"God cannot create a square circle"

[Tom Sawyer]

So, why are you here? Is it because you cannot substantiate your claims of circular arguments, arguments from ignorance, special pleading, asserting belief as fact, etc. and you fear having to stand before God and give account of your life as the Bible says but which you don't want to be true.

Dude, you and the rest of us know fully well that the only reason that you're pretending to have that position is because you fear having to stand before Allah and trying to justify how you haven't lived your life according to the rules he clearly spelled out in the Koran which you know are correct but that you don't want to be true.

You're not fooling anyone, you know.

 

[rhutchin]

rhutchin, are you going to tell us what these "multiple consistent accounts" are, who authored these accounts, and why we should treat the opinions of these authors as fact? For example, how would one go about corroborating the Genesis creation myth? Who was witness to the events of these magic 6 days and provided credible testimony of these events? Or the mythology of the great flood? Who wrote this story and how can we test its veracity?

The accounts are included in the Bible and authors are normally stated within the accounts. It is only by faith that one accepts these accounts as truth.

We cannot corroborate the events of Genesis because they were one-time events initiated by a supernatural God. God was the only witness to the six days.

No way to test. Thus, faith. That conclusion is not in dispute, is it? No one is claiming that these events in history are empirically testable.

However, we can test certain aspects of this information. For example, when the Bible says that God created different kinds of life that would propagate after their kind, biologists can do research to see if life ever reproduces outside its kind. Or with the flood, researchers can determine whether large graveyards of animals exist in the world.

 

[atrib]

Belief in god's existence is unreasonable or irrational. In other words, it's "faith".

Based on the accounts found in the Bible written by a variety of people over a few thousand years, there is nothing unreasonable or irrational about belief in God's existence.

On what rational basis do you justify belief in the bible's accounts? I find many of them prima facie unreasonable or irrational. Talking snakes and donkeys, magical fruit, the flood and ark, dead men walking, water into wine, etc. etc. etc. It seems you'd have to believe in a supernatural god that could work that magic to give the accounts any credence.

You can rationally conclude that the god who produced these events would be unusual and that the events are supernatural. You do not have to believe it to draw that conclusion.

There is no basis for to find them prima facie unreasonable or irrational - these are obviously supernatural events that would naturally go counter to naturally occurring events.

How do you know that the supernatural events described in the Bible actually happened? I think you missing a step there in the beginning. The much simpler and more rational explanation is that these events never happened. If you want to persist in your claim, you would first need to demonstrate that the Bible is credible in these matters, then demonstrate that the god described in the Bible actually exists. None of which you are able to do.

 

[Keith&Co.]

In any case, it takes no faith to lack belief in something.

Lack of belief in the truth results from ignorance. Lack of belief in that which is false requires knowledge.

No it doesn't. Before the theory of bodily humours, people didn't believe in it because no one had taught them about it.
AFTER the theory of bodily humours was rejected, it was rejected because there was a better theory, based on evidence.

When something is true, it takes faith to reject it.

Unless there's no evidence for it. People rejected Contintenal Drift at first, not because they had faith, but because the first proponent did not have rigorous evidence for his claims.

When something is false, it takes knowledge to reject it.

Or faith. Plenty of believers reject 99% of the claims of that gods exist because they have faith in 1 of the claims.

You're working hard to rationalize your faith and pretend that disbelievers are fucking up. But you still haven't provided any robust evidence for your position.

 

[rhutchin]

What is there to explain?

Why "The Bible is true because the Bible says so and I believe whatever the Bible says" is not a convincing argument.
I'd say it's not even wrong - doesn't rise to the level of an argument. Yet it is routinely used...

Routinely used by whom? By atheists posing strawmen arguments?

Just for fun, is what the bible says about god any better evidence for god than the Qu'uran is for allah?

The Qu'uran was written by one man without validation by others. The Bible was written by many people over thousands of years. We have four accounts of the life of Jesus, two by people who claimed to have been with Jesus during his three year ministry and one written by Luke who says he researched the issue by talking to people who had witnessed Jesus in action.

The Bible is the superior evidence by far.

The Quran and the Gita have exactly the same amount of evidence to support the supernatural claims they makes as does the Bible. The fact that the Bible is YOUR preferred book dealing with the supernatural does not make it any more valid than the other books.

The Quran and the Gita are each attributed to a single author and no additional authors have written building on those works. The Bible is unique in being attributed to many authors over thousands of years writing consistently of the early history of man and then of the nation of Israel. The evidence is that all these documents are authentic. What one chooses to believe is a matter of faith.

 

[atrib]

Believers confusing their faith with evidence. What else is new?

If you have evidence, you do not have faith - faith becomes active when evidence is lacking.

