Deep Sight:

Are evolution and creation mutually exclusive?

I think it depends on who you ask and what you mean by 'evolution'. It's irrefutable that man interacts with his environment and is changed by it, both socially and-indeed-biologically.

Some creationsists, like myself, would say that 'evolution' and creation are not mutually exclusive. Where there is a problem is the point at which 'evolution' started. My personal opinion is that people who shout from their rooftops about how they 'evolved' from apes, derive some sort of perverse sexual gratification-at par with bestialism-from that belief! But then i encounter people who nurse all sorts of unconventional and, at times-outrightly perverse and deranged-thoughts everyday in my line of job, so i can be excused for thinking that way!

I use the word 'deism' loosely, to highlight belief in God as opposed to those who do not believe in God-the 'atheists'. But within that vague 'umbrella' of 'deism', i consider myself a Christian. Why do you ask?

@Mazaje and tonyb,

Tell me one thing; If i were to show you that Mr Dawkins did actually say what i wrote that he said, would you believe it? I doubt it.

You know why i doubt that you would? It’s because that’s the way we are. Most of us like to hold on, as strongly as possible, to whatever it is that confirms our world views; and would deny, even at the risk of coming across as dogmatic, those things that contradict our beliefs. Both deists and atheists are guilty.

The statistical improbability-or probability-depending on which side you break your boiled egg from- of abiogenesis happening would make more sense if life had already been created out of dust in a laboratory environment and the questions now was about the probability of this event being able to happen in nature, as a random event. That’s when all this would make sense to me. But life has not been brewed in laboratory conditions out of dust-or nonorganic matter. No matter how much scientists try to modulate and regulate laboratory conditions to enable them to try out new improved versions of the Miller-Urey experiment, in nature or in the laboratory, dust has only yielded dust. Life breeds life. Life out of dust would be a supernatural event.

The contention here is that the renowned atheist, Richard Dawkins, said what he said, which seemed to give credence to Mr Borel’s calculation. This is why the source of the statement and Mr Borel’s credentials are questioned. But Richard Dawkins did say what he said and Mr Borel is quite competent to do his calculations.

Let’s start with Emile Borel.

Statistics and probability are within the remits of mathematics.  Emile Borel, who gave the disputed probability figures that i mentioned, was a mathematician and a renowned one at that. In addition to the much debated law (which i will admit is merely a  ‘suggestion’, as some websites say, and not a mathematical ‘law’ per se), Mr Borel had a lot of other things named after him, so i doubt he was the charlatan that is being insinuated here.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%89mile_Borel

Now on to what the renowned atheist, Richard Dawkins did or did not say. 

Mazaje, if the link that i gave does not lead to a ‘creationist website’ would you accept that Mr Dawkins said those words? Well, the link actually is from the Telegraph. Here’s what it says; ‘It is true, Dawkins responds, that the probability of life having arisen by chance is as vanishingly small as the likelihood of a Jumbo Jet having being constructed by a hurricane sweeping through a scrap yard. But how much more improbable is the idea of an intelligent designer capable of taking all that scrap and turning it into a 747? After all, that intelligent designer, a far more complex entity than a Jumbo Jet, had himself somehow to be created’. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/3655792/I-dont-believe-in-Richard-Dawkins.html

I wonder where the renowned biologist and atheists got it from that an ‘intelligent designer’ ‘had himself somehow to be created’? Is that his mental block?  Perhaps he got it from his prejudiced rich imaginations of what an ‘intelligent designer’ can or cannot be. The same place that he got the assumption that those who believe in God must be deluded. I vote that the esteemed professor is not competent to make such a statement. He should leave the aspect of what God should be able to do or not do to philosophers, and let Psychiatrists decide whether that belief constitutes a delusion or not, 

But let’s be honest with ourselves here. Does it really matter what Mr Dawkins said or did not say? Does it really matter if abiogenesis is mathematically improbable or not? To be honest, it doesn’t to me. The materialist scientist does not want to believe that anything supernatural is divine in origin. For them it must be a coincidence in spite of all odds of such a coincidence not happening; if it is not a coincidence, then it has to be an unexplained phenomenon on the brinks of being understood by ‘science’.  That’s their world view. It leaves no room for an Intelligent ‘designer’ greater than man.

For the deist, the supernatural is an act of the divine: be it what happened at the dawn of time when out of nothing, the wonders of creation were born; be it the transformation of a human being whose existence had been so violated by the tragedies of living, that she loses the ‘humanity’ to love and trust again, until an act of kindness nudges her back on the path of believing in humanity again; be it a barren woman who suddenly finds herself pregnant. The deist believes that God works through man and through nature. He can intervene ‘naturally’ or ‘supernaturally’.

God does not need man to tell Him how to intervene in the affairs of man. He can show Himself in the little things-some of which can be explained away by science; He can also show himself through the big things, like in giving life to dust; a phenomenon which others may just dismiss as coincidence.

But let’s agree that it’s about what we want to believe or not believe in. It’s not about the ‘science’-or lack of science-behind our belief systems.



Ps: My use of the masculine gender for God is one of those traditions of man.

I have been trying to look up on the possible evidence people would have for believing that life can emerge from dust.


