Thread: And the atheist movement begins...

Fen,
To start off with, he and TNT translates the first word of the Bible incorrectly.
The hebrew word B'ray-shis doe not mean "In the beginning" as though time started abruptly at a selected moment.
It means "At the onset of" which also leads the kabbala to infer that this creation was the first of many because each creation had an onset.

At the onset of God creating the totality of ("totality of" is in the Hebrew but NOT in TKJ) heavens (space) and the earth (matter) [which together require time in order to exist]
the earth [was without form - TKJ is COMPLETLEY wrong on the words Sow-Hoo V'Voe-Hoo] had postential and a mechanism with which to become a completed form.

Thus, the original Hebrew is...
At the onset of God creating the totality of heavens (space) and the earth (matter) the earth had potential and a mechanism with which to become a completed form.

A pretty good start from which to deduce the Big Bang Theory.
Of course, Jews accept the fact that the original matter required for this was Yashe B'Eye-yin "Something from Nothing".

The artificiality of the Bible being divided into Chapters and Verses...
Who Divided the Torah Into Weekly Readings, Chapters, and Verses? - Study

Originally Posted by USCitizen

Regarding TNT you are correct; but TNT was never meant to be a book of laws.
Regarding The Torah, you are not correct.

Right. You're talking about Judaism and I'm talking about Christianity.

Originally Posted by fishjoel

Right. You're talking about Judaism and I'm talking about Christianity.

Fair enough, but since when have our leaders stopped referring to the US as a Judeo-Christian society?
You have to explicate the removal of the Judeo part in order for your statement regarding the mechanisms of our legal system as not relating to the Bible.

Originally Posted by JohnLocke

Many countries have peacefully seceded since then. If not, as another poster said, violence is inevitable for reconcilliation between being a slave (Left) and freedom (Right) is not possible.

For a guy who likes history you should heed it more. I really dont want a repeat of the civil war.

Originally Posted by darth omar

Well, just because materialists aren’t compelled to act on their assumptions doesn’t mean they can’t or haven’t in the past. For example, the materialist assumption about man is that man is ultimately a myriad assortment of biochemicals and nothing more. Human beings become more dispensable in that formulation. Some of us find that to be a little scary---and with good reason, considering some of the history of the last century.

‘Scientific minds’ may work in the realm of materialistic reality but their materialist worldview is founded on circular reasoning.



Well again, science is limited in the kind of answers it can provide. But to take that to mean that other answers aren’t out there is to commit, what in my mind at least, is a pretty significant logical error. Indeed, it is manifestly irrational.

Materialists in that sense, walk through the world with blinders on, seeing only what science allows them to see.



Thanks, that is quite charitable of you.

I don’t stand for expanding science in the manner which you suggest. Science does its best work when it is confined to the here and now. Indeed, to say it has served us well in that regard is a gross understatement.

But what does science have to say about love? Nothing at all. Love is not really real, according to materialist philosophy because it is not amenable to scientific inquiry. Or perhaps it is better said this way: love according to science/materialism [scientism?] is an illusion.



Supernatural is just part of it. I mentioned love in my last paragraph. What can a materialist philosopher say about love other than it is not real? If love is ultimately a consequence of matter and natural law then love is ultimately an illusion. So, materialism is quite bankrupt in the sense it is unable to comprehend the depth of human experience.



I’m not saying it should---I’m saying it can’t. Science is a wonderful tool, but like any other tool, it has it’s limitations. Furthermore, any philosophy that is founded on science is going to be limited at best---and dangerous at worst.

Suffice to say, there are reasons I don’t subscribe to it. And it has little to do with religion.



I picked up a copy of Darwin’s Origins back in the late fall and got through about the first ten chapters before I ran out of gas. It makes for tedious reading---quite a bit like reading a freshman level textbook. But I’ll get around to finishing it sooner or later.

At any rate, the whole point of Darwin’s theory and/or ToE is to explain the origins of living things; whereas, biology is the study of living things. I’m sure you’ll disagree, but it’s my opinion that biology can get along just fine without ToE since the former is the study of living things and the latter seeks to explain how the living things came to be.

The importance of biology to things like medicine can’t be overstated and the importance of Darwin to the broader culture and philosophy is almost universally understated. Darwinists, I think, are intuitively aware of this so they go about trying to make sure no one forgets that it’s on roughly the same footing as electromagnetic theory in terms of its importance to science.

Just about everyone else is intuitively aware that it’s primary function is a sort of creation story for unbelievers.



