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Bringing you atheist articles and building active godless communities takes hundreds of hours and resources each month. If you find any joy or stimulation at Atheist Republic, please consider becoming a Supporting Member with a recurring monthly donation of your choosing, between a cup of tea and a good dinner.
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@R F
"The attached video is obviously very dated. The Professor discusses the similarities of Jesus Christ, Hare Krishna and Ahuro Mazda/Zooroster. The immaculate conception, good versus evil spirits...etc. The video is 12 minutes long and straightforward."
Yair, that video and even a book have been around for decades. That area of thought also often throws in Isis for good measure. It's bogus.
Some of the claims are factually wrong. Others make the schoolboy mistake of conflating correlation and causation.
I don't know in which discipline the' professor' is trained. Doesn't seem to be Social Anthropology. (my discipline) However, I'll see if I can check him out .
There's a lot of stuff on line debunking this tired old chestnut.
I agree with your premise about imaging beings into existence. I've mentioned the clip because I think it's a good idea to be sure of your won facts before making claims.
Addendum: had a quick look at the video. Couldn't find any claim of academic qualifications of any kind. Nor indeed of critical thinking skills or any familiarity with scholarly method. The guy comes across as an undereducated paranoid man who has discovered 'secrets' hidden by academia.
Having said that, I encourage you to have a look around for critical analyses of that video. If you don't want to do that, I'm willing to have a go at deconstructing the woo if you want. My point is not to try to fight woo with woo. ---
This atheist is disinterested in claims of proof by apologists UNLESS they can provide empirical evidence for their claims . So far not one person in recorded history has ever produced empirical evidence for the existence of ANY god (s) not just the monster of the Abrahamic faiths. (and there are 15 MILLION gods in Hinduism alone)
Those are unevidenced claims, they're not even evidence, let alone proof.
Why do theists keep trying to prop up their unevidenced belief in a deity with endless unevidenced claims?
It's not funny at all nor is it remotely true. It is an argument from ignorance fallacy, and of course a straw man fallacy. I look forward to you continuing your little game by telling us again that your superstitious fantasy is rational. Especially after two howlers like that.
I question that, especially as you're not an atheist and it is risible for you to make claims about what atheists think, beyond their lack of belief in your completely unevidenced deity. It's even more hilariously stupid to claim that science's inability to examine or test imaginary deities is a flaw in the scientific method, yet theists keep rubbing this particular egg into their faces, funny fellows. Science cannot examine what does not exist, that is axiomatic, so every time a theist makes this claim, it is they and not atheists who are placing their deity in that group of non existent things, and I marvel they don't seem to possess the intellectual capacity to see the implication.
You are funny, your trolling though is getting worse, and it wasn't much to brag about to start with.
@ Sheldon
"You are funny, your trolling though is getting worse, and it wasn't much to brag about to start with."
It is only February and we have over ten months before 2020 ends. But so far, it appears our little friend is the leading candidate for the "2020 John Allen Chau Award".
geez, I hope he stays away from North Sentinel Island.
Of course every single scientist, despite their confidence in the icky picky scientific method, are just so jealous of religions like Christianity, whose followers are unanimously united in their unshakeable and universal rock solid faith in every single aspect of their unchanging, ubiquitous god.
These secular lab rats are just so envious of the grand unified unchanging belief that unites all Christians...when you don't count the changes made to things like bodily resurrections, the existence or non existence of hell or the nature and purpose of purgatory, and, well, but I digress. Of course one can generously overlook the 40,000 different Christian denominations, and out of polite necessity discount the seemingly innumerable sects of the other two Abrahamic religions with all their perfect understandings of the almighty... and, well, ignore the considerable number of variants of Sikhism, Buddhism, Jainism, Shintoism, Bagism, Shagism, Dragism, Madism, Ragism, Tagism, This-ism, that-ism....all we are saying...where is the proof?
At least with scientific method, barely four hundred years old, when an object, rock, feather or drop of water, falls to the ground, scientists everywhere will agree as to the explanation which Physics provides of the actions behind that single simple event . But with the advantage of several thousands of years, theists can declare the vague and sometimes conflicting manner of influence of countless divine entities, and with the possible exception of the Jains, will reserve the right to go to war with those who disagree.
Science might falter in its path to knowledge, two steps forward, one back, then ten forward, perhaps a sidestep, but it progresses with evidence and proof. Religion simply goes round in circles, blinkered and heavily biased to one side or the other with unquestioning faith, prejudices and dogma.
Plus science is self correcting.
A wonderful little tool.
