Is Atheism Dead ?

@sonship said
@BigDogg

I am not saying the factors HAD to be set to anything - far from it.

I am questioning if they are even settable to begin with.

These two sentences seem not to make consistent sense to me.

I am not saying the factors HAD to be set to anything - far from it.

You say it is far from it that thirty separate physical ...[text shortened]... no one?

Can you help me reconcile your two statements which appear self contradictory to me.

I don't see a problem with what I said, so I really can't help you.

You're so busy thinking about the points you would like to make that you lost the context of the discussion.

@kellyjay said
Like I said by definition you rule out what you don’t want to acknowledge. Convenient isn’t it somethings so incredibly cosmic and microscopic can be ignored as nothing noteworthy while a fossil, oooo ahhhh.

I'm not ignoring anything. I'm just not resorting to magical thinking to explain things. I might counter that it's rather more convenient for you to have the all the answers to everything in the one book - saves you a lot of annoying reading eh? Of course there's still the creationist websites to wade through...

Also, do you not find it inconvenient having to ignore all the millions of fossils?

@avalanchethecat said
I'm not ignoring anything. I'm just not resorting to magical thinking to explain things. I might counter that it's rather more convenient for you to have the all the answers to everything in the one book - saves you a lot of annoying reading eh? Of course there's still the creationist websites to wade through...

Also, do you not find it inconvenient having to ignore all the millions of fossils?

Using the word 'magical' is a bit insulting.

Wizards and witches use magic while the God of all creation does not; magic in the sense of wizards and witches is a perversion of creation. God who created all does not pervert anything; He is simply doing what He will as He will.

Reality is what we are talking about, what makes the most sense given what we know, and can the natural world produce what we see and do it all from the beginning to now. If not, you need to broaden your definitions to something more than just a natural cause because they are inadequate to the task.

@avalanchethecat said
I'm not ignoring anything. I'm just not resorting to magical thinking to explain things. I might counter that it's rather more convenient for you to have the all the answers to everything in the one book - saves you a lot of annoying reading eh? Of course there's still the creationist websites to wade through...

Also, do you not find it inconvenient having to ignore all the millions of fossils?

I don't ignore millions of fossils; what I don't spend a lot of time concerned about are the opinions about them, they mean this to those, that to others, they could be this species or that one, some they find that wholly put together others they find in the same area and put them together to form whatever it is something thinks is right. The fact about millions of fossils is that there are millions of them. If you want to discuss them, stick with the facts. I'll stay in the conversation, but if all you tell me are things you can only suggest are possible, it is true; why bother? It is no different with time you believe there is X amount of time, I'll grant that to you whatever you want, but from there, we need to look at what that would mean in reality, did what you think occurred in that time frame, actually occur in that time frame?

@BigDogg

I don't see a problem with what I said, so I really can't help you.

You're so busy thinking about the points you would like to make that you lost the context of the discussion.

You could accept that you could be clearer on what you mean.
If you get the added benefit of feeling superior I don't mind, as long as you clarify
for me what you said.

I am assuming that you yourself understand what you said.

1.) It is not at all the case that these values had to be.

2.) You question that these values could be set to be anything else. (or anything)

? ? ?

My best guess, my best honest guess at this point is that you are trying to say the values could not be SET at all, either as different ones or even as the ones they are. I wonder if that is what you are saying. It sounds like you want to jury rig out of the discussion the verb "set".

Why I my wanting to make my point in contrast to what I think you mean, is unusual to you, I have no idea.

@avalanchethecat

I might counter that it's rather more convenient for you to have the all the answers to everything in the one book

Many believers of the Bible recognize that "all the answers" to everything we could possibly be curious about.

It didn't tell me what is on the dark side of the moon, though I am curious.
It didn't tell me about different types of galaxies - spiral, elliptical, sombrero hat,
etc. though I am curious.
It didn't explain microwave, the weak nuclear force, cell mitosis, though I am
curious.

It is not that we should expect a book from God to man to tickle man's every point of curiosity so that, with a focus on my modern generation amid thousands of others.
It told me the things which relate to how and why we are living.
It tells us things most pertinent to God's eternal purpose and our salvation from
forces against us.

God's revelation in the bible did not forbid man from exploring the mechanics of the universe to see how everything works and learn to channel some of those laws to do things for us. We may assume that God should by revelation tell us all we need to know to be independent from God because of our great knowledge.

I do not fault God for knowing before hand that the route of total independent knowledge accumulation would be as promising as it seems. It could lead to a dead end though initially extremely attractive. I don't chide God for knowing in His wisdom before even creation that no matter of knowledge would lead to our total well being apart from knowing Him.

This is not saying knowledge is wrong. It is saying He knows knowledge would not be enough. We need God Himself as eternal and divine life.

@KellyJay

I would like to interject something about this paragraph.

I don't ignore millions of fossils; what I don't spend a lot of time concerned about are the opinions about them, they mean this to those, that to others, they could be this species or that one, some they find that wholly put together others they find in the same area and put them together to form whatever it is something thinks is right. The fact about millions of fossils is that there are millions of them. If you want to discuss them, stick with the facts. I'll stay in the conversation, but if all you tell me are things you can only suggest are possible, it is true; why bother? It is no different with time you believe there is X amount of time, I'll grant that to you whatever you want, but from there, we need to look at what that would mean in reality, did what you think occurred in that time frame, actually occur in that time frame?