The Miller-Urey experiment, which Mazaje mentioned above, is the major (or only) research cited to prove abiogenesis. It turns out that this study has done much more to show that abiogenesis is not possible on Earth (1) than what the believers of abiogenesis claim. Hence the search for alternative sites for the origin of life outside of earth.

There is however evidence against living organisms randomly evolving out of dust, whether it is stardust or earthbound dust mixed with water to form an 'organic' soup. This evidence can be found in one of the tools of the scientific process itself-the probability of such an event happening.

In the days when it was thought that the universe has always been there, the idea of abiogenesis could be defended by the fact that dust had literarily all the time in the world to go through an infinity of random relationships, of which one would spark off the process of complex life evolving. Unfortunately, we did not have all the ‘time’ in the world for this to happen.

We now believe that the universe is time-limited and as such even Richard Dawkins, one of the atheist’s messiahs, admits that "the probability of life having arisen by chance is as vanishingly small as the likelihood of a Jumbo Jet having being constructed by a hurricane sweeping through a scrap yard."(2)

Let’s look at this probability thing a little closer. How low a probability do mathematicians believe makes an event essentially impossible? The French Mathematician Émile Borel has estimated 10 (raised to the power minus 50); and William Dembski , a research professor in philosophy and mathematician has calculated a lower limit of 10 (raised to the power minus 150), based on the number of elementary particles in the universe and the age of the universe (3).

The probability of abiogenesis is far, far less! Murray Eden of Massachusetts Institute of Technology calculated a probability of ~10 (to the power minus 313) to spontaneously bring polypeptide sequences together into functional proteins (4). Simple self-sustaining life requires ~1,500-2,000 gene products, and Sir Fred Hoyle-English astronomer, known for his contributions in stellar nucleosynthesis, estimated a probability of ~10(raised to the power minus 40,000) to obtain 2,000 enzymes in a random trial! (5).


The summary is that abiogenesis is not only unproven, it is mathematically impossible!

Sources:
1.http://www.chem.duke.edu/~jds/cruise_chem/Exobiology/miller.html
2.http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/3655792/I-dont-believe-in-Richard-Dawkins.html
3.William A. Dembski, The Design Inference: Eliminating Chance through Small Probabilities, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 5, 209, 210.
4.Murray Eden, "Inadequacies of Neo-Darwinian Evolution as a Scientific Theory," in Mathematical Challenge to the Neo-Darwinian Interpretation of Evolution, ed. Paul S. Moorhead (Philadelphia: Wistar Institute, 1967), 109-10.
5.Sir Fred Hoyle and Chandra Wickramasinghe, Evolution from Space (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1981), 24.

Let’s continue with our exploration of some of the ridiculous assertions of materialistic ‘scientists’. Let’s throw our gaze on the alleged random evolution of complex single cell organisms from inanimate matter.

Some ‘evolutionists’ espouse the idea that several billions of years ago-approximately 5 billion years after the first ‘miracle’, when matter popped out of nothingness-lightening struck a pool of water, causing organic elements such as carbon, nitrogen, oxygen etc to combine in a random way to form the first living single cell organism.

It has been believed by a lot of materialistic scientists that this 'simple' form of life later evolved-over millions of years into our more complex primate ancestors! This is the gist of evolution, though a lot of 'evolutionists  have become increasingly more embarrassed about the springing forth of living organisms out of dust part, so have decided that chemical evolution-or abiogenesis-should be separate from the more 'respectable' evolution. http://www.answersingenesis.org/tj/v18/i2/abiogenesis.asp

This is almost like the trend that came out of our discussion about the doctrine of cosmogony, as opposed to the science of cosmology https://www.nairaland.com/nigeria/topic-373106.0.html

Sadly, a lot of banner carrying evolutionists continue to ignorantly espouse the philosophical ideas of abiogenesis that have no scientific evidence at all. The contemporary understanding of the science of evolution is that it studies how organisms change over time, and not how life started on earth. But they don’t teach you that at school do they?! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abiogenesis.

The truth is that abiogenesis, or chemical evolution as it was once called before it was disowned by a lot of evolutionists, is scientifically improbable.

For contextual purposes, let’s hear what the Encyclopedia Britannica has to say about the complexity of a living cell; “A living cell is a marvel of detailed and complex architecture. . . . The information content of a simple cell has been estimated as around 1012 bits, comparable to about one hundred million pages of Encyclopedia Britannica. The human body comprises a conglomeration of some 100,000,000,000,000 (1014) cells which work together in perfect harmony to maintain human life”. “Life,” Encyclopedia Britannica Online, http://members.eb.com/ bol/topic?eu=109621&sctn=1

Even leading evolutionist Richard Dawkins admits that, “There is enough information capacity in a single human cell to store the Encyclopedia Britannica, all 30 volumes of it, three or four times over,  ” Richard Dawkins, The Blind Watchmaker (New York, NY: Norton 1986), p. 115.                                       

Why abiogenesis is improbable is that the odds of it happening are comparable to ‘the odds of rolling double-sixes 50,000 times in a row with unloaded dice’- Fred Hoyle, The Intelligent Universe (New York, NY: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1983).