It always astounds me how theists and creatards who cling to myths that science has shown to be demonstrably false, fail to see this is a strength of the scientific method, not a weakness. The irony is palpable from people who cling to bronze age creation myths that deny objective facts.
Oh look who's here again ...
All merely asserted to exist in mythology. Your usual level of fail is on display again.
And here. we see yet more of your ignorance on display.
First of all, proof is the remit of pure mathematics and formal axiomatic systems derived therein. Science deals in correspondence with observational data.
Second, if an asserted entity is bereft of accompanying evidence, the requisite assertions about that entity can be safely discarded.
Third, your attempt to dismiss reliable methods of testing assertions, just because your assertions are vacuous and probably untestable even in principle, is not merely lame, but duplicitous.
Fourth, if you want to support the implicit assertion that there exist other reliable methods for testing assertions, then the ball is in your court to demonstrate that [1] the requisite methodologies exist, and [2] that they produce verifiably reliable results. Your failure to do so will merely reinforce the vacuity of your position.
So you blindly assert, but that's all that mythology fanboys like you ever do - assert.
Plus, we've seen the laughable attempts by your ilk to support their assertions, courtesy of apologetics, which is nothing more than the fine art of making shit up, in order to pretend that unsupported assertions are something other than the products of the rectal passages of the presenters thereof.
Once again, if you want to assert that there exists at least one other reliable method of testing assertions, the ball is in YOUR court to demonstrate this.
Er, bullshit.
What part of "numerous assertions in your favourite mythology are flatly contradicted by real world data" do you not understand? Because the assertions in question are assertions concerning topics that ARE within the remit of science? Such as the laughable assertion in your mythology that genetics is purportedly controlled by coloured sticks?
Plus, you have several unfortunate precedents to deal with, courtesy of unwise past assertions by mythology fanboys like you, that science would purportedly never answer questions it went on to answer. Science also went on to answer questions that mythology fanboys like you were incapable of even fantasising about.
HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!
Mythology fanboys like you don't have any "research", all you have is mythological assertions and ex recto apologetic fabrications.
You should take your output to a stand up comedy venue. You'll have them rolling in the aisles.
There are studies done on NDEs without a religious views some studies with over 100,000 incidents - I saw one study that the people had to have no heart beat , breathing or brain wave function ( required for memory ask any Neurologist ) and there were some interesting results. But its not considered science and the results are up to the reader.
@ BT3241
"But its not considered science and the results are up to the reader."
Could you please provide the URL or source for these studies. I never trust a theist who makes claims, and also attempts to think for me.
Hmm, if the results are subjective then any conclusions drawn are the very definition of an argument from ignorance fallacy. A dying brain being starved of oxygen merits studying, but these so called NDE's seem little more than people trying to validate a priori beliefs they hold in an unevidenced afterlife.
Alright you guys, answer this
If energy can neither be Created nor destroyed, How did Energy get into the system
I want you to logically explain this to me
No story just answer straight
@ The Intruder
The first law of thermodynamics has nothing to do with what happened before the rapid expansion. As many have stated, and what you either ignore or just fail to grasp, is NO ONE knows what happened before the rapid expansion.
@David Killems
A minor quibble. What on earth makes our new little friend/chew toy/irritant ask a bunch of atheists complex questions about astro physics?
.
I once asked a physicist acquaintance "what was there before the big bang? Sorry, rapid expansion. His answer: 'there was no before"
Stephen Hawking said that when the universe was a singularity, the size of a single atom, time and space did not exist.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aH5ukK7ngL8
Lawrence Krauss also has an interesting video on the notion of a universe from nothing . I can't claim to understand all of it. I'm actually more interested in the fact that competent scientists are seriously discussing the topic; to me that means the matter is not settled.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=46sKeycH3bE
An appropriate answer to these question is "How the fuck should I know? I'm just an atheist on an internet forum, not a scientist.
Such questions seem to me to be a sneaky attempt at shifting the burden of proof . I for one have made no claims of scientific expertise nor about the existence of god. I need prove nothing. It is up the the theist to prove his claim of the existence of god, or any claims about science.
@ cranky47
"What on earth makes our new little friend/chew toy/irritant ask a bunch of atheists complex questions about astro physics?"
Searching for a gotcha moment?
He obviously knows little about that subject, so must assume that because he knows so little about the subject, we must too? IMO it is the old "throw enough shit against a wall and hope something sticks" strategy.
I mostly agree with you cranky47, but with due all respect Krauss was wrong.
Stephen Hawkin was right when he said ' when the universe was a singularity, space did not exist'.
However Krauss went a step further and claimed
'the universe itself comes from nothing'. That's a huge difference.
