by EndofMysteries 125 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
Okay, children.
You demand of believers to produce God for you, otherwise, you say He does not exist.
I demand that you provide proof of your silly theories as to how life began on earth. Not a bunch of flawed experiments in a lab, but real world proof.
NightOwl
and therein lies the heart of the logical fallacy.
YOU are trying to PROVE something with no evidence
what you are SUPPOSED to do is gather the evidence and make a determination from the collected FACTS
that's how science works. you gather the evidence first, hypothesize and test.
if you were wrong, go back, re-examine the evidence, make sure you left nothing out, rehypothesize until you get it right.
at present, science is still gathering fact.
YOU however, eschewed fact and decided some invisible being that you have ZERO evidence for, magically snapped his fingers and the universe just happened.
You demand of believers to produce God for you, otherwise, you say He does not exist.
I don't demand believers to do anything for me. I say he does not exist. If you start saying he does, you naturally get asked to provide some evidence. When you start wanting to teach science class based on Jesus or pass laws based on Jesus, you get a "prove it" and when you can't, shown the door on the discussion.
It's a demand when you start insisting on having your way and your reason is "Jesus" because, at that point, your are thrusting YOUR faith into MY life.
I demand that you provide proof of your silly theories as to how life began on earth. Not a bunch of flawed experiments in a lab, but real world proof.
I really don't give a shit what you demand. Why would I?
Night Owl,
How about you learn what the word "theory" means to scientists. That might be a good place to start educating yourself.
Wow...
Night Owl, you're so sadly misinformed. First of all, you flavor everything with loaded and insulting language. No one is "demanding" anything. The burden of proof is upon the person making the claim. You claim God exists. I have a right to ask for proof and you have the moral responsibility to provide it to your claim. Otherwise, I do not have to believe it. Scientific proof comes from physical, observable evidence. Data is gathered by observation and testing, followed by a detailed analysis. This "proof" is then published publicly and under the constant scrutiny of peer review. Science is adaptable and changing. When solutions come along that disprove or qualifiy previously held theories, the world of academia is updated based on new evidence.
Your god only requires faith. He has no way of being measured or observed because, conveniently, he's always juuuuuusst out of reach. When the Greeks didn't know what thunder was, they attributed it to gods. Science eventually explained thunder. Anytime there's an unknown gap, the theists cram god into it. Well, now that the scientific method has had centuries of success, god's gaps are further apart than ever before and ridiculously small. Now, all you have to do is say "he exists outside of space and time and we can't measure his energy." Really... Well, Science will eventually debunk that claim as well. It will. It has gone that way since humans opened their minds to critical thinking and escaped the bondage of religion. NEVER--EVER EVER EVER--has something with a scientific explanation been disproven by something supernatural. It has always gone the other direction.
Now, you claim that the only proof we have of our "silly" (nice...) theories about life's beginning are a "bunch of flawed experiments in a lab" and you want "real world proof." LMFAO ARE YOU SERIOUS?????????? What experiments do you know of that are flawed? Please, if you know of one, you'd better publish a paper debunking the experiment because let me tell you, of all the thousands of scientists in the world who will bite at any opportunity to debunk a collegue, YOU are the only one who knows about "flaws" in a "bunch" of experiments?!?!?!?! Alert Sweden too, buddy, because if you blow the whistle on this and disprove evolution, dude, you will recieve the Nobel Prize and become more famous than Stephen Hawking. Seriously! You will! Get the word out because the entire planet of academics have either not noticed or ignored these giant flaws that you claim to know about.
Back to reality now, you need to take a look at these "flawed experiments" and see for yourself. Are you referring to Miller-Urey? Gee... did you perhaps first hear about their "flaws" from a, oh i dunno... CHRISTIAN publication?????? Did Kent Hovind "debunk" it in one of his infamous videos? Did Banana-Man Ray Comfort or "Croc-a-Duck" Kirk Cameron debunk it? If so, then THEY should have already won the Nobel Prize.
Tell me, Owl, what proof would YOU need from an atheist like ME to believe in evolution? And if you say "Show me a duck give birth to a tomato," then your understanding of evolution is totally flawed.
DarioKehl...that was great advice. And I have just ordered ' The Magic of Reality' online for myself, and my family.
How can anyone decide if there is or isn't a god without some facts about reality.
