A nice debate I got into

[leftyguitarjoe]

I think I won

I took a message my cousin wrote me and dissected it piece by piece.

All my responses are preceded with "--"

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These are just a few simple things. I respect your views and know everyone has decisions to make. Just having fun hanging out with you.

-- That great to hear. I hope you take our discussion here as an intellectual debate, rather than a nasty little argument.

I understand, I have been there. That's just it though. I found that science did not have all the answers or really any answers.

-- The universe will always be, to some degree, a mystery. The more we find out, the more we realize how little we really know. That is the beauty of nature. But that is still not going to stop me from learning as much as I can

I watch the Discovery Channel and see nice 3d cartoons of "our ancestors" and all the stuff they supposedly did, but this is just someone's imagination at work, presenting what they think happened. There are absolutely no facts to go along with it.

-- I feel the same way about the bible.

Take the human eye for example. It has something like 40 subsystems. It is irreducibly complex.

-- Irreducible Complexity is an argument I read alot about. There is a flaw. IR refers to modern organisms. True, organisms alive today couldn't have popped into existence. They developed over about 3 billion years. That is where IR fails.

If one part was missing, it would not function. They work in pairs, supposedly developed over millions of years. There were blind until all the parts mutated perfectly and worked? Science cannot explain this.

-- Darwin does marvel in the complexity of the eye. One eye is certainly better than none. A creature with even just the ability to sense light has an advantage over a blind one. Darwin also explains the evolutionary process that take place that result in eyes. We have examples of different stages of eye evolution currently present in nature today. There are blind creatures, many of which. are subterranean insects. There are creatures that can only sense light and shadow. Moles have eyes that can see images, but in very poor focus, but still allowing them to detect predators. Many animals posses an eye that is better than a mole's, but cannot see very well. Then you have eyes like ours. Our eyes do pretty well. But, then you have birds of pray, who would laugh at our pitiful eyesite.

Mutations ALWAYS result in disintregration or lateral changes in the best case. Mo mutation ever improves.

-- Mutation is a misunderstood term. A mutation is simply a change in the genetic material of an organism. There are several documented cases of good mutations. One mutation makes people immune to HIV. There are mutations that allow for rapid muscle growth, allowing a normal person to attain herculean strength, and if researched, could aide people with diseases that degenerate muscle tissue.

Not only would this evloution take place in humans, but in cows, pigs, chickens, anything with eyes would have evolved all exactly the same way and have the same present outcome? No way. Sockets, eyelids, skin, eyelashes, tear ducts, muscles, as well as the incredibly complex construction of the eye itself all would have had to developed the same with all these creatures.

-- We all evolved the same features because it is beneficial for all the beings. All your listed creatures have skin, right? Skin is good so that our guts dont fall out. They all have a skull, because that helps protect the brain. They all have eyes because the process of natural selection favored the variants what could see over the ones that couldn't.

I have many problems with science but DNA is one of the biggies. DNA contains structured, repeated information. Intelligence is the source of information. Someone had to input that information in order for it to be there.

-- DNA didn't start out as a huge strand. It slowly gained its complexity over billions of years.

One more thing and then my lunch break is over. haha. I ask you to think about your position. To be able to believe that there is no God, one would have to be able to go every place God could possibly be and verify his non-existance. This would be scientific and testable. It is like making the statement: There is no gold in China. To be able to say that, you would have to be able to go to China and look everywhere gold could possibly be and verify it's non-existance. We cannot do this. So one would have to resolve that at least there is a possibility of gold existing in China. The same goes for God. Since has non-existance cannot be verified, rationally, one would have to admit there is a possibility that He exists.

-- But, no proof of for his existence has been offered. "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence" - Carl Sagan. Anything credited to a god can be explained with science.

That would make one an agnostic, not an atheist.

-- Cool. Its great that you dont affiliate yourself with those warmongering bigots that call themselves "Religions"

[curiosityandthecat]

One more thing and then my lunch break is over. haha. I ask you to think about your position. To be able to believe that there is no God, one would have to be able to go every place God could possibly be and verify his non-existance. This would be scientific and testable. It is like making the statement: There is no gold in China. To be able to say that, you would have to be able to go to China and look everywhere gold could possibly be and verify it's non-existance. We cannot do this. So one would have to resolve that at least there is a possibility of gold existing in China. The same goes for God. Since has non-existance cannot be verified, rationally, one would have to admit there is a possibility that He exists.

Whelp, that's it, guys. Get yer gear, cause we got some huntin' to do! It's up to US to prove these things don't exist, so we better start looking now!











 

[Voter]

But, no proof of for his existence has been offered. "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence" - Carl Sagan.

This is a valid principle which is generally misapplied by atheists.  And, while Sagan may have come up with this wording, the concept goes back at least as far as Jesus, who applied it to himself:

John 10
33"We are not stoning you for any of these," replied the Jews, "but for blasphemy, because you, a mere man, claim to be God."
...
37Do not believe me unless I do what my Father does. 38But if I do it, even though you do not believe me, believe the miracles, that you may know and understand that the Father is in me, and I in the Father."