As I understand it, evolution has two fundamental laws---if it‘s fair to call them that; one is survival the fittest, and the other is natural selection. And these two [demi-gods? Forgive me, I had to get that in there ] forces have worked together over time to produce biological order out of lifeless matter.

What that means is this: if ToE is true, then biological complexity has increased over time, since, the putative first cells were less complex than the currently extant flora and fauna.

The point that follows is huge and relatively few people are aware of it; and that is this:

This increase in complexity over time is not something Darwin or anyone else has ever observed---rather---it arises out of the theory.

Let that thought sink into the reader’s head.



Well, I’m not one to argue that many factors can contribute to a long life or even a short one. My only point is that what God said in Genesis regarding the length of the human life seems to be holding true.

Whether the rest is to be believed is up to the individual who reads it.



Well, we’ll have to agree to disagree about the ‘Darwinist’ issue. I Googled it yesterday and even the hyper-partisan website Talkorigins.com recognized its use as legitimate. And with due respect, I think most objective readers would agree with me that both Darwinists and their ideology most certainly exist.



Because its an informational problem and not just a problem of getting molecules to self-organize. As analogy, the abiogenesis people are trying to get pages and binding to come together and form a book. But we all know there is more to a book than that.

Further, these ‘books’ have information within themselves that enable them to form other books with out any outside help.

I actually suspect they understand the problem but I think they are doing all they know to do at this point. What they need is some sort of conceptual break-through or paradigm shift and I don’t see any on the horizon.

And it is very possible none exists.

I was reading up on abiogenesis a couple weeks ago ... and I found a lot of different directions being pursued. From the misfires it looked a long way to go. Some current models below : and more not listed at the link, interesting stuff but no solutions.
Abiogenesis - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Most currently accepted models draw at least some elements from the framework laid out by the Oparin-Haldane hypothesis...

Some theorists suggest that the atmosphere of the early Earth may have been chemically reducing in nature, composed primarily of methane (CH4), ammonia (NH3), water (H2O), hydrogen sulfide (H2S), carbon dioxide (CO2) or carbon monoxide (CO), and phosphate (PO43-), with molecular oxygen (O2) and ozone (O3) either rare or absent.
In such a reducing atmosphere, electrical activity can catalyze the creation of certain basic small molecules (monomers) of life, such as amino acids.
Phospholipids (of an appropriate length) can form lipid bilayers, a basic component of the cell membrane.
A fundamental question is about the nature of the first self-replicating molecule. Since replication is accomplished in modern cells through the cooperative action of proteins and nucleic acids, the major schools of thought about how the process originated can be broadly classified as "proteins first" and "nucleic acids first".
No one has synthesized a "protocell" using basic components which would have the necessary properties of life (the so-called "bottom-up-approach")

Stage 1: The origin of biological monomers
Stage 2: The origin of biological polymers
Stage 3: The evolution from molecules to cell

Origin Theory
Terrestrial origins ?? Extraterrestrial origins??

Soup" theory, More fundamentally, it can be argued that the most crucial challenge unanswered by this theory is how the relatively simple organic building blocks polymerise and form more complex structures, interacting in consistent ways to form a protocell.[citation needed] For example, in an aqueous environment hydrolysis of oligomers/polymers into their constituent monomers would be favored over the condensation of individual monomers into polymers.

Deep sea vent theory, The deep sea vent, or hydrothermal vent, theory for the origin of life on Earth posits that life may have begun at submarine hydrothermal vents, where hydrogen-rich fluids emerge from below the sea floor and interface with carbon dioxide-rich ocean water. Sustained chemical energy in such systems is derived from redox reactions, in which electron donors, such as molecular hydrogen, react with electron acceptors, such as carbon dioxide (see iron-sulfur world theory).

Eigen's hypothesis ...apparent bust. The hypercycle theory is further degraded since the hypothetical RNA would require the existence of complex biochemicals such as nucleotides which are not formed under the conditions proposed by the Miller–Urey experiment.

Hoffman ... Geoffrey W. Hoffmann, a student of Eigen, contributed to the concept of life involving both replication and metabolism emerging from catalytic noise ... the occurrence of a set of required catalytic activities together with the exclusion of catalytic activities that would be disruptive. This is called the stochastic theory of the origin of life.

