i just had a thought of clarity regarding the jw explanation for this doctrine.
they explain that satan challenged god regarding his right to rule.
god failed to prove his right to rule.
But the idea of an uncaused material cause that started the universe doesn’t seem to make sense since everything that is material has a cause.
-SBF
Everything we observe in our universe is energy changing from one state to another state. We've never observed a "material cause". Insisting that the universe have a "material cause" since nothing else in the universe has a "material cause" seems to be entirely arbitrary and is probably a non-sequitur.
did anyone else watch the bill nye versus ken ham debate?
it happened february 4, 2014 and just watched it a few months ago.
i thought it was interesting but must confess that i felt extremely embarrassed for ken ham.
Bill Nye is an incredibly honest and open individual. Instead of having a religion where claims are made without evidence - he instead pursues an evidence based belief system. He has no dogma. He doesn't prop anyone up as being infallible. And he holds no beliefs that are beyond question.
If more people were like Bill Nye the world would be a much better place.
i just had a thought of clarity regarding the jw explanation for this doctrine.
they explain that satan challenged god regarding his right to rule.
god failed to prove his right to rule.
The idea that the universe and all its laws can exist without something outside of it causing it and sustaining it seems like special pleading.Why would the universe need something "outside" of it "causing it"? I'm not aware of anything in science that necessitates this. Is there any good reason to think there is existence outside of space/time?
i just had a thought of clarity regarding the jw explanation for this doctrine.
they explain that satan challenged god regarding his right to rule.
god failed to prove his right to rule.
For many who believe in God . . . he stands outside of the universe, outside matter, outside time, outside of “being” as such.
-SBF
Surely you'd agree this is a case of Special Pleading. When we talk about existence we are necessarily describing something that is both local and temporal. To say that something "existed no-where for zero seconds" would be the same thing as describing something that doesn't exist.
If Theist want to put forth the proposition that God "exists" outside of space and time then they need to first demonstrate that such a thing is possible - AND THEN they can use that as an explanation. Not before.
i just had a thought of clarity regarding the jw explanation for this doctrine.
they explain that satan challenged god regarding his right to rule.
god failed to prove his right to rule.
Why shouldn’t God as a hypothesis be the starting position? “Because I say so” seems to be the best atheists can come up with.
There is actually a very good answer to this question SBF. The reason we don't assume claims are true until proven false is because it would put us in the position of believing contradictory things simultaneously. If the JWs say there is only one God and the Hindus say there are multiple Gods - we're now put into a impossible situation of trying to believe two incompatible things at the same time. That's why positive claims require positive evidence.
And can you imagine a world where claims are assumed to be true until proven false? I'd be able to say, "SBF murdered kids" and we'd have to lock you up in prison until you were able to prove you had never murdered a child in your entire life (an impossible task).
THAT's why the God hypothesis - just like any other hypothesis - shouldn't be the default position. The default position is "I don't know". And then we can take a look at the world and see that every single thing ever investigated has had a naturalistic cause - and zero things have had a supernatural cause. And, as all the evidence is operating in one direction, our position moves from "I don't know if there's a God" to "There's an infinitely higher likelihood that gods don't exist than do exist."
did anyone else watch the bill nye versus ken ham debate?
it happened february 4, 2014 and just watched it a few months ago.
i thought it was interesting but must confess that i felt extremely embarrassed for ken ham.
You think Bill Nye was in league with Ken Ham to promote the creationist museum???
You can't be serrious
i just had a thought of clarity regarding the jw explanation for this doctrine.
they explain that satan challenged god regarding his right to rule.
god failed to prove his right to rule.
I'm NOT agnostic about unicorns, ferries, world ending prophecies or gods. I'm an anti-unicornist, anti-ferriest, and anti-theist.
I believe they're all made up nonsense. That is to say, I think they belong in ferry tales and children's books and don't exist - nor are a part of - our reality.
What's my rational? What's my evidence you ask? Well, it's very simple: Things for which there is no evidence and things which don't exist - are categorically identical. There is no way to tell the difference between the two. And indeed there's no good reason to think there is a difference between the two.
Or, if I may boil all this down into a single pithy phrase, having no good reason to believe something is at least one good reason NOT to believe it.
did anyone else watch the bill nye versus ken ham debate?
it happened february 4, 2014 and just watched it a few months ago.
i thought it was interesting but must confess that i felt extremely embarrassed for ken ham.
Bill Nye has a stellar reputation of accurately representing the truth and honesty. When Ken Ham was asked what would change his mind he said "nothing". When Bill Nye was asked he said, "Evidence".
This is all the difference in the world. And this the kind of intellectual honest and rigor we need right now. Not more fundamentalist Christian asshattery.
i just had a thought of clarity regarding the jw explanation for this doctrine.
they explain that satan challenged god regarding his right to rule.
god failed to prove his right to rule.
There must be a moral law giver, right? Man cannot agree on morals amongst themselves
There must be a health giver, right? Man cannot agree on health amongst themselves . . .
There must be a language giver, right? Man cannot agree on language amongst themselves . . .
There must be a blue/gold dress giver right? Man cannot agree on blue or gold amongst theselves . . .
If a concept is not well defined - or is in dispute - then the solution is to either better define the concept or is to bring evidence to the table. It's NOT to make vague appeals to an authority.
Stop being so intellectually lazy Perry.
did anyone else watch the bill nye versus ken ham debate?
it happened february 4, 2014 and just watched it a few months ago.
i thought it was interesting but must confess that i felt extremely embarrassed for ken ham.
"sold out" . . . "globalist puppet"
Bill Nye has a very long and well documented history of standing up for the things he believes in. The things he's advocating for today are the same things he's been advocating for the past 30 years ago.
Don't listen to the haters. The only reason they don't like Nye is because they don't want to have to change their behavior. They don't want to be reminded all the time that they are polluting and destroying our planet and completely ruining our kids futures.