Perhaps that’s why some materialistic scientists are finding the doctrine of abiogenesis to be increasingly embarrassing and have started to reach for the stars in search of the stardust from which earthlings were spawned! But even then-even if water is to be found on Mars or on Jupiters moon, Europa or even beyond the reaches of the milky way-stardust is still essentially dust and is not capable of spontaneously generating life.

My honest concern is that some people still decide to tenaciously believe that there can be no God. One would have thought that the most enlightened thing to do in the light of all these uncertainties and with the unfolding knowledge available to man, is for the so called 'atheists' to agree that they don't know if there is a God or not and to do the 'reasonable' thing of converting to the less dogmatic agnosticism. I would, if i hadn't done that journey already and come full circle right back to where i started as a Deist!



“Life could never have evolved by chance on planet earth." -Nobel Prize winner Dr. Francis Crick (co-discoverer of one of the most important discoveries of 20th century biology

ROSSIKE:

image123 said:

''The Lord Jesus'' is a mythical entity whose character and storyline were derived from earlier 'saviour-gods' such as Horus, Mythra, Dionosyus, and Krishna. You need to put down your bible for a second and read proper history. Afterall information on this is widely available in these days of internet, and you don't even have to pay for it!

You mean information like this one below?:

'The Christ-Myth theory is essentially without supporters in modern academic circles, biblical scholars and historians being highly dismissive of it,[40] viewing it as pseudo-scholarship,[32] with some going so far as to compare the theory's advocates with Holocaust deniers, flat-earthers, and people who believe the moon landing was faked.[43].' http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christ_myth_theory

Another point.

When we say that science can explain the 'origin' of the universe 'without the need for a deity', we are just playing with words. Yet what 'scientists' describe in their explanation is still a supernatural event!

Scientists acknowledge that something happened just before the big bang, which does not obey all known natural laws, and which lead to the universe as we know it, springing into existence. One would have thought that an event which does not obey natural laws would be acknowledged to be nothing other than a supernatural event! 

But let us agree, just this once if no other time, that 'A rose by any other name, would smell just as sweet'!

'Tis but thy name that is my enemy;

Thou art thyself, though not a Montague.
What's Montague? it is nor hand, nor foot,
Nor arm, nor face, nor any other part
Belonging to a man.

O, be some other name!

What's in a name? that which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet;
So Romeo would, were he not Romeo call'd,
Retain that dear perfection which he owes
Without that title.

Romeo, doff thy name,
And for that name which is no part of thee
Take all myself.
                       -William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet


May God bless all of us in this coming year. Amen

@tonyb,
With regards to your question to Viaro as to whether modern 'science' can explain the 'origin' of the universe. The answer is both yes and no.

'Yes' in that it can give an explanation as it already is doing. But whether the 'explanation' is valid when tested using scientific methodologies is another story altogether. If we want to be honest, there are currently no physical models that exist that can be used to replicate the exact conditions around the time of the 'big bang' or the the period of the 'exponential expansion' that preceded the big bang. As mentioned earlier, most of the models are subject to a lot of biases, which would lead to errors. So, the answer can also be 'No'.

toneyb:

@ Beneli Your write up is quite interesting.


I thought you were the one that brought up the idea that science seems to favor your views? In your discussion with Mazaje on another thread, weren't you the person that was talking about modern discoveries in science supporting your position until mazaje called you out on it?

You are right.

Modern 'science', especially, the one that tries to talk about the 'nature' of the universe is beginning to acknowledge that there may be more to matter than meets the eye! My stance still remains. When science starts to talk about extracorporeal and extratemporal dimensions, they are encroaching into the field of metaphysics and spirituality. These new developments are quite interesting, to say the least!

I tried finding a coherent ‘scientific’ argument for some of the ‘findings’ out there relating to ‘how’ the universe works and ‘why’ it does so, but the honest truth is that most of the interpretations and working models are prejudiced in favour of preconceived philosophical/religious ideas and not based on ‘objective’ scientific evidence!

A lot of the recent hypotheses don’t even sound ‘scientific’ anymore. We’re gradually leaving the clearly scientific field of cosmology http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_is_cosmology and getting more and more involved in the more philosophical cosmogony! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmogony

The fact is, few scientists want to admit this. Here is what internationally renowned Astrophysicist George F. R. Ellis has to say about the various models of the universe being espoused:

"People need to be aware that there is a range of models that could explain the observations….For instance, I can construct you a spherically symmetrical universe with Earth at its center, and you cannot disprove it based on observations….You can only exclude it on philosophical grounds. In my view there is absolutely nothing wrong in that. What I want to bring into the open is the fact that we are using philosophical criteria in choosing our models. A lot of cosmology tries to hide that."4W. Wayt Gibbs, "Profile: George F. R. Ellis," Scientific American, October 1995, Vol. 273, No.4, p. 55

Currently there are different variants of the revised ‘big bang theory’ out there. Some suggest up to 50 variants of the so called Inflationary Universe Theories, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inflation_(cosmology), which has replaced the old model. It’s agreed, however, that in an ideal world Cosmology should really focus on ‘science’ and not get involved in metaphysical/philosophical issues.