Wächtershäuser's hypothesis ... Another possible answer to this polymerization conundrum was provided in 1980s by the German chemist Günter Wächtershäuser, encouraged and supported by Karl R. Popper,[54][55][56] in his iron–sulfur world theory. In this theory, he postulated the evolution of (bio)chemical pathways as fundamentals of the evolution of life... In contrast to the classical Miller experiments, which depend on external sources of energy (such as simulated lightning or ultraviolet irradiation), "Wächtershäuser systems" come with a built-in source of energy, sulfides of iron and other minerals (e.g. pyrite). The experiment produced a relatively small yield of dipeptides (0.4% to 12.4%) and a smaller yield of tripeptides

Zn-World theory, The Zn-World (Zinc world) theory of Armen Mulkidjanian [58] is an extension of Wächtershäuser´s pyrite hypothesis. Hydrothermal fluids rich in H2S interacting with cold primordial ocean (or "Darwin pond") water leads to the precipitation of metal sulfide particles.Since during the relevant time window of the origins of replicating molecules the primordial atmospheric pressure was high enough (> 100 bar) to precipitate ZnS near the earth´s surface and UV irradiation was 10 to 100 times more intense than now, the unique photosynthetic properties mediated by ZnS provided just the right energy conditions to energize the synthesis of informational and metabolic molecules and the selection of photostable nucleobases.

Radioactive beach hypothesis, Zachary Adam at the University of Washington, Seattle, claims that stronger tidal processes from a much closer moon may have concentrated grains of uranium and other radioactive elements at the high water mark on primordial beaches where they may have been responsible for generating life's building blocks. Such radioactive beach sand provides sufficient energy to generate organic molecules, such as amino acids and sugars from acetonitrile in water.

Ultraviolet and temperature-assisted replication model, ... From a thermodynamic origin of life, the ultraviolet and temperature-assisted replication (UVTAR) model is used. Karo Michaelian of the National Autonomous University of Mexico points out that any model for the origin of life must take into account the fact that life is an irreversible thermodynamic process which arises and persists to produce entropy. Entropy production is not incidental to the process of life, but rather the fundamental reason for its existence. Present day life augments the entropy production of Earth by catalysing the water cycle through evapotranspiration.

Originally Posted by fishjoel

Are you saying that people don't exist now? That's pretty strange.

Strange indeed, as I have never said we humans do not exist.
-How on Earth you managed to come up with such a final thought?

I worded what I said specifically so you couldn't dodge the accusation of hating God because you don't believe he exists.

`He´?
-As I have stated quite a few times now.. I do not hate the Judeo-Christian deity/ies jahve simply because I do not think it/they exist.

You make a claim that I hate a god.
-I ask which god because there are tens of thousands of deities, millions if one counts the spirits of the material.

You keep on the track of jahve and therefore restate that I hate this thing I don't think exists.

You have made quite an extraordinary claim that there is supernatural entity you call god. You also assume that this entity is/are the Hebrew deity of War jahve.
-I ask you to provide reasons and evidence to show that what you believe in is true. There are other faith-systems, ancient and modern. Your Judeo-Christian faith has three variations and within christain variation there are 38 000 sects which sometimes appear very different than the "mainstream" faith-system.

You ignore those pointers time and again and state the initial claim over and over.

Sorry, but you've been exposed as a bigot.

You have been, not I.
-I ask for you to back up your extraordinary claim, you taunt me.
-I have no reason to have your faith, you taunt.

That puts your mindset into the realm of emotion which is probably why your arguments have gaping holes and you don't even realize it.

Point them out, please. So we can talk about those aswell.
-Where did I pose emotional response? You are the emotional one here.

Originally Posted by darth omar

Well, just because materialists aren’t compelled to act on their assumptions doesn’t mean they can’t or haven’t in the past. For example, the materialist assumption about man is that man is ultimately a myriad assortment of biochemicals and nothing more. Human beings become more dispensable in that formulation.

Even though we now understand the mechanics that creates us, it does not undermine our personas and human rights.
-More than anything, it -while pointing that we are like any other animal on this planet- makes us value our composition even more.

Some of us find that to be a little scary---and with good reason, considering some of the history of the last century.

What, you mean the Commnistic attempts in the Soviet Union or third Reich?
-It' oversimplification to assume that more information causes that sort of behaviour, and death-toll. But we can have that topic, if you'd like.

‘Scientific minds’ may work in the realm of materialistic reality but their materialist worldview is founded on circular reasoning.

I honestly cannot see circular reasoning with the materialistic Worldview. What we have, can see, observe and study is only thing we have to work with. As there is no evidence to prove supernatural, it cannot affect scientific method.
-But let us compare the two; what has science and materialistic view brought us and what has notion of supernatural caused?

Well again, science is limited in the kind of answers it can provide. But to take that to mean that other answers aren’t out there is to commit, what in my mind at least, is a pretty significant logical error. Indeed, it is manifestly irrational.

