Elixir
Made in America
That has to be my fav sentence of the day
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Moved Another step towards answering the question of life's origins - religion
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Jarhyn
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No, more, IF God exists as you say THEN God is blame worthy.
It's only a problem for those who claim "a creator exists and is tri-omni".
Lion IRC
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I don't accept your claim that God should be blamed or not blamed for everything or nothing virtue of His existence or non-existence.
Is the atheist parent responsible for crimes committed by generations of their offspring?
By your logic, those parents could avoid blame if they refrained from 'creating' future evil doers.
It's not a problem for me unless you can show why God should be blamed for someone choosing to smoke a pack of cigarettes a day.
pood
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Could you address the problem of BRAIN CANCER IN CHILDREN? Do you think the children smoked? And that smoking causes brain cancer? Neither is true, of course.
When something around the house disappears I frequently say the cat took it. While I can not rule out a cat wandering through during construction I can confidently say that no cat has been inside since it even approached completion.
Jarhyn
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And not to mention that WE are not blaming God.
Rather we are making a "statement of contingent truth".
This is something that for some reason, many folks have a hard time parsing: "IF it is raining THEN the ground will be wet" is true even if it is not raining and the ground is thus not wet*.
*There are many caveats to that, but it's an easy form to make examples with.
We are not, in fact, blaming God, just saying "IF there is a god to blame THEN God would be to blame". Note the open contingency.
Lion IRC
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Sure.
I think we should ask ourselves - what is the evidence-based primary suspect cause of childhood brain cancer. I always defer to science. If science says God caused it I won't argue.
...but I repeat myself.
bilby
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Religion says God caused everything.
You should argue with religion, if you find that claim objectionable.
Science says gods never caused anything. Yet, here you are arguing with the science presented in the OP, albeit via half-arsed (and hence deniable) insinuations.
Lion IRC
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Well get that person username Religion to come here and show us the empirical data proving God is the cause.
...unless you are willing to grant that there's no other cause apart from God.
No. You can argue with them if you disagree.
Where did science say that?
Nope.
I'm asking for scientific evidence for who and/or what caused it. If science says God DIDNT cause cancer I will happily defer to science.
...but I repeat myself. Again!
bilby
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Religion is wrong about this.
There is no such data; gods are not the cause of anything. I am surprised by your readiness to agree about this, and suspect that you haven't yet noticed that you did.
Jarhyn
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No, we are observing the contingent statement itself, not the precondition.
IF there is a god. That IF is doing a lot of work here, and is not necessarily true.
What is it with people and assuming the precondition matters to evaluation of the contingency itself?
pood
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This is just so transparently disingenuous. Do you think you are fooling anyone?
Of course you do not defer to science. The reason science does not say that God caused brain cancer in children, is because God does not show up in any data set, anywhere, at any time. In other words, God is not there. If you respected science, you would acknowledge this. But you don’t respect science or defer to it in the least.
In what you must imagine to be your crafty way, which is really just clumsy, you imply that science acknowledges the existence of God, but cannot connect him to the cause of brain cancer in children (or anything else). But that’s not right. See above. God DOES NOT SHOW UP in any data. The reasonable conclusion, then, if you “deferred” to science, is to defer to the finding that no evidence whatsoever exists for God. But, of course, if you want to pursue the little game you’re playing, then you’d also have to “defer” to science and acknowledge that it finds no evidence that God can be CREDITED for any good thing that happens, either.
The point is that YOU believe in this omni God, not science. So the burden is on you to show why this God who YOU believe exists, even though it never shows up in any data, is NOT to blame for childhood cancer, or anything else. You might also kindly explain how, if God exists, he never shows up in any scientific data ever, anywhere, at any time.
pood
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Science: God isn’t to blame for brain cancer or anything else, because God does not exist.
Lion: Ah-ha! You see? Science absolves God of blame for brain cancer or anything else! Score one for theism!
I mean, this sort of transparent rhetorical prestidigitation is just ludicrous. Is this sort of disingenuousness all you can offer?
Lion: Ah-ha! You see? Science absolves God of blame for brain cancer or anything else! Score one for theism!
I mean, this sort of transparent rhetorical prestidigitation is just ludicrous. Is this sort of disingenuousness all you can offer?
Jarhyn
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Or, in fact, how it could possibly exist and thus be responsible for cancer, and thus invalidating one of its assigned properties, a property it's believers require for to make any religious moral argument unto "worship".
There's a contradiction in that ring there.
Everything else is agents created by god. God knows everything, thus the actions of those agents are completely predictable. If I say "Alexa, 10 minutes" and 10 minutes later the timer starts ringing who would you say caused the timer to ring? There are a huge number of steps between my statement and the ringing timer but how could you say I wasn't the cause?
Elixir
Made in America
Are you?
Was it caused by something GOD DIDN'T CREATE?
(I mean, according to you/your religion)
Waiting ...
You're a sinner so ... yeah. You're the cause, bless your god-given heart.
God did that. obviously.
Atheists and their science stuff just make everything so complicated.
Elixir
Made in America
Over at CARM we used to blame everything on HRG's cat.
HRG was one of the members, Austrian guy, very smart, very good hearted and articulate.
He put his own cat forth as The Cause of such things as lost keys , the universe etc., and HRG's Cat was immediately and forever adopted by the atheists as such.
Elixir
Made in America
In terms that you and I can both understand, "cancer" is a VERY broad term. It's a feature of human biology: EVERYONE gets "cancer" if they live long enough. What's long enough? Varies for every individual and every kind of cancer.* Almost like a God is handing everyone their own unique brew of painful, often slowly lethal soup (showing his loving care). But that's the deal, @Lion IRC . No exceptions. If you live long enough you will get cancer.* You should pray to live long enough to die of cancer! Because if you don't, it means something else got you first, and that could be anything.
* May the day be far off!
Anyhow ... akaics the current picture is, we can classify cancers according to where they start in the body, such as breast cancer or lung cancer. The type of cell they start in, can identify subgroups of the groups.
Lion IRC
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Agents with free will, made in God's likeness, who are sometimes the autonomous contigent cause of an event. Eg. taking tobacco and setting it alight and deliberately breathing in the smoke.
Here's Bob Newhart's Sir Walter Raleigh tobacco skit. Enjoy. (3 minutes)
Not really the argument here. But since youre doing an internal critique, God can predict the actions of people who assert that God doesn't even exist. Their free will is unaffected because they are completely unaware of His ability to fast-forward in time and know their future actions.
The Alexa example is good because it highlights the difference between sentient, free will agency and inanimate objects that lack free will.
You, as an agent can cause Alexa to ring - or not to ring. You can also choose to smoke.
Now, if you want to claim you're just another Alexa and Someone else caused you to cause Alexa to ring that's your business.
...well, actually it's not your business then is it? It's Someone else's business, so maybe I'd better discuss it with them directly instead of you.