Posts by Caedes

142

The Need To Question Atheism

by The wanderer in

jw
friends

the need to question atheism this need to question atheism stems from the fact there are some individuals.

on this board that subscribe to such.

the questions stated are not for some.

Caedes

this Intelligent Designer, or God, NEVER EVEN HAD A BEGINNING, therefore there is NO CAUSE NEEDED in this one instance since there WAS NO BEGINNING. No special pleading involved as you wrongly accuse. Do you get it now? Agree with this or reject this, but there is no special pleading in THIS EXACT CIRCUMSTANCE JUST LISTED.

Now, I use two lines of reasoning to BACK THIS UP. This is not just (again as you wrongly claim) some, "it has to be this way cause vinny said so", or "This is what Vinny SAYS". Cause that would not fly two inches off the ground over here as you might imagine. But instead, I have two different tiers of reasoning for support of this belief.

Number one, I said before that the BIBLE teaches this very thing, which it does. Now fine, so you don't like or believe in the bible, fair enough then. But just so people know that I DO believe it is very possibly authored of God

Additionally, the second line of argument is that practically ALL physicists, astronomers, scientists etc. DO believe and DO teach that the universe DID HAVE A BEGINNING. TIME, it is also believed and taught, began when the universe began. We keep track of time today in terms of seconds, minutes, years decades, centuries, millenniums etc, all based on the earths rotation around the sun. Time, it is believed and taught does have a beginning.

If the Universe then, with all of its inconceivable power and precision, WAS Created by this Supreme, Intelligent Designer

It is positively painful having to point out your circular reasoning here,

You have stated that your special pleading is justified because god has no beginning and argue that this is based on the bible (which you believe is the word of god) and the fact that time has a beginning and therefore god doesn't because he created time.

So to sum up you believe in god and creationism because of god. Your justification for special pleading is another logical fallacy rather than actually going to the trouble of actually explaining WHY god is an exception. Saying that god created time and that the bible says so is begging the question.

How old are you Vinny? Because in this thread you seem to be very young, immature and incapable of debating in a rational adult manner. 'Trouncing' ? I haven't seen you trounce anyone!

61

Did God ever Exist?

by found-my-way in

reading so many posts on atheism which is the belief that there is no god, and reading comments from creationists made me ponder if there was an alternate reason for our existence.. if god is up there, why does he permit suffering?

if i were god, i wouldn't of let it happen in the first place, these are my children, why would i let them suffer?

maybe i am influenced by my creationist upbringing and beliefs while a jw, because i find it hard to wrap my brain around the idea that everything came from nothing.

Caedes

Terry,

The score is surely higher than that? Or do own goals not count?

147

Merry Becomes A Muslim (a bit long)

by Merry Magdalene in

who is merry?

i was born in 1965, the same year that malcolm x was assassinated.

my father had committed suicide a few months into my mother's pregnancy so we lived with her parents until she married again when i was about 18 months old.

Caedes

I would submit, however, that its not good science to dismiss anything that you cannot currently prove. This forms the whole basis of scientific enquiry.

LT,

I apologise for answering a point aimed at Kid-A but I think you were a little wide of the mark in your comment above, surely science, in the interests of pragmatism alone would do very well to dismiss things it can't prove.

First and foremost I assume we are talking about falsifiability rather than proof. You could have a hypothesis' that is awaiting 'proof' through experimental testing etc

Somehow I doubt anybody could get much of a research grant to study anything that we are incapable of quantifying. Obviously there is a world of difference between what we can't prove yet and things we will never be able to falsify. As I'm sure you are aware you could always prove me wrong and claim your million!

nitpickingly respectful

Caedes

apologies for the thread hi-jacking

60

Does The Memorial Mean ANYTHING To You???

by minimus in

jw
friends

just wondering.

Caedes

Well when I read the invite I thought they were talking about John Lennon.

I lost interest when I realised it was the same old fictitious bearded chap my parents were always banging on about.

27

Westboro Baptist Church - Americas Most Hated Family

by dh in

jw
friends

did anyone watch this documentary about westboro baptist church?

so what did louis theroux make of the phelpses after three weeks?.

louis theroux.

Caedes

Another of the many things that annoyed me about the wbc was that they were quite happy to put their children on the picket lines taking abuse and as shown on the program physical assault for a cause that those children don't really understand.

As I see it, that is little different to dubs dragging their children out on the ministry.

It astounds me that these people haven't been chased out of town.

27

Westboro Baptist Church - Americas Most Hated Family

by dh in

jw
friends

did anyone watch this documentary about westboro baptist church?

so what did louis theroux make of the phelpses after three weeks?.

louis theroux.

Caedes

Watching this did remind me of growing up as a dub, I didn't have to be told what I could and couldn't do, it had been drummed into me at every meeting I went to.

The similarities between them and the dubs is quite scary, although I would have liked to understand more about their idea that people who die are dieing because of god's judgement! Is that everyone? If 'gramp' phelps kicks the bucket tomorrow is that god's judgement that he was found wanting or is it ok to cash in your chips if you are a member of the westboro baptists? Something I would have liked to have had a little more clarification on.

The dubs and wbc seem to share exactly the same merciless, judgemental, humourless, sex obsessed old testament god.

Incorrect. I can't remember a time we said we were glad and jumped for joy when people get cancer or get ran over by a car. I can't remember as a JW picketing the funeral's of dead servicemen to say that we were glad that they had died. That is pure evil, fear fueled or not, it is evil, they are all evil bastards. We were all fearful but we never did shit like that.