One thing seems clear to me among many things which are less clear.
That is that there is the revelation in God's book and the revelation in nature, God's
world.

The revelation of God's book says that God is able to overturn an entire world of living things should He be displeased with how things are going - ie. the flood of Noah.

The revelation in God's world seems to suggest something similar. Entire populations of kinds of living things could VANISH, be discarded, go extinct or otherwise out of existence for some reason.

We often have a disconnect between the moral imperatives of the universe and the mechanical characteristics. We often think the two are unrelated. We often assume the WAY things work in nature is completely seperated from the way the moral universe OUGHT to go according to God.

If you dismiss the Bible's warning, as many do, the warning in NATURE comes at you from another angle. Entire populations of living things could go out of existence.

There are many mysteries. But these are thoughts I include in contemplating things like the fossil record. There use to be millions of living things which no longer live. The aspect of warning is not uninvolved. The Creator's wisdom has seen to that. The message gets through one way or another imo.

@kellyjay said
Using the word 'magical' is a bit insulting.

Wizards and witches use magic while the God of all creation does not; magic in the sense of wizards and witches is a perversion of creation. God who created all does not pervert anything; He is simply doing what He will as He will.

Reality is what we are talking about, what makes the most sense given what we know, and can th ...[text shortened]... our definitions to something more than just a natural cause because they are inadequate to the task.

I don't use the word to be insulting, I use it to as a catch-all term encompassing the use of supernatural powers.

@sonship said
@KellyJay

I would like to interject something about this paragraph.

[quote] I don't ignore millions of fossils; what I don't spend a lot of time concerned about are the opinions about them, they mean this to those, that to others, they could be this species or that one, some they find that wholly put together others they find in the same area and put them together to ...[text shortened]... uninvolved. The Creator's wisdom has seen to that. The message gets through one way or another imo.

I personally believe that the fossils are here due to the Noah’s flood, but there’s nothing I can say this proves that so I don’t bother.

@avalanchethecat said
I don't use the word to be insulting, I use it to as a catch-all term encompassing the use of supernatural powers.

Pharaoh’s magicians and Moses went a few rounds, since you have read the scriptures what you are doing is making God no different that the magicians. This is like saying God’s work and Satanic works are no different from one another, it’s offensive.

@kellyjay said
I don't ignore millions of fossils; what I don't spend a lot of time concerned about are the opinions about them, they mean this to those, that to others, they could be this species or that one, some they find that wholly put together others they find in the same area and put them together to form whatever it is something thinks is right. The fact about millions of fossils i ...[text shortened]... mean in reality, did what you think occurred in that time frame, actually occur in that time frame?

You seem to be asking for answers that we just don't have. The precise blow-by-blow mechanisms by which the universe came into being and by which life started and by which our species evolved are not yet - and may never be, for all I know - fully understood, despite the great advances we've made in these fields. For myself, I don't find that the lack of detail there lends any credence to the biblical account. Our current best estimates for the age of the universe and of our planet seem well attested and entirely credible to me. The process of evolution by natural selection and punctuated equilibrium seems to explain the fossil record pretty well as far as I am able to determine. The beginning of the universe? I really don't have much of a clue about that. Big Bang seems likely from the evidence we do have, but what caused that I have no idea. I accept it might have been a divine event, but since I don't really have any other solid evidence supporting the existence of the divine, I personally rate that as unlikely. The beginning of life seems a less puzzling affair to me, but again, of course I don't actually know what happened there. It doesn't trouble me not to know; I don't feel a need to believe that it happened this way or that way. That science can't answer these questions satisfactorily in no way suggests to me that I ought to believe bronze-age myths instead.

@kellyjay said
Pharaoh’s magicians and Moses went a few rounds, since you have read the scriptures what you are doing is making God no different that the magicians. This is like saying God’s work and Satanic works are no different from one another, it’s offensive.

If you find it offensive I'll try not to use the term in this way in future, and I apologise for causing offence.

@kellyjay said
I personally believe that the fossils are here due to the Noah’s flood, but there’s nothing I can say this proves that so I don’t bother.

Do you therefore reject all of the many and varied dating techniques that are used in palaeontolgy and archaeology?

@avalanchethecat said
If you find it offensive I'll try not to use the term in this way in future, and I apologise for causing offence.

Thank you

@avalanchethecat said
You seem to be asking for answers that we just don't have. The precise blow-by-blow mechanisms by which the universe came into being and by which life started and by which our species evolved are not yet - and may never be, for all I know - fully understood, despite the great advances we've made in these fields. For myself, I don't find that the lack of detail there l ...[text shortened]... questions satisfactorily in no way suggests to me that I ought to believe bronze-age myths instead.

You do seem hung up on time as if something that was recorded in the distant past even if true is no longer relevant that simply due to the passage of time.

Do you believe in true, truth?
Absolutes?