You haven't presented any evidence. You've simply presented your beliefs - e.g. your belief that the bible is true and that the bible is evidence for biblegod. Again, you're confusing your faith with evidence

The evidence is that the Bible is composed of ancient writings. The issue is whether one will believe that which is written. It takes no faith to believe that the Bible contains written accounts by different people over many years. It takes faith to believe that which the authors claimed.

There is no confusion between faith and evidence among believers generally.

It is true that the Bible contains ancient writing. Many other holy books also contain ancient writings, some even more than ancient than the Bible. Why should we believe the claims of the Bible to be factual, and the claims of all others not? You need to elaborate on this point and your evasiveness is not winning you any points with your imaginary god.

 

[atrib]

The Bible is evidence of people who believed in God. The issue is whether to believe what these people wrote. Nothing circular there.

No, it's only "testimony" that the universe exists. The rest is your unsupported assertion, your belief and nothing more.

Except that no viable alternative exists to explain the existence of the universe.

Argument from ignorance.

At least we agree that ignorance rules in considering whether viable alternative exist to explain the existence of the universe. The conclusion from this ignorance - there are no viable explanations for the existence of the universe from non-Biblical sources.

No. The argument from ignorance stems from your claim that if the precise cause of the universe cannot be determined, assuming the universe even has a cause, then your preferred god must have done it. This argument is unsound.

 

[rhutchin]

Second, is a biology textbook exactly the cutting edge of state of the art in biological research? is that truly a snapshot of what we do and do not know?

Slow as they are to catch up, there is nothing to catch up to. What research has really rocked the world in terms of supporting universal common descent? The latest hope seems to be Lenski's e-coli research, but that is not panning out.

Oh, I don't know, perhaps the discovery of how our genetic information is passed from generation to generation, and a study of the the genetic information found in our species and many others? All of which point to common descent? Or the study of the anatomy of various living things which all point to common descent? You know, just the sciency stuff that sciency people have figured out over the last hundred years or so, give or take.

Common descent or common design? The problem is how do you get the anatomy in the first place so that you can then get descent. It is easy to start with the animals getting off Noah's ark and substantiate common descent from those animals. However, no one has figured out how to start with a miraculously appearing first life form and get descent.

 

[atrib]

Circular arguments, arguments from ignorance, special pleading, asserting belief as fact, an occasional tu quoque for good measure...is that all you got, rhutchin? That's all you're giving us here. That's all you ever had on the old board. That's all you have now. Your attempts at argument in support of the existence of your preferred god are recycled tripe and, to be frank, boring as hell.

So, why are you here? Is it because you cannot substantiate your claims of circular arguments, arguments from ignorance, special pleading, asserting belief as fact, etc. and you fear having to stand before God and give account of your life as the Bible says but which you don't want to be true.

Fear and guilt make it possible for the unwashed masses to be duped into buying the god story. Atheists are not afraid of gods because they do not believe in gods. Theists spend their lives in fear, cowering at the feet of imaginary tyrants, pleading for mercy and forgiveness from their imaginary sins. What a shitty way to live. Set your mind free and you will discover a universe that is more amazing than our ancient ancestors could have imagined.

 

[rhutchin]

The Bible is evidence of people who believed in God. The issue is whether to believe what these people wrote. Nothing circular there.

No, it's only "testimony" that the universe exists. The rest is your unsupported assertion, your belief and nothing more.

Except that no viable alternative exists to explain the existence of the universe.

Argument from ignorance.

At least we agree that ignorance rules in considering whether viable alternative exist to explain the existence of the universe. The conclusion from this ignorance - there are no viable explanations for the existence of the universe from non-Biblical sources.

No. The argument from ignorance stems from your claim that if the precise cause of the universe cannot be determined, assuming the universe even has a cause, then your preferred god must have done it. This argument is unsound.

The argument is that God is one explanation for the existence of the universe. There are no viable explanations for the existence of the universe that rely on natural processes. Is God the only possible cause for the existence of the universe? Some people would like to think not.

 

[Rhea]

Common descent or common design? The problem is how do you get the anatomy in the first place so that you can then get descent. It is easy to start with the animals getting off Noah's ark and substantiate common descent from those animals. However, no one has figured out how to start with a miraculously appearing first life form and get descent.

Is this your admission that you have completely abandoned trying to claim that evolution supports the flood story? That you now recognize that this is an untruth, because the theory of evolution and all of the body of evidence on how it works does not fit your story? Meaning that you cannot say evolution supports your fairy tale because evolution completely contradicts you? The math does not work as you claim. You get an F in evolution (and math).