Great thread ! I look back on my ignorant self as a born-in JW and see a "Night Owl" that is me making similar flawed arguments, recognising vaguely that if life on earth came about by the action of a creator or not, when it happened it was a "singularity", a one-off event, and yet laughing at those silly scientists who cannot reproduce this one-off event. (one-off is a bit of a clue).
I educated myself upon leaving the WT, I did not ask others to do my reading for me. I was amazed when I began to understand how the evolutionary process works. I came to appreciate that the Theory of Evolution, a Theory that has stood the test of time in Science, it has been around, and therefore scrutinised and tested for 150 years or so, explains how life as we see it today came about from its beginnings.
How life started is a different area of scientific study, but I was amazed too to learn about Abiogenesis and the advances in study that have been made, many since the publication of the discredited WT "Origins" brochure, which even in its fallacious arguments is out of date.
Take the advice above Night Owl, use the excellent resources available to you, and get rid of your ignorance, I do not mean to be rude by saying ignorance, I humbly recognise my own at one time, but your questions and assertions posted above show you do not know of what you speak.
Go away, study what you have been directed to, if you can fault what you learn in a way that would satisfy the great minds that have produced the works, then publish your findings, you will be more famous than Dawkins.
Night Owl - hopefully you aren't trolling. Asking questions is the root of the debate. You've asked one of the hardest questions first and one which scientists are searching for answers for each and every day.
Why not start with the simpler questions where we can share common understanding. We could talk about the age of the earth and what actual evidences exist for that, or we could talk about DNA and how it can be copied but each copy will statistically contain copy-mistakes and what that means for DNA, we can talk about how natural selection works and look at what observed things improve a genes chance of being passed on and what factors reduce its likelhood, we can discuss chemistry and how elements are formed in a few cataclysmic seconds in the hearts of dying stars (and why stars are the only place they could come from).
If however, you simply wish to prove God by asking a question you know we don't have the answer for (but may well discover answers for within your lifespan) then you've weakened your god by making a bet against science. A little like arguing for God a thousand years ago because you need an explanation for rainbows. Its not that the question shouldn't be asked, just that you are only asking the questions you know can't yet be answered in order to avoid facing the conclusion that a deity wasn't causitively involved in some observed phenomenom.
Science is such an adventure why try and make it a religious battlefield? Science is not about disproving your god or proving your god, the inherant combative nature of faith based belief is damaging to the wonder of unfettered discovery. If your god is real then they can't untimately be threatened by science based discovery and will be revealed by it, if your god is false then the painful yet mature approach is to be grateful to be disabused of a notion that is wasting your time and mental effort. Metaphorically discovering that your planet is not flat , nor supported by pillars may cause you a little soul searching doubt but it opens up so many possibilities to re-evaluate who you are, where you are and what you can do.
I confess, when I watch the latest science on TV, especially the ones based on cosmology, it is so awe inspiring and the numbers are so vast that I struggle to expand my understanding to contextualise it and make sense. There is a constant pressure to give in and say wow, there must be a creator and delegate the comprehension effort into a simple packaged bearded meme, but then I remind myself, man up, face the information deluge, hang on the coat tails of hard working, brilliant scientists and rememeber the awesomeness that is the knowledge that I'm the result of what happens when you have hydrogen in a universe like ours and leave it for 14 billion years. I am the atoms from the beginning discovering myself.
Despite once being a believer I have to admit that god, any god, anyone's god just isn't close to being sufficient to explain or justify this, this self aware universe.
The size of the universe and everything in it is awe inspiring isn't it QCMBR? What is not to love about it?
The scale of the universe below just blows your mind. From the Smallest to the greatest it is amazing! Click on the link and be amazed!
Science is the method that has enabled us to achieve this knowlege, not religion or a god. The most you can hope for from a god is that he/she will maybe...perhaps...possibley answer your prayers. If your prayers are answered, god did it..if not, there was a reason beyond your understanding. And yet...god is not beyond so many peoples understanding? Funny how we claim to know so much about these gods but in reality know so little.
Science does not lead us into doubt, it leads us into knowlegde and adventure. It leads us into valuing life purely because life is an event that should not be taken for granted in the hope of something better. Human life is a rare event in our universe and should be valued as such. God did it, does not even come close to answering my quesitons. And science does not claim to answer anything it cannot support with evidence.
Which will I put my 'faith' in? The one that does not lie to me. Why would I believe in religionists who have no better idea about a god than I do?
