Originally posted by googlefudge
Well given that this is just an indirect way of saying "I'm right, your wrong, nahna-nahna-nah-nah"
I don't think it really qualifies as being nice.

However your (or anyone else) being nice or nasty has precisely zero impact in my belief or
otherwise in the existence of gods or the supernatural.


What you don't seem to grasp is that my philoso ...[text shortened]... ary claims require extraordinary proof.


So...
Do you have extraordinary proof?

You claim that you ONLY believe that which is justified by evidence and reason.
You claim to be a rational skeptic and want proof before you will believe anything.
Yet you seem to believe in the theory of evolution without proof, for you even
call it a fact. Does being an atheist make you less rational and skeptical on
those beliefs that support you religion of atheism? 😏

Originally posted by googlefudge
One of the most fundamental questions that science can look at is "why are things the way they are?"

This is very much a question that cosmology and physics looks to answer.

Why the laws of physics are what they are and not different is a valid question.

One to which there is not yet a definitive answer (and to which there may never be a definit the answer is.

But that is not and never will be an excuse to give up and say god did it.

How do you know that other universes could even exist with different laws of Physics?

P.S. Skepticism and Reason

Originally posted by RJHinds
You claim that you ONLY believe that which is justified by evidence and reason.
You claim to be a rational skeptic and want proof before you will believe anything.
Yet you seem to believe in the theory of evolution without proof, for you even
call it a fact. Does being an atheist make you less rational and skeptical on
those beliefs that support you religion of atheism? 😏

Yes I (try) to only believe that which is justified by evidence and reason.
And that I have mechanisms for dealing with and correcting those beliefs that I might discover
myself to be holding that don't meet that standard.

And again...

Atheism is not a religion as you well know.

In exactly the same way that OFF is not a tv channel.

I don't believe in gods because there is no reason or evidence to suppose they exist and no
benefit or use of believing in them (and much documented harm in doing so).

My atheism is a consequence of being a rational skeptic.

I am not less of a rational skeptic for being an atheist.
In fact if you claim to be a rational skeptic and still believe in a god or gods then you are doing
rational skepticism wrong (until and unless evidence arises that does prove the existence of a god or gods)


And as I have said before I don't 'believe' in evolution, I accept it as the best present explanation
of the diversity of life on earth.

There is no scientific doubt on this, just as there is no doubt about the earth being an irregular oblate
spheroid and not a flat disk.

Evolution has been tested and been proven right.
That evolution happens has been confirmed.
It is a fact that evolution happens.

None of your protestations otherwise will ever change this.

The world is also over 4.5 billion yrs old, the visible universe around 13.7 billion yrs old, the big bang really happened
and the entirety of science and the methods of it contradict and refute your supernatural beliefs.

There are no gods, we have no souls, there is no afterlife, and there is no supernatural.

There is just the common reality we all inhabit.

Originally posted by RJHinds
How do you know that other universes could even exist with different laws of Physics?

P.S. Skepticism and Reason

I don't.
I just said that it's one of the possibilities.

Originally posted by RJHinds
You think a worldwide flood is impossible too, but it happened. This doesn't
even come close to proving the Holy Bible wrong. It seems to be more like
evidence proving it right to me. And ignoring your blitz challenge tells us
nothing about the accuracy of the Holy Bible. 😏

There is evidence of a world wide 'snowball Earth' idea, where the whole planet was covered with ice. That is not quite the same as a flood however, since everything was frozen in place. It also happened nearly 1 billion years ago, give or take, long before mankind was a gleam in Earth's eye.

However, the fact that the continents are moving apart is irrefutable, still going on today just like it was 200 million years ago. All you have to do is look at the present spreading rate and see it has been pretty constant for all that time and look at the magnetic data to see how far it spread in the past, about 200 million odd years ago all the continents of today were smushed together, the crook of South America fits the notch of Africa pretty well, showing they were smashed together in the deep past.

There is no refuting that data. You can't just pull the god card on that one.

At about 2 inches per year, that makes it about 30,000 years per mile and 30 million years per 1000 miles, 60 million years for 2000 miles, 90 million years for 3000 miles. Using that as a timeline ruler you can tell when the eastern side of South America was crumpled up with the western side of Africa.

Even the first mile of movement goes way beyond your 10,000 odd year creation time scale.

The movement has been followed by GPS instruments on the east coast of SA and the west coast of Africa, it comes out to about 10 cm per year, a bit over 2 inches, call it 2 1/2 inches per year. 25,000 years per mile. I wasn't far off in my original estimate.

Originally posted by googlefudge
One of the most fundamental questions that science can look at is "why are things the way they are?"

This is very much a question that cosmology and physics looks to answer.

Why the laws of physics are what they are and not different is a valid question.

One to which there is not yet a definitive answer (and to which there may never be a definit the answer is.

But that is not and never will be an excuse to give up and say god did it.

"Why the laws of physics are what they are and not different is a valid question. "

I am a scientist (chemist) and I am not convinced that the above is a valid scientific question or that it can be converted to one, in a way that will satisfy those who see agency behind the laws of physics. IOW, I think it is not as stated as a question that science can answer, and the religious will reject the conversion of the question to one that science CAN answer.

The question needs to be stated as a testable hypothesis ("The laws of physics are what they are and not different because..." ) and tested by experiment against a suitable null hypothesis. And if the religious reject the hypothesis and experimental design as irrelevant, we are back to square 1.

(Experiments need not be table-top; astrophysicists do hypothesis-testing all the time.)