Are you willing to admit this now, now that you've abandoned trying to actually show your math? This is the admission that you realize the math does not add up to a true flood story?

You need to either finish your math and come up with a demonstration of how it adds up _OR_ admit publicly that you are abandoning the math because you can see that it is not true, it doesn't add up. You cannot take your description of the animals on the boat, apply the known evolutionary science and come up with what we see in the world today. It cannot be done. People have tried and it fails because they are wrong. Even the link you provided had to resort to shockingly simplistic assumptions to say, "see? we've shown that," without ever once naming an animal and showing it's evolution into the species extant today.


ANSWER THIS QUESTION, rhutchin, or we will know you are willing to continue to bear false witness by repeating something that is obviously false.

You refused to name the animals and follow through the math. We even did it for you and demonstrated that your claim fails evolutionary fact. You CANNOT get all current canines in such a short time from a single ancestral pair. CANNOT. If you want to continue to claim you can, then show your math. If you won't show your math but want to claim this is supported by math, then you are bearing false witness.


Any comment you make about "first life" is colored by what you have demonstrated you don't know about evolution and is therefore useless until you prove you understand evolution. You CANNOT claim evolution is false when you do not understand the very basics of it.

So again, ANSWER THIS QUESTION, rhutchin. Prove you understand what evolution says by admitting it cannot support the flood story as we've proven to you. Do you admit this?

- - - Updated - - -

The argument is that God is one explanation for the existence of the universe. There are no viable explanations for the existence of the universe that rely on natural processes. Is God the only possible cause for the existence of the universe? Some people would like to think not.

Yes there are other viable explanations. The fact that you don't know about them nor understand any of them does not make them disappear. And your bible is not one of those viable explanations, since it contradicts itself as well as contradicting all the evidence in front of us.

 

[atrib]

The Bible is evidence of people who believed in God. The issue is whether to believe what these people wrote. Nothing circular there.

No, it's only "testimony" that the universe exists. The rest is your unsupported assertion, your belief and nothing more.

Except that no viable alternative exists to explain the existence of the universe.

Argument from ignorance.

At least we agree that ignorance rules in considering whether viable alternative exist to explain the existence of the universe. The conclusion from this ignorance - there are no viable explanations for the existence of the universe from non-Biblical sources.

No. The argument from ignorance stems from your claim that if the precise cause of the universe cannot be determined, assuming the universe even has a cause, then your preferred god must have done it. This argument is unsound.

The argument is that God is one explanation for the existence of the universe. There are no viable explanations for the existence of the universe that rely on natural processes. Is God the only possible cause for the existence of the universe? Some people would like to think not.

Your preferred god is only one of a possibly infinite set of unknown reasons for the existence of the universe. While we do not currently know everything about the origin of the universe, or even if it had an origin or has existed forever in some form or another, we do have several hypothese that explain its existence mathematically (M-Theory and membrane collisions for example). There is no evidence to support Biblical claims regarding creation in 6 days by the Christian god, and therefore we dismiss these specific claims, just as you dismiss the creation claims from other cultures (Brahma, Allah, Bantu).

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

The Bible is evidence of people who believed in God. The issue is whether to believe what these people wrote. Nothing circular there.

No, it's only "testimony" that the universe exists. The rest is your unsupported assertion, your belief and nothing more.

Except that no viable alternative exists to explain the existence of the universe.

Argument from ignorance.

At least we agree that ignorance rules in considering whether viable alternative exist to explain the existence of the universe. The conclusion from this ignorance - there are no viable explanations for the existence of the universe from non-Biblical sources.

No. The argument from ignorance stems from your claim that if the precise cause of the universe cannot be determined, assuming the universe even has a cause, then your preferred god must have done it. This argument is unsound.

The argument is that God is one explanation for the existence of the universe. There are no viable explanations for the existence of the universe that rely on natural processes.

I would say you are confusing adjectives here, obvious for viable. As noted previously, the idea that a universe exists at all makes little sense. About as much sense as a god just existing. How would a god exist, where would a god exist. What is a god, god of if there is no universe? None of it makes much sense.

The fact of the matter, however, is that a natural universe has fewer arbitrary explanations than a supernatural one.

The history of gods have been to explain the unexplainable. In the beginning it was nature on Earth. The rain, sun, fertility of the ground. All of these unknown processes were attributed to gods because they were mysterious and unknown. Now days, we understand these processes much better and how the work. So the likes of you are left with the remaining unknowns to pile onto the god train. 'We can't explain the origin of the universe... that means it has to be a god.' That argument was used for lots of stuff in the past. No reason to think it is any more legit for the universe than it was for rain.

