide behind the word "burden of proof."

It's a fullproof strategy.

As an Atheist, you will never have to change your thinking. The structure of defense is perfect. The only problem is that it is perfectly wrong.

I know it feels that way. But look at how eager you were to say the universe was not fine-tuned. Did you do your research on that? Watch a debate on it? Read a book on it before deciding? Likely not. An open-minded individual may have done extensive research before deciding...

You are welcome to tell me the book you read on it and I will back down on this point.

If I had used another form of physical evidence pointing towards God, likely you would have been heavily influenced to reject it outright before researching, as it conflicts with your worldview. You do not desire for there to be any physical evidence of God's existence when there clearly is, and science agrees.

You probably also deny the historicity of religious figures throughout history, no?

Virtually no historians would do that. It's pretty much facts. Disregarding them, you may as well disregard history in general as a source of truth.

No, and for two reasons.

1) You are only proving my point that you can rinse and repeat "there's no evidence" to your hearts content despite what anyone shows you. It is effortless for someone to dismiss fantastic evidence because they have a desire not to believe. If you were shown a bleeding dagger murder weapon that was your own family member's, you would be immediately inclined to disregard it as evidence because your own family member "could never do that." Your conclusions would be clouded by your own bias.

2) These are your own methods that are being held up to scrutiny. What was it you said? You know love to exist because there is evidence that can be measured and is observable? Well, the fine tuning of the universe is measured and observable and mostly agreed upon as scientific fact. Yet you reject it by your own standards that you use to accept other things. In short, you are holding my evidence to a fully different
standard because you do not like the conclusions that are drawn from it. In the case of love, you used hormones and brainwaves. In the case of the fine-tuning, it's multiple physical laws coming together in harmony that are measurable and observable.

If anything, this is a heavy lynchpin that very clearly points to the fact that you are not willing to accept clear and ready evidence, because you yourself refuse to use your own standards of what constitutes good evidence in the case of the evidence I am presenting.

This is akin to:

A: "I like chocolate because it is delicious. I find anything delicious to be good."
B: "What about tacos?"
A: "Oh tacos are delicious, but they are bad."

It is effortless to say "it's bad evidence" when you are given good evidence. It's work free and lazy. It's also unscientific and illogical and it's a double standard.

Too bad that you did.

You suggested that intelligent design can be dismissed as being false because it is not taught in cosmology. (If I made a mistake please correct me, it's been a long discussion)

That is the same as saying "everyone agrees that the world is flat" therefore the world being round can be dismissed.

It is also at odds with all the scientists that did the exact same thing and drew the conclusion that God does exist?

"Some smart guy that dedicated his life to study disagrees with you" is also a bad argument similar to the argument featured above "mass opinion equals truth." It's especially bad when there are plenty of identical smart guys drawing a different conclusion that opposes your argument. In this case the same exact argument can be used against you.

Just because I hadn't heard the name doesn't mean I was unfamiliar with the argument. I heard that argument probably around 8 years ago? And I've heard it countless times since then, many times in formal debate. I've also never once seen it succeed in a debate. Every time I see the argument get dropped, some guy that is much smarter than me crushes it.

You don't have to know the name Pythagoras to use his math on a triangle and understand it on a deep level.

Anyway, by your own argument, you are now a Theist, because you should believe the work of theist scientists that have much MUCH better informed conclusions based on science right?

That argument basically can be turned right back around against you.

Well then you must love religion, because most of the morals of our society that hold us together "do not steal, do not murder" came from religion.

Those morals served as the foundation for the people inventing computers to not get their eyes gouged out for fun.

You seem keenly unaware that most of your arguments are equally applicable to be used against you.

Thanks for the very fun discussion Amadeus, I really appreciate you.

Longest post I have ever made on TW in 20 years?

Maybe?

https://media4.giphy.com/media/3osxY...&rid=giphy.gif

tpk y u waste all that effort postin on a pedo?

holy effort post A+++++

All of God's creations are precious homey...

That includes you and everyone else on this forum.

Thank you buddy. :)

https://media3.giphy.com/media/8wps8...&rid=giphy.gif

Awwwwwwwwww...

LU2 broseph.

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???

Quakers were persuasive in their moral arguments.

electricity is the devil anyway