Materialists in that sense, walk through the world with blinders on, seeing only what science allows them to see.

Science and scientific method allows what is real, can be tested and verified. I cannot see how that is blinders-on view.
-Our understanding has increased vastly since we let go of the supernatural and begun to study, don't you agree?

Why would people want to go back to times when plagues were god's punishment, half the women died in childbirth and famine was commonplace.

Again, compare the eras of rule of religion, compare them to the era of enlightment.

Thanks, that is quite charitable of you.
I don’t stand for expanding science in the manner which you suggest. Science does its best work when it is confined to the here and now. Indeed, to say it has served us well in that regard is a gross understatement.

Modern era and our great comforts are the result of that scientific progression.
-I would not confine it, simply because new discoveries expand our knowledge on a near-daily basis. Scientific method is done by people all around the World, the common rules are in place to prevent misdeeds.

But what does science have to say about love? Nothing at all. Love is not really real, according to materialist philosophy because it is not amenable to scientific inquiry. Or perhaps it is better said this way: love according to science/materialism [scientism?] is an illusion.

Love is an effect of many biochemical mechanics. It has been studies, you know. The furious beginning is a storm of chemicals in your brain, but it carries four to five years at best. Companionship, social abilities and other factors keep the couple together. Divorce rates suggest that too. In our modern times, we are not seen as failures if we separate. In earlier times, social pressures and indeed the society with their rules kept people from leaving from marriages without love.

The fact that love is chemical storm, does not diminish it, though.

Supernatural is just part of it. I mentioned love in my last paragraph. What can a materialist philosopher say about love other than it is not real? If love is ultimately a consequence of matter and natural law then love is ultimately an illusion. So, materialism is quite bankrupt in the sense it is unable to comprehend the depth of human experience.

Studies have been done, we understand what you assert as unknown. Supernatural is unmaterialistic, non-present and not measurable.
-Our emotions are the result of our specific brain patterns and electrical impulses within our brain. Chemicals which direct our emotions can be altered to a point, but normal experiences trigger certain chemicals into our brain. Our `soul´ is our elctrical pattern in our brain.

I’m not saying it should---I’m saying it can’t. Science is a wonderful tool, but like any other tool, it has it’s limitations. Furthermore, any philosophy that is founded on science is going to be limited at best---and dangerous at worst.

What philosophy does have it's foundations in science?
-Science is a tool, to understand this World of ours.

--I have to snip 'ere, but continue later when I have the time. Cheers.

Originally Posted by thanatos144

For a guy who likes history you should heed it more. I really dont want a repeat of the civil war.

Our most basic civil right is the right to alter or abolish our government. I am talking peaceful secession. The political forces that joined us in the past no longer apply (or are displaced by greater forces pulling us apart). There is no reason there has to be war IF we respect our most basic civil right.

Originally Posted by Fennica

Even though we now understand the mechanics that creates us, it does not undermine our personas and human rights.
-More than anything, it -while pointing that we are like any other animal on this planet- makes us value our composition even more.

Why doesn’t it undermine our inherent value if we are just a complex array of chemicals? Your second statement that was intended to support the proposition isn’t very convincing---no offense intended, but it reads like empty rhetoric. What is to prevent another materialist from coming along and saying otherwise? Why would your opinion prevail and not his?

In contrast, the US Declaration of Independence reads thus: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal and are endowed with certain unalienable rights by their Creator”.

Note the distinction between the two propositions: One implies that man has no inherent rights other than whatever rights can be arbitrarily conjured out of the thin air and ascribed to him.

The second proposition asserts that mans rights are not only inherent [they come with being human] but also ’certain, unalienable’ and granted by their Creator. This gives to man a moral gravitas that materialism simply cannot afford.

It denies it, in fact.

Originally Posted by Fennica

What, you mean the Commnistic attempts in the Soviet Union or third Reich?
-It' oversimplification to assume that more information causes that sort of behaviour, and death-toll. But we can have that topic, if you'd like.

The debate does seem to be evolving in that direction and since this is a political forum that’s actually fitting. So have it we shall.

Okay, communists of any stripe end up denying human rights not because they are atheists but because they invariably espouse a materialist view of reality. The reason I put it that way is because you can’t actually practice atheism but you can certainly apply materialist principles and they did [and do, currently] with a vengeance.

Take North Korea for example: the dictator there treats human beings like chattel because there is nothing in materialist philosophy that disallows it or makes it inherently immoral.