 

[rhutchin]

The argument is that God is one explanation for the existence of the universe. There are no viable explanations for the existence of the universe that rely on natural processes.

I would say you are confusing adjectives here, obvious for viable. As noted previously, the idea that a universe exists at all makes little sense. About as much sense as a god just existing. How would a god exist, where would a god exist. What is a god, god of if there is no universe? None of it makes much sense.

I agree.

The fact of the matter, however, is that a natural universe has fewer arbitrary explanations than a supernatural one.

Try "No" explanation. Lot of speculation though.

The history of gods have been to explain the unexplainable. In the beginning it was nature on Earth. The rain, sun, fertility of the ground. All of these unknown processes were attributed to gods because they were mysterious and unknown. Now days, we understand these processes much better and how the work. So the likes of you are left with the remaining unknowns to pile onto the god train. 'We can't explain the origin of the universe... that means it has to be a god.' That argument was used for lots of stuff in the past. No reason to think it is any more legit for the universe than it was for rain.

Not in the Bible. The stuff you are mixing in with the Biblical account can be attributed to God only in the context of the Bible.

 

[Keith&Co.]

Try "No" explanation. Lot of speculation though.

And the speculation would include an explanation. Even if it says 'maybe' as a prefix. You can't say there's no explanation and then admit there're explanations.

Did you mean 'evidence?' Are you trying to say that the speculation is based upon zero evidene? Which would be an odd claim, if we're speculating about chemistry, because we have discovered chemistry. So there's going to be some evidence contributing to the speculation.

Or did you mean: ' "No" explanation I'm willing to accept.' and then use 'speculation' as a put-down sort of sneer kind of label-game?

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

The fact of the matter, however, is that a natural universe has fewer arbitrary explanations than a supernatural one.

Try "No" explanation. Lot of speculation though.

But none of it is arbitrary and none of it requires ignoring the rules of the game to make it work, ie "the great everything needs to be created exception".

The history of gods have been to explain the unexplainable. In the beginning it was nature on Earth. The rain, sun, fertility of the ground. All of these unknown processes were attributed to gods because they were mysterious and unknown. Now days, we understand these processes much better and how the work. So the likes of you are left with the remaining unknowns to pile onto the god train. 'We can't explain the origin of the universe... that means it has to be a god.' That argument was used for lots of stuff in the past. No reason to think it is any more legit for the universe than it was for rain.

Not in the Bible. The stuff you are mixing in with the Biblical account can be attributed to God only in the context of the Bible.

Alright, procreation, source/spread/prevention of disease then.

 

[Eric H]

Mageth;
On what rational basis do you justify belief in the bible's accounts? I find many of them prima facie unreasonable or irrational. Talking snakes and donkeys, magical fruit, the flood and ark, dead men walking, water into wine, etc. etc. etc. It seems you'd have to believe in a supernatural god that could work that magic to give the accounts any credence.

If God can create life in the first place, then raising the dead should be no big deal. All the above are minor miracles, compared to the creation of the universe and life.

There's that circle again

The thread was, can God make a square circle, and I am not sure the answer to that question has any real significance.

 

[atrib]

If God can create life in the first place, then raising the dead should be no big deal. All the above are minor miracles, compared to the creation of the universe and life.

There's that circle again

The thread was, can God make a square circle, and I am not sure the answer to that question has any real significance.

You are assuming that the existence of the universe is a miracle, but you cannot show us anything to support this claim. In order to support this claim you would need to demonstrate that your preferred universe creating god exists, or at the very least, that the universe could not possibly have come about without supernatural intervention by such an entity. You have done neither, all you have done is avoid every single argument that has explained this simple matter to you.

It is dishonest to ignore the arguments that other people put forward so you can keep pretending that your claim has merit. But that is what Christians do. Eric, what does the Bible say about being a false witness and why do you keep ignoring this commandment?

 

[Eric H]

Elixir;

How do you explain the fact that well over 99% of relevant (earth and life sciences) scientists - many if not most of whom are theists - accept the fact of common ancestry?

Evolution is not the problem, the theists who accept evolution, also accept that it could not happen without God.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

Elixir;

How do you explain the fact that well over 99% of relevant (earth and life sciences) scientists - many if not most of whom are theists - accept the fact of common ancestry?

Evolution is not the problem, the theist who accept evolution, also accept that it could not happen without God.

Which is good. The more that theistic thought embraces scientific advances, the further it dumps god concepts into irrelevancy. When one accepts that a gap in our knowledge where they used to think that God was hiding has been filled without finding God in it, the number of gaps for God to be hiding in grows progressively smaller and smaller. Eventually, he just becomes pointless and you're left with harmlessly irrelevant religions like deism as opposed to the religions which cause all the problems.