With regards to whether the universe is ‘open’ or ‘closed’, the truth is that we don’t know. Albert Einstein had suggested ‘an infinite closed universe’. A sort of ‘finite’ spherical universe that is encased in ‘infinite space’! People have since moved on from there and are now suggesting an infinity of finite spacetime continuums, making up what they describe as ‘a multiverse’, which is ‘closed’ or ‘open’ depending on how you want to look at it!

The interesting thing about these new directions in cosmological thinking-which by the way are not evidence-based-is that it is encroaching more and more into other domains of philosophy and spirituality. The idea of multiple realities and non physical dimensions for instance has been there for a long time. All you need to do is to open up any book on religion!

Bottomline:
‘Attempts to create a naturalistic cosmogony are subject to two separate limitations. One is based in the philosophy of science and the epistemological constraints of science itself, especially with regards to whether scientific inquiry can ask questions of "why" the universe exists. Another more pragmatic problem is that there is no physical model that can explain the earliest moments of the universe's existence (Planck time) because of a lack of a consistent theory of quantum gravity’. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmogony.

So in our arguments on this topic, let’s admit that our positions have very little to do with science. It's about what we want to believe in-our individual life philosophies!

Very interesting discussion so far, i must say!

I have not run away. I am just caught up in some 'crazy' reports that i have to sort out before the new year, but will most certainly respond later today. Especially on the interesting subject of whether the universe is 'closed' or 'open'.

Catch you guys later!

I see that you've just added the part about the age of the universe and whether i believe it is 6 thousand years old.

There is nowhere in the bible that it says that the universe is 6000 years old! Between Genesis 1:1 and Genesis 1:2 is a long time. We don't know how long.  The question about the legitimacy of the Christian bible, which is probably at the back of your mind when you sprang that question is for another topic. This one is about the evidence for or against the existence of God in current scientific discourse. And the verdict, as i summarised above, is that there is none!

But in case you are wondering, i do believe that through the bible, God has clearly communicated to man, in words and in symbols, that we can understand. His revealed word is both simple and complex. And yet it communicates to us all-the barely literate peasant; the world-weary businessman; the scientist; the philosopher; the priest. We all are able to come to the well-spring of His revealed word. Those of us who believe, have our thirsts quenched by the revelations that we recieve there through faith. That is what i believe. I am happy with this.

mantraa:

As a theist do you believe that you already know how we all got here?

Of course i don't know HOW we got here!

As someone who believes in God i accept that God PUT us here. In the book of beginnings (Genesis) the process by which he put man on the earth is described as Him 'moulding us from the dust of the ground'. It doesn't matter if we are spawned from celestial dust. What matters is that God made it so.

He created man from 'dust' and breathed into us an essence that is not 'dust'. And man became a 'living soul'. When the part of man which is 'dust' decays, the part of him which is essentially in God's image, lives on. I accept this by faith and i am happy with it!

My problem is when 'atheists' attack me for my faith and claim that 'reason' and 'science' demands that God does not exist. My response is a post like this to show to them that they absolutely do not know that God does NOT exist. Who told them that he does not exist?! It's not science; it's not philosophy; it's not even archeology!

Those of us who believe in God, do so because we want to. Anybody claiming that God does not exist does so, not because of science, but because they have chosen not to believe in God. Their evidence is as fragile as ours, so it all boils down to making choices either on a whim for some, and on faith for others!

That's my point really!

'There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy'.
                                                    -WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE / Hamlet Act 1. Scene V abt. 1601

viaro:


Oh lawd!! I should've guessed that's where you were going! That was just too clever! The only thing was that at first glance it may not be apparent to the reader (which happened to me, and I guess also happened in toneyb's first reading). I may be wrong though. . I tend to often misread people until later.

I wasn't trying to be clever though! I had actually given the link for the whole entropy thing in the initial post! Thanks again.

@Viaro,
You've answered for me, a lot better than i would have done myself. Thanks!

@tonyb,

I didn't come up with the whole entropy thing. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entropy

In case you missed it, it was the law of entropy i was on about there. The entropy thing is articulated in the second law of thermodynamics, which says something along the lines that in a 'closed system' (for example the 'universe') chaos increases! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_law_of_thermodynamics. Another way of putting it, is that in a closed system, things go from a state of higher organisation to a state of lowest organisation. I am too lazy to google. It's all there at the click of your mouse!

Seriously though, the understanding-from a scientific point of view-is that the universe, as a 'closed system', should be answerable to the laws of thermodynamics but from the very beginning something interfered with the 'natural' processes of entropy!

Unless of course, as some suggest, the 'universe' is no longer a closed system, which would be giving creationists like myself more guns for our arsenal!

mantraa:

Noboby knows what was before the big bang, or what caused it. All that is known for definite is that the universe is expanding. There are many questions which the answers have not been found yet. The big bang theory is just a result of observations that all galaxies are moving away from each other. This is an undeniable fact.
To ask a scientist what caused it or what was before it is like asking if it is possible to build a time machine. The answer may be discovered one day the more we search for it. If it wasnt for scientists we would not have known that we are part of an immense expanding universe in the first place.