Claim: Jesus is God; the Father is in me, and I in the Father; other wording of the same idea, read the entire chapter for more. Extraordinary.

Evidence:  "The miracles."  Extraordinary.

Means of perception of the evidence:
Some saw them. Vision - ordinary
Some heard about them from others. Oral testimony - ordinary
Today we read about them. Written testimony - ordinary

It can even be said that some of the miraculous events were heard or tasted, which perceptions are also ordinary.

I've never read what Sagan had to say, but the typical atheist confuses the evidence with the means of perception of the evidence:

Claim: The miracles.  Extraordinary.

Evidence:  
Vision - ordinary
Oral testimony - ordinary
Written testimony - ordinary

Since the means of perception is necessarily ordinary, this application of the concept boils down to an a priori rejection of the extraordinary.

[Jolly Sapper]

I thought the rejection of the "extraordinary" had more to do with the fact that a "miracle" is such a rare occurrence that it could be seen as so statistically improbable that it could be considered impossible.

Kinda like the creationist argument that follows the same logic used to defend their position that the universe and everything within it could only have be deliberately and intelligently created because, as you know, its such a statistically improbable event that its okay to consider the universe's origin as something other than intelligently created to be an impossibility.

[curiosityandthecat]

Claim: Jesus is God; the Father is in me, and I in the Father; other wording of the same idea, read the entire chapter for more. Extraordinary.

Evidence:  "The miracles."  Extraordinary.

Miracle is such a subjective term. What may be a miracle to one person might be a completely mundane event to another. Slight of hand, hypnosis, charisma, even technology; all these can be used to produce what we could consider a "miracle."

I can't imagine it'd be too hard, for an enterprising and intelligent person, to pull the wool over the eyes of a small group of people over 2,000 years ago. Hell, people will believe whatever they want to believe, providing it in some way promises to alleviate some of their own pain or suffering. The Jesus of the bible provided exactly that: promises of salvation, everlasting peace and happiness, a way out of a bleak situation. People have always been easy to lead; there's a reason the authors of the gospels referred to Jesus as the shepherd and the people as his flock, you know.

You can create miracles now on demand. David Copperfield does it all the time. The people at Pixar do it daily. For that matter, I have Photoshop, and I can produce a miracle whenever you want one (provided it's not beyond my skill level   ). The only reason we don't believe these things to be miracles is simple: we've been told they're not. Were we uneducated and ignorant of the methods of creating these miracles, it wouldn't be too much of a stretch to simply say, "Well, see? I'm the son of God. This is a miracle."

Even something as simple (and fortunate) as someone being in an accident or falling from a great height and, somehow, surviving could be deemed a miracle if someone wishes to do so. It's unfortunate that we don't see the kind of miracles that exist in the Old Testament. Burning bushes, talking donkeys, parting waters, oh my! No, here's what we're left with:



Not that I don't like fishsticks. I do, but if I'm putting all my faith in a supreme being who created life, the universe and everything, I'd like one with a bigger budget.

[Martian]

That would make one an agnostic, not an atheist.

-- Cool. Its great that you dont affiliate yourself with those warmongering bigots that call themselves "Religions"

If it were me, I would have ended it differently.

When he/she said, "that would make one an agnostic, not an atheist" I would have explained that agnosticism and atheism are not incompatible concepts and then explain what they are.

The snappy response at the end isn't good for debates. You should make sure that your cousin understands what information you're trying to convey. Being persuasive is most important.

But, overall, you did great. Were there any follow up discussions?

[Martian]

But, no proof of for his existence has been offered. "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence" - Carl Sagan.

This is a valid principle which is generally misapplied by atheists.  And, while Sagan may have come up with this wording, the concept goes back at least as far as Jesus, who applied it to himself:

John 10
33"We are not stoning you for any of these," replied the Jews, "but for blasphemy, because you, a mere man, claim to be God."
...
37Do not believe me unless I do what my Father does. 38But if I do it, even though you do not believe me, believe the miracles, that you may know and understand that the Father is in me, and I in the Father."

Claim: Jesus is God; the Father is in me, and I in the Father; other wording of the same idea, read the entire chapter for more. Extraordinary.

Evidence:  "The miracles."  Extraordinary.

Means of perception of the evidence:
Some saw them. Vision - ordinary
Some heard about them from others. Oral testimony - ordinary
Today we read about them. Written testimony - ordinary

It can even be said that some of the miraculous events were heard or tasted, which perceptions are also ordinary.

I've never read what Sagan had to say, but the typical atheist confuses the evidence with the means of perception of the evidence:

Claim: The miracles.  Extraordinary.

Evidence:  
Vision - ordinary
Oral testimony - ordinary
Written testimony - ordinary

Since the means of perception is necessarily ordinary, this application of the concept boils down to an a priori rejection of the extraordinary.

Vision is not evidence.
Oral testimony is evidence, but it could just as well be a fraud.
Same thing goes for written testimony.

Testimonial evidence can only be accepted so far as it fits within one's world view. To make claims that violate one's world view requires extraordinary *objective* evidence to back them up. That's the bottom line.

