Ok, if we are talking formal boolean logic, then yes, that's a valid response, but human language is not a formal boolean logical system. This is why applying rigid logic to discussion of human beliefs and experiences is such a bad idea.

Most people are able to use life experience and simple human intuition to understand that the statement "Catholics don't believe in hell" does not mean "there are absolutely no Catholics that believe in hell" and instead is closer to "most Catholics (as a general rule) don't believe in hell".

A sweeping generalisation like "catholics don't believe in hell" is a pretty stupid statement to make in the first place.

This was interesting. Was her grandmother really SS? I can't appreciate all that it means, and I'm too skeptical to take it at face value, but assuming this is as true to it's message as it seems, this is definitely the way to change human beliefs, ignorance, and prejudice.
Kindness, love and education.
If this is all true (I'm always devils' advocate) I am humbled by this woman's strength.

>> ^messenger:
Someone who believes in something despite evidence against it is not using sense, reason and intellect. The Bible contradicts itself internally (contradictory lists of the "begats" is the clearest example I can think of), so cannot be accurate. If you believe the Bible is infallible, that isn't a reasonable belief. Some people "believing in a personal god" doesn't equate to "believing in Yahweh", which is your contention, so it doesn't matter if they're true or not. There's nothing unscientific about spirituality, and identifying some aspect of your spiritual experience a personal god. There's plenty unscientific about declaring the Bible to be infallible. Again with not understanding science.


If you're referring to the geneology of Jesus, it is presenting one geneology through David's son Solomon, which is the royal line, and one geneology through David's son Nathan, which is the non royal line. The lineage in Matthew is Josephs line, and the lineage in Luke is Marys line. There is no actual contradiction there, or anywhere else in the bible. What skeptics call contradictions are usually things they simply do not understand.

In any case, it would not be unreasonable to believe the bible, even if there were contradictions. This is simply a fallacious argument.

>> ^messenger:
The absence of circumstantial evidence where you might expect to find it is circumstantial evidence of absence. If the Bible were true, we would should expect, for example, that miracles would continue to occur, because why not? They should be even more commonly documented because of our massively increased population and information technology. But they appear to happen less! This is absence of circumstantial evidence. Amazing discoveries in science aren't evidence for God. God is one theory that explains them, but it doesn't work the other way -- you can't start with an amazing fact, and declare that it suggests all other theories are wrong. No matter what the universe looks like, it will still conform with the theory of God creating it, so amazing discoveries are not evidence -- they're just things we can't explain yet, like retrograde motion was once considered "amazing" and attributed to gods.)


Your contention is false for a few reasons; first, that miracles do not occur, and second, that we should expect to find an abundance of miracles. Not only have I seen miracles occur, I have been a party to them. As far as the number of miracles, we shouldn't expect to know how many miracles occur. God isn't performing for the general public. Even the post-resurrection appearances were only for a limited number of people.

We do have circumstantial evidence for Gods existence, such as the information in DNA and the evidence of fine-tuning. The theory of God has explanatory power, and is a better explanation for these phenomena. We should never ignore a theory which better explains the evidence.

>> ^messenger:
This where I start picturing you with your hands over your ears going LALALALALALA! Nothing rules out God's agency. Nothing rules out God period. He cannot be ruled out because there's nothing verifiable about his existence whatsoever. Nobody ever makes this claim, ever, ever, ever. It's like you wish we were saying this, but we're not. Really, we're not. BUT, if someone claims that their god has a chariot that moves the sun across the sky, I call bullshit because we have actually seen with our eyes that the Earth is spherical and rotates on its axis, which causes the apparent motion of the sun. If someone says the Earth is only a few thousand years old, I say bullshit and refer you to archaeology and to every branch of science that demonstrates the Earth to be much older.


It is the persistant claim of atheists that science has sufficiently described the Universe and is regulating God to a smaller and smaller corner. It's called the "god of the gaps" and you hear this all the time. You hear it from eminient scientists like Dr Krauss. So I don't wish it is being said, it is being said all the time.

As far as the age of the Earth goes, there are more evidences for a young earth than an old one. Since you don't know much about macro evolution, you probably don't know much about the theory of deep time either. Paleontology and archaelogy are historical sciences. The age of the earth is assumed, and the evidence is interpreted through that assumption. The assumption itself is never challenged.