Well I certainly remember it being called the 'good news'. I seem to recall that the message from the platform was that we should be happy about the approach of armageddon. How is it different to be celebrating the immenent destruction of the majority of the worlds population than to celebrate the deaths of individuals? Just because the wbts are more interested in money than controversy doesn't mean that their message is any more wholesome than the message of phelps and the wbc.

49

Professed Atheists who have helped society

by RWC in

there seem to be quite a number of atheists who comment here.

when they argue how bad religion has been for society they point to actions done in the name of religion that are indeed horrific, such as the inqusitions.

there are also examples of course of non believers who have done great damage to society.

Caedes

That is an arrogant statement and an illogical conclusion. There have been brilliant people throughout history who have had faith in God. There are brilliant people today who are believers. Belief in God is not a correlation of a person's intelligence.

My statement doesn't mean that you can't be brilliant or intelligent and still be a theist, it merely states that highly intelligent people are more likely to be atheist than to be theists, which undermines your assertion that atheists dont contribute to society.

49

Professed Atheists who have helped society

by RWC in

there seem to be quite a number of atheists who comment here.

when they argue how bad religion has been for society they point to actions done in the name of religion that are indeed horrific, such as the inqusitions.

there are also examples of course of non believers who have done great damage to society.

Caedes

To my knowledge Albert Einstein was Jewish and Thomas Jefferson was a Diest.

RWC

The fact is, the more intelligent you are the more likely you are to be atheist, feel free to look up the correlation yourself, I am not going to do your research for you. What that doesn't mean however is that theists cannot contribute to science or any other field of human endeavour, remember it is you that is suggesting that atheists don't contribute. I am merely pointing out that the numbers show it is atheists, not theists that are contributing, that statement doesn't preclude individual theists from making a contribution.

My definition of a top thinker? Do you really need a definition? I'm afraid that was as broad a brush as I could think of on the spur of the moment.

As for your comment above, FunkyDerek has kindly provided some quotes as evidence of my point that regardless, neither would wish to be on your list.

I have never discounted the acheivements of 'professed' theists, Newton was supposedly a deeply religous man, of course he was a complete bastard as well but I'm sure the two are unrelated.

Why should I not speculate on how sincere the views held by these people were? It is entirely relevant to the thread if these people were forced to 'profess' theism due to the overwhelming power the church had at the time. I am not saying that they would all be atheists, that would be foolish. But as Newton said 'I stand on the shoulders of giants', people are influenced by society and the people around them. Had Galileo been able to read origin of species or a brief history of time then I have no doubt it would have had a profound impact on the thinking of a man who said he had more faith in a shadow than church dogma.

Given how vociferously some of your examples have decried the christian religion then I have no problem in thinking that atheism might have been a more obvious choice in a more enlightened age.

Of course I have no doubt that you could come up with a better list of theists but it would still fail to prove your suggestion that atheists don't contribute to society.

49

Professed Atheists who have helped society

by RWC in

there seem to be quite a number of atheists who comment here.

when they argue how bad religion has been for society they point to actions done in the name of religion that are indeed horrific, such as the inqusitions.

there are also examples of course of non believers who have done great damage to society.

Caedes

Albert Einstein

Thomas Jefferson

RWC,

I would have a closer look at the inclusion of these two since I doubt that either would wish to be on it, The rest of your list has a distinctly historical bias (strangely enough) Since the church traditionally had a huge hold over the world it isn't entirely unusual to see that historical figures have proclaimed themselves as being theists since proclaiming to be anything else could be dangerous (or simply not conducive to an illustrious career) in the lifetimes of many of your examples.

Do you seriously think that the next hundred years of human endeavour is going to see theists become major contributors to science or world peace, the worlds top thinkers tend to be atheists (There have been a number of studies proving this) and that is likely to continue until the church start burning heretics again when you will see a tendency toward theism emerge once more. I think that a lot of the people mentioned on your list might have had quite different views if they had been born in a different age.

178

Need Some Education On EVOLUTION? Start Here! Perry & Axal take note!

by Seeker4 in

perry started a thread on evolution/atheism, which from his very first post showed an incredible ignorance of evolution and natural selection.

axal's comments on the thread were just asinine - how all the atheists in his area were at the strip clubs fighting over women and fornicating!

i have to say that i live in a small town and have been here for half a century, and i couldn't name five people that i know here who are atheist.

Caedes

Closed system or not the 2nd law is functioning on earth as is entropy.

Someone once actually stated that the Second Law of thermodynamics was not a physical law at all and the law of entropy does not apply to evolution. I disagree.

I'm afraid you have entirely misunderstood how the second law works, there is a huge difference between a closed and an open system. The sun is a constant source of energy if you include the sun within the system then our entire system is indeed winding down and entropy is increasing because the sun is burning it's nuclear fuel. One day that fuel will run out and our localised entropy decrease will disappear.

Let me spell this out loud and clear, it is entirely permissable for a system to have entropy decrease, all you need to do is input energy into the system. It is as simple as that, it's how your car works and it's why perpetual motion machines don't exist.

The laws of thermodynamics can be applied to evolution as long as don't forget to include the energy input from the sun.

If your assertion that entropy can only increase is true then perhaps you can explain to me how you manage to light and heat your home? how is it possible for you to boil water? I presume that since you also assert that it apparently doesn't matter if a system is closed or not then you no longer put fuel in your car?

I think perhaps you should get your findings published as they could get you a nobel prize (I'm assuming your assertions are backed by hard empirical evidence) because I seem to remember some very boring days recording Carnot cycles from an old engine that I hope were not entirely wasted.