Originally posted by googlefudge
Yes I (try) to only believe that which is justified by evidence and reason.
And that I have mechanisms for dealing with and correcting those beliefs that I might discover
myself to be holding that don't meet that standard.

And again...

Atheism is not a religion as you well know.

In exactly the same way that OFF is not a tv channel.

I don't ...[text shortened]... fterlife, and there is no supernatural.

There is just the common reality we all inhabit.

If atheism is not a religion in exactly the same way that OFF is not a tv channel,
then, by logic and reason, you must be either dead or asleep to claim to be an
atheist. 😏

Originally posted by googlefudge
I don't.
I just said that it's one of the possibilities.

Then why don't you admit that the existence of God is one of the posibilities,
for to say God does not exist is being intellectually dishonest?

Originally posted by sonhouse
There is evidence of a world wide 'snowball Earth' idea, where the whole planet was covered with ice. That is not quite the same as a flood however, since everything was frozen in place. It also happened nearly 1 billion years ago, give or take, long before mankind was a gleam in Earth's eye.

However, the fact that the continents are moving apart is irre it 2 1/2 inches per year. 25,000 years per mile. I wasn't far off in my original estimate.

The Holly Bible refers to a time in the beginning of creation of the heavens and
the Earth that the Earth was not suitable for inhabitants. That is the only time
that what you are referring to could have happened. After the flood the Ice Age
did not cover the entire earth. But I challenge the billion year time period and
put my estimate at just a few thousand years. And I have not claimed that the movement
of the continents were uniform throughout all history. There is no data going
back to when it started. The Holy Bible is the first recorded witness that the
dividing of the continents even happened and it was sudden and quick enough
at that time to be noticed by the necked eye. Today, scientific instruments of
some type are needed to detect it. And ask yourself, "How long have they been
able to record this data with these instruments?

Originally posted by RJHinds
The Holly Bible refers to a time in the beginning of creation of the heavens and
the Earth that the Earth was not suitable for inhabitants. That is the only time
that what you are referring to could have happened. After the flood the Ice Age
did not cover the entire earth. But I challenge the billion year time period and
put my estimate at just a few ...[text shortened]... . And ask yourself, "How long have they been
able to record this data with these instruments?

They don't have to have been there millions of years ago to see how long the spreading has happened because when the extremely hot rocks of the uplifting magma cools it leaves behind a trace of the magnetic field of the angle it was sitting and so can be used as a clock. That is because the rocks come out hot and cool off quickly and have a cycle of this happening, heating then cooling in a definite cycle that is recorded in the magnetic field left over after the rock cools, reacting to the overall magnetic field of the earth, kind of like when you rub a magnet across a piece of steel, that steel will pick up a bit of a magnetic field. This is basic physics 101.

Whether you choose to believe that is up to you, obviously no amount of physics education will make the slightest difference to you, you would not believe what the instructors would tell you.

Originally posted by sonhouse
They don't have to have been there millions of years ago to see how long the spreading has happened because when the extremely hot rocks of the uplifting magma cools it leaves behind a trace of the magnetic field of the angle it was sitting and so can be used as a clock. That is because the rocks come out hot and cool off quickly and have a cycle of this ha ...[text shortened]... ake the slightest difference to you, you would not believe what the instructors would tell you.

The still make the mistake of evalution using the principle of uniformity alone.

Originally posted by RJHinds
The still make the mistake of evalution using the principle of uniformity alone.

There is no evidence otherwise. An inch of rain now is an inch of rain one million years ago. A spread of 2 inches per year of the continents has been going on for millions of years, they can see how much the spread changes and it's been pretty uniform.

Originally posted by sonhouse
There is no evidence otherwise. An inch of rain now is an inch of rain one million years ago. A spread of 2 inches per year of the continents has been going on for millions of years, they can see how much the spread changes and it's been pretty uniform.

You don't understand. No one can prove it rained one million years ago. There
is no recorded history going back more than about 4000 years ago. It is not
Science to ASSUME for that makes an ASS out of U and ME. 😏

P.S. The earliest recorded history about rain, says it did not rain on the earth
until the time of the Flood of Noah's day.

Originally posted by RJHinds
You don't understand. No one can prove it rained one million years ago. There
is no recorded history going back more than about 4000 years ago. It is not
Science to ASSUME for that makes an ASS out of U and ME. 😏

P.S. The earliest recorded history about rain, says it did not rain on the earth
until the time of the Flood of Noah's day.

That's only slightly ridiculous. The idea there was no rain till your god said let it rain.
I gather you didn't win many debates when you went to college. There is plenty of evidence of agriculture from 10 thousand years ago and probably before that. No rain, no ag, no people.

You have such a confused view of the world I don't see how you can get up and look the world in the eye when you wake up.

Originally posted by sonhouse
That's only slightly ridiculous. The idea there was no rain till your god said let it rain.
I gather you didn't win many debates when you went to college. There is plenty of evidence of agriculture from 10 thousand years ago and probably before that. No rain, no ag, no people.

You have such a confused view of the world I don't see how you can get up and look the world in the eye when you wake up.

I was taught practical Science that could be used in Engineering. I did not
waste my time with theoretical science that can be debated. I have already
told you how the Holy Bible said God provided water mists from the ground and
underground springs for agriculture. But I think the 10 thousand years is an
exaggeration, a common practice. I woke up about 2 or 3 hours ago. 😏

P.S. You have heard of irrigation, right?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irrigation