Religion is a hypothesis.
- Thread starter walter4
- Start date
Your quote has me confused:
"You also assume my atheism is of the sort that says God doesn't exist."
I didn't know there were different sorts of atheists. It is my understanding that atheists do not believe in any type of God. Evidently I was wrong.
ID can, and has been used as a political tool in an attempt to get creationism in to the educational system. IMO that is a wrong course of action. That said, many in the ID community would argue that their beliefs are indeed factual as they can point to the actual existence of this or that. That's a stretch for me, but I can see their point to a degree.
It seems like the splitting of hairs is consuming both sides of the argument, which again I would say is just one side or the other making their sales pitch. I think it unlikely that extremists on either side of the coin will provide any convincing evidence that will sway the other side in any definitive way. They are both too much in love with their own ideas. I'm prepared to scrap mine today given something of substance. Big Bang/God creates earth in a week... such absurd notions not even worth my time to debate.
everyone has trouble explaining everything about the universe. scientists spend lifetimes trying to gain the knowledge of how the world works.
theists like traderzone have it much easier though. they just say "an invisible man in the sky did it". so much easier than coming up with actual evidence.
Now we're beginning to communicate.
Yes there is more than one type of atheist. Somebody wrote a book describing "strong atheism" and "weak atheism". I reject those designations but I would fall into the "weak atheism" category: I don't believe in any gods, but possessing finite knowledge, I'm in no position to claim that there are no gods. A "strong atheist" (aka antitheist) would claim there are no gods.
"Strong atheism" is the only type of atheism that most theists assume exist. Like I said in a previous post, most theists (or perhaps I should say most monotheists) make no distinction between atheism and antitheism, which is why they make such pathetic arguments against atheism.
I also don't believe in unicorns, but for all I know (or care), half the surface of Neptune is covered with creatures that can best be described as "unicorns". Such unicorns are utterly irrelevant to my world. I take the exact same position on gods.
What I do believe in is evidence.
You keep dismissing the Big Bang theory like it has no more substance than Genesis. If you read up on it, you'll find that it is based on actual evidence, The Big Bang theory would not survive if it didn't explain all or most of the astronomical evidence and contradicted none of it. Is there a better explanation? Perhaps, but science is a progressive series, not an all-or-nothing set of stone tablets. I think you know where to look if you're looking for "all the answers". Whether or not they're the right answers is another matter entirely.
Burden of proof?
You mean like proof of a big bang?
LMAO...
You mean like proof of a big bang?
LMAO...
When God is brought up by a theist, the atheist says: "Prove it."
When the big bang theory is brought up by an atheist the theist says "Prove it."
The true believers of atheism think their unproved and unprovable beliefs are superior to theism, because scientists have written the myths of the big bang...
Why do people argue that their unprovable beliefs are superior to someone else and their own beliefs?
When the big bang theory is brought up by an atheist the theist says "Prove it."
The true believers of atheism think their unproved and unprovable beliefs are superior to theism, because scientists have written the myths of the big bang...
Why do people argue that their unprovable beliefs are superior to someone else and their own beliefs?
In a courtroom, the burden of proof is "beyond a reasonable doubt". Not beyond a shadow of a doubt, just beyond a reasonable doubt. In other words, a person would have to be unreasonable to argue for a position against the evidence.
The Big Bang theory survives because it is supported by all of the astronomical evidence and contradicted by none of it.
By the way, there are plenty of theistic scientists who believe in the Big Bang theory. Big Bang is not "anti-God."
But Genesis is anti-science. Not only is there physical evidence against it, it isn't even self-consistent. There are children's books with more internal consistency than Genesis. So why are you surprised when somebody says "prove it" if all you're going to do is point at some "holy" book as the basis for why they should believe, and that "holy" book is full of holes?
Whatever the flaws of science, it does not lack of consistency. The same can't be said for practically any book-bound theism ever preached on this planet.
Perhaps I should have made myself more clear. I do not dispute the Big Bang theory as evidence to establish the formation of our universe. While the theory does not attempt to provide any explanation of what was going on at the actual moment of the "bang",(how convenient), it provides enough conclusive evidence to support an expanding universe, and even the formation of the universe.
What I dispute is using this model to then extrapolate the formation of life itself. It requires more than a little "imagination" to believe all the events that had to occur for life to form, let alone evolve, were pure happenstance.
The question I'd like to have answered is what was going on 60 seconds before that Big Bang. Know that and I'll bet all other questions about what has happened subsequent to that event would fall in to place.
Science is not a courtroom...
Doh!!!
Doh!!!
No. A debate has two sides. When one declares they don't need to bother proving something, then they are off base.
The atheists are just as blind as the theists. Using the excessively naive, extremely limited thing that is human logic to address the unknown is a fool's errand.