I don't have any beaf with scientists. I even call myself one, sometimes!

The purpose of the piece i started is to highlight the fact that it's arrogant of 'atheist' scientists to assume that they know enough to disparage the position of those that believe that creation happened because something-which they prefer to call God-made it happen. That's all. Those that don't want to accept this are liberty to subsribe to the position that 'something' came out of 'nothing'.

Now about the universe 'expanding'. There's a lot of talk about this isn't there.

Some might tell you that the 'universe'-if by it we mean all known creation-is not expanding. But then that's some. These days the concept of the 'universe' is becoming increasingly more blurred. Because some will ask, 'is the universe just the spacetime continuum that we see out there?',  'if that's the 'universe' then what is it expanding into?'; others who are adept at the mathematics of the stars may even tell you that something is wrong with their calculations, because evidence would suggest that by now, this  expanding universe should have long started collapsing on itself!

To get around all this 'science', we-by which i mean 'intelligent' human beings-have come up with something called Dark energy and Dark matter!

The current thinking is that everything ever observed by all our instruments and all 'normal' matter adds up to barely 5% of the 'universe'! The other 95% is made up of 'dark matter' and 'dark energy'. Now the interesting thing about all this is that nobody seems to be sure what 'dark energy' and 'dark matter' are!

Did i mention that i don't have any beaf with scientists? I sure don't. It's only arrogant humans i have problems with. That's all.

About 16billion years ago ‘something’ happened.

According to scientists, ‘something’ literarily popped out of ‘nothingness’. And that ‘something’ continued to expand, giving birth to what is now known as the Universe. This is what scientists call the ‘big bang’ theory.  http://www.big-bang-theory.com/

When asked about what existed before the big bang, some scientists try to wiggle out of the question by saying that ‘nothing’ actually existed. They elaborate on this answer by saying that ‘time’ as a concept came into existence with the ‘big bang’, so scientifically speaking, ‘nothing’ could have happened before time came into existence! Yeah right!

Okay, so ‘nothing’ existed before the ‘big bang’? Right? Well, kind of ‘nothing’.

Some say that to understand the idea of ‘nothingness’, we may need to look closely at how subatomic particles behave.

Okay, so how do subatomic particles behave? Well we now know, for instance, that at the level of particle physics, ‘virtual particles’ continuously form and disappear. In other words, at this level energy and matter are created out of ‘nothingness’! ‘Nothingness’ some concede may actually be other-dimensional space.  http://www.nuclecu.unam.mx/~alberto/physics/string.html . That’s progress if one where to look at it from the perspective that there was some kind of other-dimensional ‘existence’ before the ‘big bang’, even if in ‘scientific’ terms it would be called ‘nothing’. Well, not 'nothing' as in 'nothing'. But, yeah, something like 'nothing'.

So it is likely that if we were to go back 16 billion years ago, when ‘everything’ we know can be compressed into the size of, say, a pea, then scientifically speaking the primordial substance could have behaved like ‘virtual particles’ and instead of just disappearing, as it sometimes does, into nothing; it did an unusual thing and continued to expand! Well this is ‘understandable’, because at this level anything can happen. At least that’s one of the inferences one can make from the ‘uncertainty principle’, which we now ‘know virtual particles are subject to. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/qt-uncertainty/

Obviously a lot of atheists start to sweat under the armpits when confronted with the implausibility of all this.

Most atheists that i know, subscribe to the ‘religion’ of scientific determinism, yet cannot see that believing that matter just popped out of ‘nothingness’ and then calling this a ‘natural’ occurrence, is almost as natural as believing that ‘magicians’ can actually pull out rabbits out of their hats!

Let’s also bear in mind that at the level of quantum mechanics-a cutting edge field of science, let’s not forget-the uncertainty in the position and velocity of virtual particles actually changes when there is an observer there to measure their movements and velocity. In other words at that level of quantum mechanics, chaos becomes more orderly and vice versa!. Quite peculiar. I’d say!

So, I am curious to see the atheists here defend their position that everything has come out of nothing, in spite of the ‘fact’ that in an ideal natural world where there is no supernatural interference, nature should tend towards chaos and not order. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_law_of_thermodynamics

toneyb:

Interesting topic. If I were still a believer I would have
1. Still believed in too much superstition like witches, wizards, satan, demons.

I believe in dimensions that are extra temporal and extracorporeal. This is not superstitions. Science tells us that outside of the 4-dimensional construct that we are familiar with are other dimensions that are not necessarily subject to space-time physics.

I don’t believe in witches and wizards. I do believe in beings that are not limited by space and time.

toneyb:

2. Would have been homophobic too.

I  am not.

toneyb:

3 Would have not been responsible for some my own actions and push the responsiblity unto imaginary demons, satan etc and blaming them for making me act in certain ways.

I don’t. I take full responsibility for my actions.

toneyb:

4. Would have been afraid of so many things and believe in so many anecdoctal stories that do not agree with what I know. Would also believe that there are some imaginary enemies out there trying to get me and stop me from prospering or becoming happy.

