Added (09/Feb/10, 0:42 Am)
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It's no problem. I just wanted to ask. And I'll explain the church thing. I was raised much like you. My grandma and grandpa both went through a similar situation to your grandma and, while they went through it during the Hungarian Revolution at the hands of the Russians and it did harden them a bit and, ironically, they were driven out of their first house in Detroit when they first escaped to America by the civil rights movement, they too were Christians (they were specifically Catholics) and they were so loving to me as well. Some of the best grandparents anyone could have. I was my grandma's little angel and could do no wrong in her eyes. My mom used to joke that she loved me more than her. I was actually baptized Catholic and went to a protestant church and I was a Christian up until I was 19 (3 and a half years ago). I still have many of my friends and mentors there at the church and it is a learning experience (and, of course, my mom is still a Christian and she asks me to go with her once in a while). The beauty of being an atheist, and the reason it is not hypocritical for an atheist to go to church is that unlike a Christian, who is taught that their God is the one true God and would be blaspheming if he went and worshiped in a Mosque for example, and vice versa for the Muslim who wants to worship in a church, there is nothing that is held to be blasphemous or sinful or evil to an atheist, because there is no doctrine of atheism. We live by the golden rule, just like Christians do. The golden rule actually predates Christianity and is a secular principal that came from ancient Greek philosophy. But thank you for bringing that up. You're not the first person who has asked how it is not hypocritical for an atheist to attend church and I love explaining this to people. Luckily no one has gotten offended that I go to church yet. If they did I would be in a pretty uncomfortable position. Of course the people at my church don't know I'm atheist, but others do.

Nah, he was talking about ALCATRAZ. Deists generally believe in an impersonal God who simply created everything and has been absent or done nothing ever since. Others believe in a deity that does interfere with things in the universe but is still impersonal and more of a generic God than a specific religion's God.

....No, that still fits under what I said. The scientist would be accepting that God defies science. That's fine. That's on him. I would assume, however, that most religious scientists would actually challenge the first law of thermodynamics because scientists thing very analytically and belief in God isn't a very analytical belief.

Due to the very high standard of evidence science has, the Higgs Boson is, in fact, simply hypothetical at this time, however, we have every reason to believe it exists until the Large Hadron Collider at CERN proves us wrong (if it does). They have mathematically proven that it exists though (mathematical proof, however, is not scientific proof).

But are you saying that anyone who is an atheist is unable to be moral?

Why is that surprising? And yeah, I've had phone convos with I_Guy and he spoke about going to religious private schools that his parents placed him in because they raised him a Christian.

Lol. I think I_Guy has dealt with religious people who are very conniving and spiteful. People aren't perfect. The response is understandable. I've had some religious people backstab me pretty good myself. I don't let it effect my opinion of the religious community though. And it is true. Logic and reason has actually made it easier for me to forgive people who have done terrible things to me. My coach ruined my chances to go to USC out of high school and my Christian mother holds a lot of hatred towards him, but I have no malice for him whatsoever. It may be a bit hard to hold a conversation with him because he's not exactly the most friendly person, but we are fine with each other.

my new theme song



erikboyd60@hotmail.com

"True poetry can communicate before it is understood"

-T.S. Eliot

battle record:

7-0-0

We can argue about the rules of arguing on your website. Or about what constitutes evidence. You assert that my testimony has no evidence. You are making the claim that nothing metaphysical exists or no god exists. This is your belief. I am not here just to be made subject to your question. I have more to say than that. If you don't want to listen to that skip it. You haven't defined what acceptable evidence would be. You probably don't believe in any evidence that would be submitted.

As I submitted that DNA, the laws of life, creation and the ecosystem are all designs/designed by God.

You said: the natural laws that all matter and energy follow, are mere abstractions.

I am talking about the carbon cycle. Nothing abstracted there. All life is composed of carbon which is a design. Photosynthesis and cellular respiration fuel the globe. All life ceases to exist and becomes part of the nitrogen cycle when bacteria eat it. The cycles themselves are global and interconnected. Nothing random. We are in an ecosystem. Science will never completely unravel all of the connections in nature. But the little science has unraveled has pointed to the fact that we are all connected.

The metaphysical is a completely connected plane. The physical seems to be distinct but is a connected plane as well. The mind is proof of the metaphysical in humans though it is not limited to humans. But because we are humans we have to start there. God is the universe of the metaphysical. More proof of God or love or the universe of the metaphysical is light. Light is a substance that is not distinct but interconnected it surpasses the physical because light can carry everything in it. It carries nutrients to plants. Information to computers and other energies. Study light if you want to know about the metaphysical or God in a physical plane. It is hard to articulate God to those in a physical form. In the spiritual you already know because you are part of it. God is love not emotions but heart. Divorce from heart is the making of an atheist. Because you deny those knowledge systems you have less not more information. The truth is. It just is. But for those who seek it you have to be willing to feel it to. We all have intuition we can feel what is true and what is false. Because we are connected to the truth when we don't cut out our heart.

