Intolerance: Christians vs. Atheists (4 Viewers)

[Not-That-Bright]

Re: intolerance Christians vs. atheists

If the African nations were richer and therefore better educated they mightn't necessarily have the same levels of religion as in Europe. America doesn't.

Maybe? I dunno

 

[bshoc]

Re: intolerance Christians vs. atheists

You're still going on with the Cambrian explosion thing... a) there are alternative hypotheses b) even if we can't explain the Cambrian explosion, so what? Evolution works for every other part, over that one we can say 'does not currently completely fit', awesome.

Evolution is supposed to work for ALL parts, in fact thats the only way it can work, since nothing can prove evolution in a lifetime or even over tens of recorded lifetimes. I believe the concept is everything evolves from something, thus if something appears with nothing before it, it calls for the re-evaluation of not only the Cambrian period, but ALL periods. Evolution is nothing by a theory, as you said yourself:

a) the are alternative hypotheses

Heh interesting that the only Darwinian to actually admitted that things like the Cambrian explosion are a serious challenge to evolution, was Darwin himself.

Guess thats what separates the scientist from the die hard evolutionist?

 

[nichhhole]

Re: intolerance Christians vs. atheists

Athiests are more logical.

That's my view at least. Maybe not "smarter" but I think more logical/rational/etc.

.

haha agreed.
How much of Religion is excused by the reasoning that 'god's miraculous ways can't be understood by mere human logic'...
ie. world created in 7days...

 

[Not-That-Bright]

Re: intolerance Christians vs. atheists

Evolution is supposed to work for ALL parts, in fact thats the only way it can work, since nothing can prove evolution in a lifetime or even over tens of recorded lifetimes.

No, you could quite easily change the theory to "Well in all other cases we see a natural progression of species through breeding, but here there's an anomoly that we can't explain".

I believe the concept is everything evolves from something, thus if something appears with nothing before it, it calls for the re-evaluation of not only the Cambrian period, but ALL periods.

That's basically correct, however the theory of evolution begins on the axiom that life exists on earth.

Evolution is nothing by a theory, as you said yourself:

Again, EVERYTHING in science is a theory.

Heh interesting that the only Darwinian to actually admitted that things like the Cambrian explosion are a serious challenge to evolution, was Darwin himself.

What? No. You're confabulating two anti-evolutionist arguments into one here... The 'serious challenge' to evolution that Darwin acknowledged (as do, in fact, all evolutionary biologists) was that if something could be found which wasn't reducible (i.e. irreducibly complex) then that would invalidate his theory. The cambrian explosion is a different argument, it basically claims that the rapid change in the number of fossils is impossible to account for by evolution alone.

 

[Tulipa]

Re: intolerance Christians vs. atheists

Okay to emocore or whatever.

I simply think that most atheists I know are more logical because they either have been raised in a religious setting then examined themselves, religion, their relationship with God and used logic/rationale to establish to themselves that God does not exist.

How do Christians use rationale to explain that God does exist? Isn't it all about blind faith?

 

[S1M0]

Re: intolerance Christians vs. atheists

Okay to emocore or whatever.

I simply think that most atheists I know are more logical because they either have been raised in a religious setting then examined themselves, religion, their relationship with God and used logic/rationale to establish to themselves that God does not exist.

How do Christians use rationale to explain that God does exist? Isn't it all about blind faith?

Blind faith justified by theological reasoning and assumption.

 

[Tulipa]

Re: intolerance Christians vs. atheists

Blind faith justified by theological reasoning and assumption.

Assumptions and blind faith don't read as logical to me.

 

[KFunk]

Re: intolerance Christians vs. atheists

A few comments on things which have been said in this thread:

Nietzsche said that, 'God is dead' or in other words, the Christian worldview with in modern culture has died. And he said because intellectuals and philosophers killed God in the 19th century the 20th century would be the bloodiest century in human history. Nietzsche never lived long enough to find out, but he was right. 10's of millions would die under communist (atheist) Russia alone!

This was written in the original article that was posted and I think that, in itself, it represents pretty poor reasoning. For analogies sake (please don't start a global warming debate) I think it's worth looking at the image in this link:

http://www.venganza.org/piratesarecool4.jpg

The graph shows a correlation between a decreasing numbers of pirates and increasing global temperature. The key thing to realise is that correlation is not the same as causation. Similarly we could examine a correlation between increasing atheism and an increasing number of deaths in the world. Could it not be the case that the large number of deaths was facillitated by a larger population (similar to the way number of deaths from disease can increase with a growing population... which is why we use rates) or perhaps by 'improved' warfare technology (guns and bombs facilitate mass killing)?

Also, an increasing number of deaths and increasing atheism could arise from a similar source - e.g. we could postulate that scientific advancement a) gives us more technology which allows for more killing and b) provides theories which challenge religion and cause more people to become atheists. In any case, I'm not offering a proof that there is no causation between atheism/deaths, but I do think that the above quoted claim should be taken with a grain of salt.

Blind faith justified by theological reasoning and assumption.

Perhaps I don't understand blind faith, but I thought that it was unjustified belief by definition. Feel free to throw a contrary definition at me.

I've never been that interested in science: thus I don't actually know that much about evolution theory, etc. But I don't think this kind of stuff has ever been solidly proven. Really, atheists take a lot of it on faith: they beleive in science, or they just never think about it. People who beleive in different gods do the same thing: take it on faith. I'm not stupid, and I'm a strong person. I just... also beleive in God.