I am not afraid of ‘so many things’ either. I don’t believe in ‘imaginary enemies’ out there trying to get me. That’s paranoia and though common in a lot of developing societies, has nothing to do with being Christian or not. I have treated a lot of atheists who suffer from paranoid delusions.

toneyb:

5. Would have still been giving my money to Pastors and their fellow church workers while believing I am giving it unto God.

I don’t pay my tithes as regularly as I should. I understand the need for it, but I also understand that a lot of pastors misappropriate money meant for the things of God.  Misappropriation of funds is not unique to church ‘businesses. It’s a universal thing; found in every human industry irrespective of whether it’s managed by Deists or atheists. 

toneyb:

6. Would have depended on others who know no better than me to help me in explaining all the things I see because they claim they have some divine guidence and knowledge.

I don’t. I search the scriptures for answers. I meditate on the things I discover and study to show myself approved of the Lord. Ignorance is found everywhere, in both the house of God and outside it.

toneyb:

7. Would have been looking down at others that do not share my beliefs with some sense of pity thinking that they are not saved while I am.

I don’t.

toneyb:

8. Would not have been too curious and would have accepted non answers for answers as long as they seem plausible to me or in line with my subjective beliefs. Would have been spending time apologizing for nonsense and irrational theories, doctorines and religious meme.

I am very curious and continue to search for answers. My quest is to separate Truth from the embellishments and traditions of men. My quest is to find God true, even if all men are liars (Romans 3:4)

toneyb:

9. Would have been wasting too much time thinking about not offending some imaginary god and thinking about the after life and what will happen to me when I die. Would also have believed that the world will end during mylife time.

I don’t. With regards to when the world will end nobody knows. As an atheist you should actually be more concerned about this, seeing that an asteroid could hit us at any minute!

toneyb:

Now that I am an atheist I am now more interested in people, animals, the universe, science and the scientific process, and the origins of religions. I now take responsiblity for my own actions and I am now never afraid of death and other mythical and superstitious beliefs. I do things that I wouldn't be able to do when I was a believer, I walk alone at night, sleep alone in empty houses, walk pass grave yards on my way home without any fear something that I wouldn't be able to do before. Love life and love the people I see around me more, I don't Judge people any more and I am more optimistic about life and the Human race than I ever would have been.

As a Christian I am very interested in people. This informs my choice of a career in trying to understand human nature and its frailties. I am interested in God’s creation and with the new discoveries in science I am filled with even greater awe of his magnificence. God’s majesty humbles me.

I am not afraid of death because when 'I walk through the valley of the shadow of death’, the one I call my Lord comforts me. I walk alone at night (the neighbourhood I live in allows this anyway. Perhaps if I lived in the more deprived areas of London, I would have thought twice about this!)

I walk pass graveyards without any fears. I feel regret sometimes that so many die without quite understanding the Truth of God, allowing their prejudices and misconceptions to cloud out His light from their lives. So I feel regret not fear.

I don’t judge people. I understand that we are all on a journey. Those that are less fortunate than me, I try to offer help when I can because I know that for the grace of God, I could have been them.



But as Christmas has come upon us, my sincere hope is that we make choices concerning the eternal things not based on prejudice or because of some unresolved issues spilling over from childhood or relationships we’ve had, but based on the Truth that we have come to know. 

May the good Lord shine the light of Truth in our hearts and guide us all to the place of peace. Amen.


Merry Xmas!

mazaje:



According to who? This statement is false. . .We now know that all what we used to ascribe to supernatural like lightining, rainbow, thunder, storms, diseases are all natural processes caused by mindless natural agents. . .So what do you mean that we do not know what is natural any more. . . We now know what nature is and how it works more than any period of human civilization through out human existence

Scientist are only trying to see if those claims are true. . . .And so far they have found out that there is NO evidence at all to show that any part of human existence survives bodily death. . . .Which discoveries are telling us that we may no be just boilogy? Care to show us those discoveries so far all the conventional scientific papers peer reviewed documents that are mainstream have shown that we are just biology and that man evolved over time. . .Your scientific peer reviewed papers that say other wise are?

The problem is that all theist attribute everything to their various gods, When they discover that their scientific understanding goes against their religious inclinations they try to castigate science in other to uphold their beliefs. . . .We do not claim to have more information than you guys we just point out to where the available information points to. . .So far ALL the empirical and scientific discoveries have shown that all the religious books and their theories are false. . .Geology disproves the Noah's flood. . . Astronomy shows that the moon was Never divided by mohammed. . .Astronomy disproves so many biblical assertions. . .Science has continued to show that this primitive religious Ideas and stories are out dated and were merely thoughts of men nothing more. . .Belief is not a choice, it is a result. And for people like me, it has to be a result of observation, study, and evidence, Belief can be the result of mental deception, of simply wanting to believe something is true because of indoctrination through emotional attachments. . . That is why I believe in empirically verifiable assertions not wishful thoughts, hypothesis,traditions and mere fantasies that have been shown to be FALSE over and over again. . . . And that is what you have with religion. . .

This discussion can continue ad nauseatum!

It's been going on for thousands of years already and has not been resolved. Scientific 'debates', numerous critically appraised academic papers etc, have been thrashing these issues for ages so i doubt you and I will shed any new light that would make people to start revising what they already believe (or don't believe) in!

