@fmf saidYou may stick your head in the sand no matter what the subject matter. If you avoid warnings about a bridge being out you may just drive over a cliff, perfectly in your right to avoid the warnings, because you don’t feel compelled to care.
When we are dealing with an unknown, what you happen to think is "the reasonable explanation" doesn't create any burden of proof for anyone else.
I have no reason to believe that a creator entity - if there is one - is a human-type being or that it has a "mind" or a "purpose" in the anthropomorphizing way you believe it does.
@fmf saidYou are taking the question and pushing beyond the scope of the query, is it reasonable considering all we know to say mindlessness could do this?
Adding up all we know, I can speculate that there may well be a creator entity but what link there may be between such an entity, whatever its nature is, and human concepts of "meaninglessness" and "meaningfulness" and "purpose" and "intent", I just don't know and I don't think anyone knows. I am aware of your theological explanation but I do not subscribe to it.
@kellyjay saidI may be the only one who is 'fixated' on taking snakes, but you're the only one here that believes in them. (Unless anyone else here wishes to come forward) Anyway it's not so much a fixation as a fascination that anyone actually believes that snakes can talk. It's a cornerstone of your religious beliefs; if snakes can't talk then your whole belief about the origin of humankind collapses like a pack of cards.
You are the only one I know fixated on talking snakes.
Before carbon dating becomes an issue, the formation of carbon is a question that
is being avoided by you. I don't care how old the earth or the universe is, I don't
know how old it is it doesn't matter. What does matter is evidence, and what is it
you think you have?
Seriously, age doesn't matter, a large amoun ...[text shortened]... n starting, and maintaining life. What mechanisms are
you going to point to that show mindlessness?
And when, pray, did I avoid any questions concerning the formation of carbon? You make this stuff up as you go along, and don't be so modest, of course you know how old the earth is, it's 6000 years, right, give or take. At least that's what it says in the 'scriptures' isn't it, and all of those biblical scholars surely can't be wrong, otherwise it begs the question that what else in the bible can't be believed.
I'm not going to go through all of the evidence for evolution with you again, or try to explain scientific method, that just falls on deaf ears, and is becoming like a well - played record; you claim not to deny science, but that is exactly what you do. You deny anything which doesn't fit with your inherited and accidental beliefs.
I was born a Christian and was even baptized into the Christian faith, before I had any choice in the matter, but fairly early on I rejected it as being a load of baloney, and nothing you have said in these forums has done anything to change my mind. Do you really think that you know what nature is capable of? Nature has no mind, nature needs no mind, and has been getting on with its' business quite well for the last 4.5 billion years or so, long before your god or any other god was dreamed up.
Why not just say that your belief gives you hope, or that you feel imbued with the holy spirit; bring some soul into it? That's all fine and is personal to you, but stop trying to make any of it sound rational, or sensible, and leave the rational and sensible stuff to people who are really trying, by scientific method, to understand the great mysteries of life, the universe and everything.
@kellyjay said"Warnings about a bridge being out"?
You may stick your head in the sand no matter what the subject matter. If you avoid warnings about a bridge being out you may just drive over a cliff, perfectly in your right to avoid the warnings, because you don’t feel compelled to care.
Do you think there is a burden of proof for me about whether this "bridge" exists as a result of you telling me you believe it does?
@fmf saidWhat do you think a burden of proof is supposed to do? There was a rich ruler
"Warnings about a bridge being out"?
Do you think there is a burden of proof for me about whether this "bridge" exists as a result of you telling me you believe it does?
who came to Jesus, and asked Jesus what was required, Jesus told Him, so He
now knew and he then walked away.
Jesus let him walk away, so I'm not sure what you are shooting for with this
burden of proof, if you know and ignore it, on you. You can know and walk
way, many do it for a variety of reasons.
@indonesia-phil saidI believe in a reality where what we call supernatural is just a much part of reality
I may be the only one who is 'fixated' on taking snakes, but you're the only one here that believes in them. (Unless anyone else here wishes to come forward) Anyway it's not so much a fixation as a fascination that anyone actually believes that snakes can talk. It's a cornerstone of your religious beliefs; if snakes can't talk then your whole belief about the origin of ...[text shortened]... rying, by scientific method, to understand the great mysteries of life, the universe and everything.
as any other part, because God is involved.
You can pick your miracles, you can believe life sprang up from dead dirt or some
other non-living substance and suddenly life. By far a greater miracle than some
demonic causing a snake to talk.
@indonesia-phil saidThe snake isn't the cornerstone of my belief system or worldview, God created the
I may be the only one who is 'fixated' on taking snakes, but you're the only one here that believes in them. (Unless anyone else here wishes to come forward) Anyway it's not so much a fixation as a fascination that anyone actually believes that snakes can talk. It's a cornerstone of your religious beliefs; if snakes can't talk then your whole belief about the origin of ...[text shortened]... rying, by scientific method, to understand the great mysteries of life, the universe and everything.
universe out of nothing is, and with that comes all the other things like virgin birth,
people rising from the dead, fire being called down from heaven, the blind healed,
the lame walking, good, evil, the universe as it is. Everything follows from that what
does mean to be human, righteousness, justice, love, hate.
At the beginning of your worldview, its cornerstone is based on, "I don't know" or
do you have something you can point to? At the beginning of your worldview
does it have an explanation for carbon and everything else in the universe,
material and immaterial?
I don't know how old the universe is, I couldn't prove it one way or another with
scripture or scientific means, so it is unimportant to me, it doesn't matter. You find
the question a show stopper, I find the question completely irrelevant. If what is
proposed with or without a lot of time cannot happen why would we concern
ourselves with something that cannot be proven and only dismisses part of one
side of the questions.
You are deceiving yourself, you have not gone over scientific methods that explain
the beginning, neither have you proposed anything that can be proven with
respect to a mechanism that promotes evolutionary processes in life this is your
talking snake, we don't know how it happened it's a mystery we just believe it did.
The scientific method is a method testing repeatable results, always looking for
the best possible explanation against competing hypotheses, and you don't have
anything that can be proven through testing and repeatable results that show a
mindless process did anything, at best, you can show with even with the best
efforts with scientist intervention finding specific things added and timed in the
processes by design that the things that have life starting are still beyond us, so
you have faith, blind faith with nothing to support it on the universe and life's
beginning, how life could possibly do what you think with evolution without it
being properly designed to do it. So it is you not me that rejects anything that
doesn't fit your beliefs, not looking at reality as is, only viewing the way you
believe it to be, your illusion.
I was not born a Christian that didn't happen to me until I was 25, I'm 66 now so
it wasn't part of my upbringing. I'm not the one who is pushing things beyond the
reality of what is, that would be you.