When you venture into the philosophy of science you'll find that most people realise that 100% proof isn't obtainable - i.e. there's always a chance that we might be wrong. Given this I think you need to examine what you mean by 'solidly proven'. Statistically, many scientists are happy to claim a correlation between two things if the probability that they are observing a false correlation is <.05. The big difference between scientific and religious beliefs (in general, I'm sure that exceptions exist) is that science requires beliefs to be scrutinised and backed up with evidence. Now, note that this evidence is not absolute, but that in many cases it can be strong.

The problem with god is that, by nature, god is often seen as outside of the physical realm, making god a fairly difficult subject for empirical analysis. While I do agree with you that there are some things that atheists take on faith, I still think you make a mistake in equating scientific belief with religious belief.

Evolution is supposed to work for ALL parts, in fact thats the only way it can work, since nothing can prove evolution in a lifetime or even over tens of recorded lifetimes. I believe the concept is everything evolves from something, thus if something appears with nothing before it, it calls for the re-evaluation of not only the Cambrian period, but ALL periods. Evolution is nothing by a theory, as you said yourself...

What of the fact that we do seem to be able to observe evolution in some cases. In particular we see it at a cellular and microbiological level (because the life spans / rates of replication of those organisms are so short/rapid). The development of antibiotic resistance amongst microbes is a strong example of the way environmental pressures can select for certain characteristics within a population. Doesn't this show that evolution works in some cases? Even if we can't find an evolutionary explanation in all cases it still has a lot of explnatory power. I also feel I should point out that the fact that we 'don't have an evolutionary explanation for a given observed phenomenon' doesn't entail that 'we will never have an evolutionary explanation for that given phenomenon'.

 

[HotShot]

Re: intolerance Christians vs. atheists

Okay to emocore or whatever.

I simply think that most atheists I know are more logical because they either have been raised in a religious setting then examined themselves, religion, their relationship with God and used logic/rationale to establish to themselves that God does not exist.

How do Christians use rationale to explain that God does exist? Isn't it all about blind faith?

Its not logical to dismiss god you know.

 

[S1M0]

Re: intolerance Christians vs. atheists

Assumptions and blind faith don't read as logical to me.

I never said that it was logical.

 

[S1M0]

Re: intolerance Christians vs. atheists

Perhaps I don't understand blind faith, but I thought that it was unjustified belief by definition. Feel free to throw a contrary definition at me.

Thats most certainly true, but people often try to justify their faith (in terms of Christianity) through related God's will to recent events, and the Bible (again, in terms of Christianity) to recent events, history, and the world.

 

[Tulipa]

Re: intolerance Christians vs. atheists

Thats most certainly true, but people often try to justify their faith (in terms of Christianity) through related God's will to recent events, and the Bible (again, in terms of Christianity) to recent events, history, and the world.

Wait, wait, wait, what?

People relate God's will to recent events. That's speculation right? Also, the Bible isn't exactly the most reliable piece of evidence either. So they're using faith in those two things to justify blind faith in God? That doesn't make sense.

 

[S1M0]

Re: intolerance Christians vs. atheists

Wait, wait, wait, what?

People relate God's will to recent events. That's speculation right? Also, the Bible isn't exactly the most reliable piece of evidence either. So they're using faith in those two things to justify blind faith in God? That doesn't make sense.

They use theological means to justify their faith, to which they relate Gods will to recent events, history,etc.

 

[Tulipa]

Re: intolerance Christians vs. atheists

They use theological means to justify their faith, to which they relate Gods will to recent events, history,etc.

Give me an example of relating God's will to an recent event.

I'm having difficulty seeing how this is anything more than speculation.

 

[ellen.louise]

Re: intolerance Christians vs. atheists

<3 how off topic is this thread now!

 

[S1M0]

Re: intolerance Christians vs. atheists

Give me an example of relating God's will to an recent event.

I'm having difficulty seeing how this is anything more than speculation.

I'm explaining how people justify their faith, i'm not trying to convince you that Christianity is in fact logicial. Thus, there's no need for me to give you an example, and there's no need for you to refute my every point in some vain attempt to prove me wrong.

 

[Not-That-Bright]

Re: intolerance Christians vs. atheists

Its not logical to dismiss god you know.

I think many people suffer from double-think when it comes to God, they hold contradictory burdens of proof for God and other paranormal phenomena (i.e. fairies). This doesn't mean that they're wrong, just that they're not being logical. So I do think people who disreguard the supernatural as a whole generally probably are being more logical than those who pick and choose.

 

[Tulipa]

Re: intolerance Christians vs. atheists

I'm explaining how people justify their faith, i'm not trying to convince you that Christianity is in fact logicial. Thus, there's no need for me to give you an example, and there's no need for you to refute my every point in some vain attempt to prove me wrong.

I'm not trying to. I just don't understand it.

You were trying to explain to me (I thought) that there was rational behind blind faith, I was just trying to understand it.

 

[ellen.louise]

Re: intolerance Christians vs. atheists

I'm not trying to. I just don't understand it.

You were trying to explain to me (I thought) that there was rational behind blind faith, I was just trying to understand it.

I dont think it's meant to be rational: can see where you got confused there.

 

[Tulipa]

Re: intolerance Christians vs. atheists

I dont think it's meant to be rational: can see where you got confused there.

I didn't think so either.

S1MO, I thought, was trying to demonstrate that.