>> ^messenger:
This is the least scientific thing you have ever said.


Messenger, you seem like a thoughtful person, so step outside of your box for a moment and think about this. The statement that "If God exists, the entire Universe is evidence of His existence" is a scientific statement of absolute fact. If it isn't, explain why not.

>> ^messenger:
You and I agreed before, no solipsism.


I engaged in no solipsism, as you will see, and I also thought we weren't going to be doing cherry picking either. I noticed you avoided these questions:

The question I would put to you is, how would you tell the difference? How would you know you're looking at a Universe God didn't create? What would you expect that to look like?

>> ^messenger:
You realize that you are using logic to prove that logic isn't real? "If-then" statements and implied questions come from logic. If logic doesn't stand on its own, then you can't use it to prove that it doesn't stand on its own. If you want to know where the rules of formal logic come from, you can look it up. If you don't accept them as valid, you've descended into solipsism, at which point I don't even accept that anything exists but my own mind. If you accept the definitions and rules of logic as valid on their face, then we don't require anything to explain where they came from. Logic is definitions, like equality. a=a. How do I know this? It's the definition of equality. If you disagree, then words have no definition, and thus no meaning, and we also agreed that "words have meaning".


I am not using logic to disprove logic, I am using logic to show you that you don't have a foundation for your own rationality. You live your life as if logic is a transcendent and absolute law, the same way as you do right and wrong, but you can't account for it in your worldview. It's a bit like sitting in Gods lap to slap His face. If logic doesn't have the same value independent of human belief, then you have no basis for your own rationality. Words do have meaning, which is why I am pointing out you have some intellectual sinkholes in your worldview that you just accept without thinking about it.

>> ^messenger:
Also, as your argument goes, if you assert that logic is a creation, and that God created logic, this entails that God exists outside of logic. Interesting prediction.


I didn't say God created logic, I said He is a rational being. Since we are made in His image, we are also rational beings.

>> ^messenger:
No, I wouldn't, necessarily. That's one field of science that I know very little about. If you've read a single book about it, you know more than me. That' doesn't mean you understand better than me how science works in general.


It doesn't mean that, no, but it does mean that you spoke authoritatively and condescendingly about something that I actually know more about than you do, jumping to conclusions based on your misunderstanding of what I said, that on a lack of knowledge about the theory itself. I would say this is positive evidence in my favor, and negative evidence against you.

>> ^messenger:
But since you bring it up, the theory of macro evolution may or may not be weak, I don't know, but outdated quotes from Darwin and about Darwin about the impossibility of macro evolution don't convince me any more than outdated quotes from Newton about the impossibility of the Solar System holding together. Do you know what Newton concluded? He concluded it must be God holding it together. Einstein figured out why it really doesn't fly apart, and it wasn't because of God.


They aren't outdated quotes, they are predictions that were made about what we should expect to find if the theory is true. Darwin made a great discovery, that changes can occur within a species. From there, he made an unjustified extrapolation that all species had a common ancestor. He expected to find evidence for this theory in the fossil record, but what he found was evidence against his theory. He blamed this on the relative poverty of the fossil record. 120 years later, we know it isn't the poverty of the fossil record; there simply is no fossil evidence to confirm macro evolution.

Do you know what a gluon is? It is a theoretical sub-atomic particle that binds quarks together. It has never been observed; it is simply a fudge factor, and without it, atoms would fly apart. Scripture says God is upholding them.

>> ^messenger:
Likewise, the problem of the lack of fossil records has been resolved since Darwin's time. The fossil evidence of intermediary links isn't a problem with the fossil evidence: it's a problem with Darwin's model. Darwin believed all evolution happened gradually, as he had observed. But there's no reason to believe it must all be slow. If one species had some tiny mutation that happened to give it a massive advantage over other species, its descendants would naturally spread into all sorts of new niches and tons of evolution would take place, both for it and other animals in its environment. Again, these changes were very rapid, so rapid, that they may not have left fossil evidence. Sometimes they did and other times they didn't, or we haven't found it yet. Check this video out: It's mostly a rebuttal to the "God is not a blind watchmaker" argument for Intelligent Design, but you can skip to 1:33 and still understand the premise. If you watch until 8:42, you'll see the reason why we wouldn't expect to find fossils of intermediary links, and why this isn't an argument against macro evolution anymore.