The bottom line is that i believe that God created and you believe that creation is a random occurence. Fine. Now back to  the topic of this particular thread: Why did God create?

mazaje:

But what of natural processes?
They surround us; every moment of our lives is encased by them. We are entirely subject to them. They account for all the brute facts we must negotiate in our lives, from the daily dawning of the sun to its setting.

Commonsense dictates (to me) that they account for the universe and all that we observe, and therefore it is sensible to conclude that Life has progressed to its present state of incomprehensible complexity via natural processes that have layered complexity upon complexity in billions upon billions upon billions of incremental steps. Even the actions of what you call the mind are all part of the natural process no?

Because we don't understand them is no reason to attribute them to an unseen, non-physical god is it? A god which the mind alone thinks it detects.

The problem is that we no longer know what 'natural' processes are.

Who would have ever thought that 'Scientists' would be discussing the 'extended mind' and 'consciousness' that continues beyond death?! Our understanding of 'Life' is changing. Discoveries are telling us that man may not be just 'biology' and that  'evolution' may not be it afterall! The quantum collapse theory and the uncertainty principle in quantum mechanics are other cogs in the wheel of so called 'natural processes'.

Our not understanding these things is not a license to make external attributions to an unseen god. The 'attribution' is a choice thing that has little to do with a better intelligence, which a lot of 'atheists' claim. The problem i have, reading some of the posts by 'atheist, is that a lot of them assume that they have more information than those of us who believe in God. The truth is that you don't.

@mazaje,
Have you had a look at the link i gave you on the discussions about the mind? I don't want you to keep silent about it. Note the discussions there represent the latest understanding concerning the 'mind'. And yes, it's all science Not religion!

mazaje:

The problem is that theist say that their various deities are physical beings that can be seen sometimes. . .

The last time i checked, most deists, including Christians, see their gods as 'spiritual beings'.

The mind is not just 'expressions people attribute to the brain'.  

In fact the discussions about what consitutes the 'mind' is ongoing in a lot of informed circles such as this one for instance http://www.rcpsych.ac.uk/pdf/SIG%20Website%20April%203rd%2009%20Programme.pdf. The truth is that we don't know!

I agree with you that OBE is not about 'seeing the other side'. But it's not about your brain being 'fried'. What is going on there is still being investigated. We understand that the experiences are subject to different interpretations but some of the findings do not quite fit into the box of brain hypoxia and gradual brain death (leading to increased 'fronto-temporal stimulation) and the subsequent experiences. Some of these findings are exciting the curiosity of those that are increasingly interested in the issues of Spirituality and Mental Health. Because they are not solely explained by neurophysiology.

Tudór:

Unfortunately it doesn't stop at just knowing about that 'something' people now feel the need to characterize that 'something' however they see fit with several crap like having sons and daughters, answering prayers., intelligent, alive e.t.c and expect us to accept it as truth and rule our lives by it. . .that is unacceptable.

You are right in a way but not completely. Having said that it's important that the truth of 'God' is separated from the traditions and prejudiced interpretaions of man.

'He whom I bow to only knows to whom I bow
When I attempt the ineffable Name, murmuring Thou,
And dream of Pheidian fancies and embrace in heart
Symbols (I know) which cannot be the thing Thou art.

Thus always, taken at their word, all prayers blaspheme
Worshiping with frail images a folk-lore dream,
And all men in their praying, self-deceived, address
The coinage of their own unquiet thoughts, unless

Thou in magnetic mercy to Thyself divert
Our arrows, aimed unskillfully, beyond desert;
And all men are idolaters, crying unheard
To a deaf idol, if Thou take them at their word.

Take not, O Lord, our literal sense. Lord, in thy great
Unbroken speech our limping metaphor translate'

Footnote to all Prayers by C.S.Lewis

mazaje:

Let me come in here. . . . So what is a soul? In what part of the human body does it reside? Belief is very different from reality hope you know? Over a billion people believe that mohammed once divided the moon into two and made it bow down to him, About a billion people believe in Hinduism and the Hindu gods as the creator of the universe, Over a billion people believe that Jesus died and rose from the dead. . . .That is not reality that people believe in all these things does not make them true. . .Reality has nothing to do with people personal and subjective beliefs. . . .

The issue is that nobody is sure what 'reality' is. When Tonyb talked about 'subjective reality', I just wanted to indulge him a bit. Most of what we consider 'reality' is afterall 'subjective'.
What is a 'soul'? you ask? Nobody knows. Just like nobody knows what constitutes the 'mind'. The field of Psychiatry, where by the way you find specialists in things relating to the mind, understands that 'science' itself is unable to unravel fully the mysteries of the mind. That's why there is an increasing interest in 'Spirituality' among Psychiatrists. I should know, because i am actually a member of the Royal College of Psychiatrists. Not that it's of any significance.