[Loffler]

You did a good job, Lefty, but you pulled a few punches.

I watch the Discovery Channel and see nice 3d cartoons of "our ancestors" and all the stuff they supposedly did, but this is just someone's imagination at work, presenting what they think happened. There are absolutely no facts to go along with it.
-- I feel the same way about the bible.

You let your cousin get away with saying there's no evidence of our ancestors. There is plenty of evidence of our ancestors.

Take the human eye for example. It has something like 40 subsystems. It is irreducibly complex.

-- Irreducible Complexity is an argument I read alot about. There is a flaw. IR refers to modern organisms. True, organisms alive today couldn't have popped into existence. They developed over about 3 billion years. That is where IR fails.

If one part was missing, it would not function. They work in pairs, supposedly developed over millions of years. There were blind until all the parts mutated perfectly and worked? Science cannot explain this.

You should have just said "Wrong. Flatworms have eyespots. And eyes get more complex from that point up the evolution tree."

Mutations ALWAYS result in disintregration or lateral changes in the best case. No mutation ever improves.

You listed examples of beneficial mutations, but you didn't explain the impossibility of the "no mutation ever improves" comment. Anytime the consequences of a mutation coincide with the environment of the organism, it's beneficial. It's bound to happen sometimes. If a mutation makes an animal taller and he can reach a new food item because of it, it's beneficial. If a mutation makes an animal shorter in an environment of thick vegetation, allowing it to dart around below the thicket level, that's beneficial.

Not only would this evolution take place in humans, but in cows, pigs, chickens, anything with eyes would have evolved all exactly the same way and have the same present outcome? No way. Sockets, eyelids, skin, eyelashes, tear ducts, muscles, as well as the incredibly complex construction of the eye itself all would have had to developed the same with all these creatures.

Cows, pigs, chickens and people all share a common ancestor which already had sockets, eyelids, skin, and muscles. So those traits only had to evolve once.

I have many problems with science but DNA is one of the biggies. DNA contains structured, repeated information. Intelligence is the source of information. Someone had to input that information in order for it to be there.

-- DNA didn't start out as a huge strand. It slowly gained its complexity over billions of years.

You should have also pointed out that whoever "input" the DNA code wasn't a very efficient programmer: 80% of DNA is useless sequences that don't do anything.

One more thing and then my lunch break is over. haha. I ask you to think about your position. To be able to believe that there is no God, one would have to be able to go every place God could possibly be and verify his non-existance. This would be scientific and testable. It is like making the statement: There is no gold in China. To be able to say that, you would have to be able to go to China and look everywhere gold could possibly be and verify it's non-existance. We cannot do this. So one would have to resolve that at least there is a possibility of gold existing in China. The same goes for God. Since has non-existance cannot be verified, rationally, one would have to admit there is a possibility that He exists.

This shoulda been easy, too. One need not be certain of something's nonexistence not to believe in it. One need only consider it extremely unlikely. There might be a planet out there with Mickey Mouse living on it, but I still say I don't believe in Mickey Mouse.


You still get an A.

[leftyguitarjoe]

Haha thanks for the advice guys.

No, he never responded to the message

[afreethinker30]

My sister tried the whole atheist = no morals crap.Then after a month of her thinking on it she came to see that you don't need a bible to have morals.  morals from the bible that's the funniest thing I've ever heard.

[Squid]

Take the human eye for example. It has something like 40 subsystems. It is irreducibly complex.

There was a thread here a while back where I posted some information about IC and its wackiness (my post starts a little over half way down):

http://www.happyatheistforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=318&st=0&sk=t&sd=a&start=15

[Loffler]

But, no proof of for his existence has been offered. "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence" - Carl Sagan.

This is a valid principle which is generally misapplied by atheists.  And, while Sagan may have come up with this wording, the concept goes back at least as far as Jesus, who applied it to himself:

John 10
33"We are not stoning you for any of these," replied the Jews, "but for blasphemy, because you, a mere man, claim to be God."
...
37Do not believe me unless I do what my Father does. 38But if I do it, even though you do not believe me, believe the miracles, that you may know and understand that the Father is in me, and I in the Father."

Claim: Jesus is God; the Father is in me, and I in the Father; other wording of the same idea, read the entire chapter for more. Extraordinary.

Evidence:  "The miracles."  Extraordinary.

Means of perception of the evidence:
Some saw them. Vision - ordinary
Some heard about them from others. Oral testimony - ordinary
Today we read about them. Written testimony - ordinary

Ok this is just ridiculous. That quote is nothing like the Sagan quote. What the hell is wrong with you?

Why do Christians do this? I'll say something like "It's weird how my dog got strangled when his leash got yanked by that box fan." And they'll say "Yeah, it's just like Proverbs 23:6. 'Eat thou not the bread of him that hath an evil eye, neither desire thou his dainty meats.' "

What?

[Sophus]

Christians need to understand that the Bible does not persuade us, because frankly we don't believe it's God breathed.In fact there is no tool greater to disprove Christianity than the Bible.

I never saw any miracles. Just because someone jotted those stories down two thousand years ago does not mean it actually happen.