You're talking about the theory of punctuated equillibrium, or the modern "hopeful monster" theory. This is one of my favorite quotes:

In fact, most published commentary on punctuated equilibria has been favorable. We are especially pleased that several paleontologists now state with pride and biological confidence a conclusion that had been previously been simply embarrassing; 'all these years of work and I haven't found any evolution.'

Gould & Eldredge
Paleobiology v.3 p.136


It's the theory to explain why there is no evidence for evolution. How convenient. Do you realize that this makes macro evolution unfalsifiable? It also makes macro evolution a metaphysical theory, like abiogenesis, which you must take on faith. The video you referenced is not an accurate demonstration of macro evolution, either, since nothing is being added to the genome. A reconfiguration of the same genetic material is not traversing above the species level and is therefore micro evolution.

Since you're never read a book on macro evolution, try this one and challenge yourself:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0890510628/ref=olp_product_details?ie=UTF8&me=&seller=

>> ^dgandhi:
A few suggestions:

1. A=A is very Rand, it makes you sound like a cult member, your argument would be stronger without it.
   
2. Remember just about everything with DNA is "a living being", your argument asserts their right to life, be a little more specific.
   
3. You don't specify why "right to life" => freedom from coercion, you state it as axiomatic, while claiming it is a consequence of your one axiom, it's unclear how you got there.
   
4. You talk about trade, and therefor property, as though they exist independent of human belief, they have no objective reality. If you mean to add these abstract concepts as rights axiomatically you should say so. If you have an argument which shows that they follow from your stated axiom then state it.

1. A=A is a common starting point in mathematical and logical proofs. Rand is a source of inspiration, but by no means do I take her words as gospel, nor do I agree with all of her views. Without starting at a given, A=A, I do not see how it would be possible to derive "the right to life."

2. This is a valid point, but it is a topic for another discussion. I am only attempting to derive a philosophical basis for the free market, not animal or general human rights.

3. I can see how this might be a leap, I re-worded it to try to establish a better transition.

4. I am not entirely sure what you mean by "You talk about trade, and therefor property, as though they exist independent of human belief, they have no objective reality. " can you point out where in the derivation this occurs?

A few suggestions:

1. A=A is very Rand, it makes you sound like a cult member, your argument would be stronger without it.
   
   
2. Remember just about everything with DNA is "a living being", your argument asserts their right to life, be a little more specific.
   
   
3. You don't specify why "right to life" => freedom from coercion, you state it as axiomatic, while claiming it is a consequence of your one axiom, it's unclear how you got there.
   
   
4. You talk about trade, and therefor property, as though they exist independent of human belief, they have no objective reality. If you mean to add these abstract concepts as rights axiomatically you should say so. If you have an argument which shows that they follow from your stated axiom then state it.

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

Gorillaman: To the vast majority of men, women are more attractive without body hair. This is simply a fact.

This is not a universal, human belief and doesn't hold true for all cultures. Making a blanket "fact" statement like that makes me want to quote Socrates: "An unexamined life is not worth living."

I think life is more interesting when you try and figure out why you feel a certain way, instead making up stuff to support your worldview.

At last, the history of human belief is condensed into two hours of digestible media. How convenient. I'll pass. The sheer volume of unsubstantiated assumptions here rivals that of any religious text.

Ryjkyj's wife says: If you believe that faith is based completely on a person's lack of intelligence you greatly underestimate the necessity for spirituality in the balance of a humans mind. Faith is not necessarily rooted in a belief in God but it is important for human beings to look outside of themselves even if it is to embrace nature and science. If a person cannot look to or depend on spirituality they become a victim of their own ego, and fall into narcissism. Human beings cannot control the world around them and by virtue of that fact alone spirituality in all their forms may be for the betterment and enhancement of everyone. Faith in God or faith in science (and no matter what the majority opinion they are NOT mutually exclusive, nowhere in the bible is evolution refuted absolutely,it is the distortion of common christian extremeists that has mainstreamed that idea) are equally and totally beneficial no matter your intelligence. Using the word "stupid" to describe another humans belief system or spirituality is not only closeminded but absolutely untrue.