I don't know how much exposure to the unfolding field of particle physics you have, but if you are following some of the developments in that field, you will agree with me that our previously held notions of what constitutes 'reality' is changing. You may also have gathered that 'belief' is actually a lot more powerful than previously thought. It has the power to make things happen. So, my friend, let's agree that we are all trying to understand the mysteries of life and death. Some of us believe that there is more to life than 'corporeal'  and time-bound' existence. Those, like you, who don't accept this are at liberty to do so. But discoveries in science are pointing to the fact that we may be more right than you.

For me, the extratemporal and extracorporal realm, is the spirit realm. The one that holds everything together i call God. 'Scientists' in the know are at liberty to call Him the God particle. It doesn't matter. What matters is that there is 'something' out there.

toneyb:

Ok, Subjective reality means relating to properties or specific conditions of the mind as distinguished from general or universal experience.

The subjective realities' of more people on earth make room for such things as 'soul, spirit etc'. So, my friend, you are wrong when you say that they 'have no evidence at all in any reality'. You are very wrong!

toneyb:

You assume to much my friend, My concience does NOT feel "attacked" and it can never feel "attacked". You came with a false assumption that atheist have some imaginary thirst. That is false. As for your link here is what another person had to say about the ridiculous link.

"Please site the study you are referring to.

Edit: I found the study. It included 371 patients all diagnosed with major depression. Of this 371, only 66 where "not religiously affiliated." It does not even say that these 66 were atheists or agnostics or anything. Hmm, is there a correlation here that could be made about being "religiously affiliated" and having a higher risk of being depressed, ?

For starters, religiously affiliated *doesn't* mean atheist. Sure atheists are in that group, but it would include anyone who's not affiliated with a given church. You'll notice also that the religiously unaffiliated tended to be younger, unmarried, no children, and with less contact with family. ALL those things are correlated with poorer morale and higher suicide rates, irrespective of religion.

So what you're saying is, it's better to be, say, a Muslim than an agnostic or non-churchgoing Christian--and you have an ambiguous survey to back that statement up? All I can say is, color me unimpressed.

You should be ashamed of yourself. All you do is reemphasize to me how easily it is for people like you to lie or fudge the facts. Why is it so easy for you? Or did you not even read the study you are spouting off about?"

There you have it somebody had already answered you ridiculous and false assertion about atheist and suicide. If you want to make this argument, you would have to explain why highly atheist countries like Sweden, Estonia and Finland have such low suicide rates. Which other lie do you have up your sleeve?

Suicide rates in the countries you mention are actually among the highest. Here is a WHO link for you to peruse http://www.who.int/mental_health/prevention/suicide/suiciderates/en/

I admit that i didn't do my argument a lot of good by giving the link to a study i haven't actually read. Am i ashamed? Not really. I was just looking for something to show you what the facts borne out in clinical practice by Psychiatrists say about the relationship between the absence of a religion and the incidence of suicide. There is a positive correlation, though Atheist psychiatrists like to argue against this, quoting dodgy 'confounding variables'.

Existential angst is common to ALL 'intelligent' humans at one point or the other in their life journeys. Some are pacified by 'religion', not necesarily Judeo-Christian. Those that aren't able to find the peace of religion resort to suicide (sometimes cloaked as euthenasia). Hence the unarguably higher rate of suicide in atheist countries.

toneyb:

It does, If we are to go by what the bible says and assume that it is true then we have god creating Adam and Eve and then after he allowed satan to come and decieve them with out them knowing the difference between right and wrong, He then decided to drive them out of his garden. But, if God is omniscient, he knew that they would eat the fruit. He knew that, even before he created them. And, in possession of that knowledge, he created them, in such a way that, not only could they eat it, but they definitely would eat it. He could have created them otherwise. He chose not to. He needn't have put the fruit there. He chose to. Who's the responsible party here? They had offspring who became rebellious and God according regreted why he created men so he decided to kill all humans on earth and begin again with Noah and his family, That again failed so God according to the bible had to come ones in a while to fight or kill people to show them that he is God, That again did not work so God had to come down in human form to correct that again, Now its still not working because Sin and the devil whom God supossedly created and are making God angry.

I made my deductions based on what is actually written in the bible.

Correct

All these are your subjective reality. Soul, spirit etc are all subjective assumptions that have no evidence at all in any reality.

As you wish, my brother!

PS: What is 'subjective reality' anyway?

toneyb:

What thirst do atheist have? The way you guys go about with your baseless assertions is really ridiculous. I guess you guys can not really come to terms that there are people do not believe in your deeply held non evidential beliefs, So you try all your possible best to placate yourselves with false and ridiculous assertions, What has intelligence got to do with anything? When you are asked very simple things you come up with baseless assertions that have nothing to do with what is been discussed. What has intelligence got to do with anything again I ask? You guys go around bandying baseless claims and when asked to defend it you begin to attack straw man after straw man.

Ahn, Ahn, no be fight now!

I don't know who the 'you guys' you keep mentioning are, but if it helps neither the believers nor the unbelievers have 'evidence' for their positions. So no go there my brother!

The 'thirst' that the so called atheists have, is the one that drives them to higher rates of suicide when it is not quenched http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20091103130324AAsqlsd I couldn't come up with better evidence but that should quench a bit of your 'thirst'. I hope.

Let's face it my brother. If you are feeling 'attacked', it's not by me. It may be your conscience.