He has been called out on this multiple times. He misused [b]the idea of an 'empty space' [/b]to argue that the universe itself came out of nothing.
But the space is never empty. It can't even be ever empty. It always contains energy, leading to pair of particles having the ability to always form.
Nothing is the absence of any 'thing' and pure nothing has no power to cause itself to persist.
To be honest, we still know very little about the space and the universe to come up with an accurate answer, but one thing is for sure "Ex nihilo nihil fit" - "Nothing Comes from Nothing".
That itself means God, as he's being displayed- the one and only creator, the beginning and the end, if he truly had existed, (which I don't believe anyway) could have not come out of nothing.
Welcome to the forums poison ivy!
I also like to point out in these conversations: what we know about the universe is limited by the speed of light. Once the distances become greater then what speed of light can cover, we know nothing. their could be billions of big bang like universes out there. we just have no way of them because we have no way to detect them yet. Until we discover something that moves faster than speed of light somehow, (supposed speed limit of the known universe) we will always be limited in our knowledge on this stuff.
@Poison Ivy
Thanks for that.
I took care not to make any claims about Krauss's claim because I don't understand it. It was my intention only to post the claim. Apologies if I unintentionally mislead.
On the bald face of it , Hawkin's explanation makes sense to me. Again I can make no claim because I don't understand the physics. So far haven't heard of another explanation ,expressed simply enough that I can understand it.
True enough, "God did it" is an idiot simple claim ,and I want to be open minded. If I was open minded enough to believe that, my brains would fall out.
----As A youth of about 14, I stumbled upon the concept that time and space came into being when God created the world. I asked one of the brothers at the Catholic school I attended. He change the subject.
Pity really, because Catholicism accepts evolution**. I think it would be pretty simple for a Jesuit apologist to slip the Big Bang/ great expansion into Catholic theology. (assuming that has not already bene done)
**I was taught that the church has no problem with evolution because we don't know the duration of each 'day' of creation. Could be billions of years for all we know. WhenI heard that at age 14 or 15, I remember thinking that explanation was pretty cunning and it left me with a feeling of unease.
@crank47
I agree with your 14-15 year old self.
It should give a feeling of unease. A "day" is one of the oldest concepts you can almost guarantee just about everyone would understand. Then to expect after 2000 years of editing and translating some ancient text written in a language no one speaks anymore, to just "keep in" the word days when it suppose to mean billions of years (but only after scientist discovered just how old the universe is) SHOULD give anyone that hears it a A LOT of unease.
Your 14 year old self was railing against the insanity of expecting this short, well understood word, to really been: "billions of years" all along. Everyone also understood the term years very well back then too, why days instead of years? Or maybe even seasons, which would make more sense, as seasons represent change.
This alone reason alone should make one question the entirety of any sort of religious works. Let alone the 1000's of other major issues just like this one.
@ Poison Ivy
In 1920 there was "The Great Debate", where Shapley and Curtis debated on two opposing positions, in the size of the universe. The final outcome of this debate is not central to my argument, that ....
Respected and worthy scientists disagreed on a point, one that was not resolved until new data supported one proposition.
In my opinion, this is the present state on the concept of what happened before the rapid expansion. No one knows with any degree with certainty, only that each party has valid arguments that will not be resolved until we gather a heck of a lot more data, or some Einstein comes out of nowhere and offers a valid theory on a new perception of space time, and the grand unified theory.
"Nothing Comes from Nothing"
Is that a hard rule with no exceptions? Because of you propose special pleading for your god, then if that one rule can be broken, it can also be broken concerning the origin of this known universe.
@David Killens
(Is that a hard rule with no exceptions? Because of you propose special pleading for your god, then if that one rule can be broken, it can also be broken concerning the origin of this known universe.)
Can you really though? The quantum field theory states the quantum state has the lowest possible energy with no physical particles, but then again the quantum vacuum state is not truly empty, but contains fleeting electromagnetic waves.
I think that's different from a god, who is portrayed as both the beginning and the end. .
Also, I find it very interesting that the old testament mentions other gods. Early Judaism did not deny the existence of other gods. In fact, israelites only became monotheists after the Babylonian Exile. It's easy to forget the Bible was written from a perspective of an Israelite, who saw their god as superior to others. The idea behind Judaism/Christianity is nothing new to mankind. It's something you can see all over the world.
The idea of gods might not be birthed from nothing, but definitely from human beings who were looking for a way to understand the world around them.