Going back to the last century, Nazism and racially oriented social Darwinism [an idea that grew right along with the Enlightenment, btw] was considered ‘scientific’ under the Third Reich and this idea in no way contradicts materialist principles. Whereas, Hitler had no use for religion beyond its utility as a propaganda tool.

If history has anything to say about it, philosophical materialism is dangerous, when it becomes entangled in government.

Originally Posted by Fennica

I honestly cannot see circular reasoning with the materialistic Worldview. What we have, can see, observe and study is only thing we have to work with. As there is no evidence to prove supernatural, it cannot affect scientific method.
-But let us compare the two; what has science and materialistic view brought us and what has notion of supernatural caused?

Let’s agree to disagree on the circular reasoning issue.

That leaves your question. I actually think I answered it in my last paragraphs. In my estimation, the materialist view added immensely to the human misery quotient---particularly, in the last century.

And I think it is mistake to conflate it with science.

But to be fair, ‘the notion of supernatural’ has its own baggage. The distinction though is this: with rare exception, when religionists behave badly their actions contradict their own religious principles, so at least there is a basis from which to reign them in. For example, even the Christian neophyte can easily see that the Inquisitors weren’t ‘doing what Jesus would do’---to borrow a popular phrase. To look at it objectively and over the long haul, one can say that religion had its ugly moments but that it also served as a force of moderation, as well.

Not so with materialism. As a philosophy, it offers a great deal of latitude in terms of how man can treat his fellow man without contradicting its first principles. If man is not morally distinct from cattle---what is there to be said about it?

Originally Posted by Fennica

Love is an effect of many biochemical mechanics. It has been studies, you know. The furious beginning is a storm of chemicals in your brain, but it carries four to five years at best. Companionship, social abilities and other factors keep the couple together. Divorce rates suggest that too. In our modern times, we are not seen as failures if we separate. In earlier times, social pressures and indeed the society with their rules kept people from leaving from marriages without love.

The fact that love is chemical storm, does not diminish it, though.

First, you reduce something like love to brain chemistry and then finish with the blythe assurance that this in no way diminishes it. I sincerely don’t intend to get snarky but I got a chuckle out of that

You mentioned my circular reasoning objection, well, in the above quote you put it into practice; and here is how: we agree that the brain does certain things from a chemical standpoint when ‘in love’. No right thinking and/or knowledgeable person would deny this since that is what’s known about it

But what we don’t know [because we can‘t?], is whether this chemical action in the brain is the cause or the effect of something else. Confined to its tidy little circle, materialist philosophy necessitates the conclusion, since none other is allowed and none need apply. It will conclude that love=brain chemistry as sure as the sun will rise tomorrow and you could have predicted it 50 years ago based merely on its first principles.

You’re an apparently intelligent person and an interesting thinker. I suspect it will occur to you one day that you’re smarter than your own philosophy.

Reality beckons.

I spend an hour of my very limited time responding to ye. I went from U.S. slavery to the religious mindsets in national socialsim all the way back to your declaration of independence and the futility to use that as an argument...

-And U.S. politicsonline server was busy. Long enough for me to lose that long post into cyber-space.

Once I have regained my calmness and have time, I will rewrite it all.
-Cheers.

You should have an autosave available to you.

Originally Posted by Speakeasy

Of course, the Bible is filled to the brim with failed predictions, broken promises from God, conflicting accounts, etc. Not exactly something I'd put much faith in (zing!).

I don't think there will be a flash point, at least not here in the US. The vast majority of religious folks aren't ready to take up arms against their fellow countrymen, and probably won't for the foreseeable future.

What we do know from history is that all religions and beliefs have a shelf life. Perhaps the Abrahamic religions are simply approaching the end of their relevancy.

Agreed. The theocracy question has already been answered in the US and we have successfully teased apart religious and political power. Sure, there are those who have tried to push them back together, but for the most part we have resisted - and it's been a huge boon to us as a free nation. At this point the growing acceptance of atheism in society is a cultural issue. The political battle was fought for us, long ago.

Now, if we could just do the same thing for economics...

Originally Posted by Fennica

I spend an hour of my very limited time responding to ye. I went from U.S. slavery to the religious mindsets in national socialsim all the way back to your declaration of independence and the futility to use that as an argument...

-And U.S. politicsonline server was busy. Long enough for me to lose that long post into cyber-space.

Once I have regained my calmness and have time, I will rewrite it all.
-Cheers.

I hate when then happens!

It's gotten to where I'll write it on my word processor and then paste it back onto here---if I'm going to write a long post.