I'd love to type more, but bare with me, I'm lazy
"If energy can neither be Created nor destroyed, How did Energy get into the system"
If the total energy of the universe is zero (which is a highly valid hypothesis, based on what we know about the universe), you have your answer, which is that it didn't - what we see is just perturbations around the zero-energy mean. And your argument is of little or no practical relevance. Whether this is true or not is something we might never know. But at least it is based on observations and logic, as opposed to the supernatural claims of the followers of the petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; the vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; the misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully(*). Or, as you might know "him": God.
(*) Thank you, Richard Dawkins, for this magnificent rant.
Edit: forgot a comma
@Darling Little Intruder Re: "If energy can neither be Created nor destroyed, How did Energy get into the system"
Cosmic Multi-Dimensional Energy Pixies. After they created your god, they provided your god with the energy to create the universe.
@The Intruder
The question makes no sense, if something cannot be created or destroyed then ipso facto it has always existed. I have no idea what you mean by "into the system," but it is too on the nose for me, as you seem yet again to be attempting to insert an unevidenced creator using unexplained magic based on not having a contrary answer. Again this is a known common logical fallacy, called argumentum ad ignorantiam. It's yet another god of the gaps polemic.
Though I shouldn't be ungracious as this "No story just answer straight" presented the largest belly laugh from all of your verbiage so far.
I've never liked it when people talk about the universe in ways that make it appear that there is an outside of it.
So when you say, "how does energy get into it", this is asking the question in completely the wrong way , in my opinion.
The universe is all that there is, unless you can offer evidence to the contrary.
I also believe that the energy of the universe is a constant, where the total energy is 0.
And with the gravitational field between two particles as having negative energy, because you have to add energy to overcome it.
But it's been sometime since I studied physics or kept up date via recent breakthroughs and literature.
Either way, there is still absolute zero evidence of an supernatural shenanigans.
Now would you answer something... can you demonstrate how we get causally to 'God'.
For example, we know we can follow natural causal links all the way back to a second after the big bang... everything has a naturalistic cause.
What is the preceding natural cause before you specifically invoke your god.
I've already covered two scientific papers by Steinhardt & Turok, in which they postulate a mechanism for energy being donated to the incipient universe. But I suspect our resident mythology fanboy has been too busy pretending that apologetics dictates how reality behaves, to bother with such inconvenient interruptions to his fantasy as actually reading the extant cosmological physics literature.
@ Calilasseia
"I've already covered two scientific papers by Steinhardt & Turok, in which they postulate a mechanism for energy being donated to the incipient universe."
I am intrigued and very curious. I will never pretend to be a physicist, but I like to "attempt" to read such stuff if only to get a fundamental grasp on the overall concepts.
Could you please post some form of reference?
I provided a full exposition, with links to the original papers here. Enjoy!
@ Calilaesseia
Thank you very much.
It's so boring having to go over the very basics of logic over and over and over. YOUR STATEMENT IS FALLACIOUS IT IS A COMPLETE NON-SEQUITUR: : YOU SAID: "It's so funny and sorry, that when science couldn't prove a thing, it then means it doesn't exist."
1. The logical position is to "NOT BELIEVE" any claim until, as such time, there is evidence for that claim.
Science does not deal in "PROOFS." You have no idea at all what you are talking about. Science looks at evidence and builds
models.
2. If a science experiment does not result in a validation of the thesis, then the thesis is not supported at that time and perhaps further study is required.
YOU SAID: "See, you can't box all things within the geometry of science." Please cite an example of one "THING" that science can not explore. 1. THING: an object that one need not, cannot, or does not wish to give a specific name to. "look at that metal rail thing over there" (Obviously it can not be explored if you do not say what it is. The metal rail thing can be tested for metal and it can be determined whether or not it fits the definition for the word "RAIL." 2. an inanimate material object as distinct from a living sentient being.
"I'm not a thing, not a work of art to be cherished" (It can in fact be determined if you are a work of art to be cherished. It can in fact be determined if you are an inanimate material object. Science is what we use to make these determinations.)
YOU SAID: "It seems atheism at the end is not actually about questioning things to know but about concluding and judging all things in the court science. Sadly, that is what limits its research."
SCIENCE is a method of inquiry, a method of asking questions. Science has put men on the moon. Religion has smashed them into buildings. When you come up with a method of asking questions and getting results comparable to the scientific method, then you will have something to actually discuss. Science does not address woo woo claims unless such claims are said to have an affect on the real world that we live in. Prayer studies, for example, have completely debunked the efficacy of prayer. Science does have the ability to look at a claim affecting the world in which we live and determine if the claim is supported by evidence or not.
You really have no understanding of Atheism or of Science. If you dropped your bullshit for even a minute you might actually learn something off this site.
Is now a good time to point out again, that this is a lie?
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