??? this has nothing to do with the site's mode of argumentation or what constitutes sufficient evidence in my mind. it has to do with science and what is scientifically acceptable as evidence. the burden of proof for the existence of God has not been met, and there is a scientific consensus on that. none of the so-called evidence for God has passed peer-review, and some of the things people use as evidence, while it may be evidence of ancient religions existing and people believing in God thousands of years ago, if any of it were to go through peer-review being pushed as evidence for the existence of God it would not stand up to scrutiny. the best "evidence" that has been used is simply evidence that we do not yet know what the answer is to every single thing in the universe (wait, yes we do. it's 42 ).

that was part of what i said. i also addressed DNA and the ecosystem and explained exactly how they are NOT designed, but rather occur naturally without anyone/anything creating them.

define design for me quickly because with the definition that i am thinking of (the dictionary definition) you are dead wrong. provide evidence that carbon was designed. you can't, because you would have to rely on science to provide this evidence and science negates your idea that carbon was designed. unless of course our definitions of design are incompatible, in which case i would appreciate you elaborate.

you seem to make a false dichotomy that everything is either designed or random. the idea behind Darwinian evolution, for example, is that life is not designed, nor random. there is a "random" element (random mutation, which isn't really random because, while these mutations seem random, they still have causal precedents), but it is accompanied by a very precise and natural element that has nothing to do with design as well (natural selection). that is how most things work in nature. the explanations may seem random to some, but in reality, we are saying that nature works in a very precise way without design of any sort. design only comes into play when conscious biological structures are involved.

i think it's a bit arrogant for anyone to make any claim of absolute knowledge. it may not, it is likely that it won't unravel all of the connections in nature. that doesn't mean that we know for sure that it won't and that surely doesn't mean that we should live in reverence to an omniscient, omnipresent, omnibenevolent, omnipotent being to which there is no evidence supporting his/her/it's existence. you are well within your rights to live that way, but to assert that others must as well is not acceptable.

i agree, but probably not in the same way that you envision it.

the metaphysical is an abstraction used in philosophy to help explain some of the fundamentals of our existence. there is no metaphysical plane that we can define scientifically because, by definition, metaphysics is the study of that which underlies science.

i would agree. we are connected causally and also in that we are made from the very same matter and energy that abounds the entire universe and likely has eternally.

one of the fundamental studies in metaphysics is the philosophy of the mind. the leading philosophical school within the philosophy of the mind is monism, which includes the dual aspect theory as well, and it has thoroughly replaced mind-body dualism as the leading philosophical school in the mind debate.

light is made up of photons and science has done a great job of explaining it. try again.

light is very much on the "physical plane" and has been studied extensively by scientists. any information you provide on light and it's properties and whatnot will be physical properties explained by scientists. you don't seem to know how to disseminate very well between these distinct planes that you fallaciously draw a dichotomy between.

so wait, now light is somewhere in between these supposed physical and metaphysical planes? have you been watching "Everything Is Spiritual"?

would you care to provide evidence that a "spiritual world" even exists?

this is usually a red light that the debate is going nowhere, but i will continue to listen open mindedly, waiting for actual evidence to be provided.

my heart is an organ pounding in my chest that plays an integral role in keeping me alive. i am an atheist and i love a lot of people and things. i am not a pessimist or a negative person, but rather a realist, a rationalist if you may. i actually look at atheism in the exact opposite light. i feel that i very well know my place on earth and the scarcity of my time here and so i cherish it much more than i would expect someone who believes living a disciplined life here will buy them a ticket to live an eternal life in heaven. if my definition of love is not compatible with yours, please correct me.

i don't necessarily deny the information, but rather i expect the information to meet a burden of proof, much like when a court renders a verdict on someone for a specific crime, the burden of proof that the person committed the crime must first be met because the victim is making the claim. the courts and jury are not denying knowledge, but rather using their reasoning to disseminate between fallacies and truths. fallacies are not knowledge. as a matter of fact, i would call fallacies the opposite of knowledge, even the enemy of knowledge. truths are knowledge. the God hypothesis has yet to meet it's burden of proof. if one day it does, that will be the day i become a believer again.

and so you acknowledge this as well. unfortunately something got lost in translation.

and i am. of course not in the sense that you mean, but if we want to talk about that, i was for 19 years. and my mother prays for me every day that God leads me back, and he has yet to answer that prayer. i have a feeling i know why.

^^^ if that isn't an account of intuition, i don't know what is.

my new theme song



erikboyd60@hotmail.com

"True poetry can communicate before it is understood"

-T.S. Eliot

battle record:

7-0-0

"Any good dictionary will show the derivation or the history of the translation of Jesus through the various languages. All agree that the word “Jesus is a transcription or a copy of the Greek name … which is a derivation of the Hebrew Ieshoua, a common Jewish name” according to the book The Names and Titles of Jesus by Leopold Sabourin, S.J."

http://www.plim.org/JesusOrigin.htm

my new theme song



erikboyd60@hotmail.com

"True poetry can communicate before it is understood"

-T.S. Eliot

battle record:

7-0-0

also, the Jesus bones thing in the bottom right corner is ridiculous. i would love to take someone seriously with a claim like that but religious fanatics lie so often about evidence that has been found that such a claim cannot be taken seriously until i see a peer reviewed paper on it that claims it is truly Jesus' bones and then i will of course have to check on the names on the list (considering the Discovery Institute fiasco where DI, using crooked tactics, gathered hundreds of signatures of scientists, which included very few credible scientists in the field of biology, and even gathered the signatures of people who weren't scientists but they claimed they were, and they tried to put together a peer reviewed paper that showed a scientific consensus that Darwinian evolution needs some serious revisions). and yet and still, even if they did, in fact, find Jesus' bones, they would need then to prove that he actually was the son of God and did the things he was claimed to have done or else all we would know is that Jesus was an actual man.

my new theme song



erikboyd60@hotmail.com

"True poetry can communicate before it is understood"

-T.S. Eliot

battle record:

7-0-0

Now I'm not saying I'm a Christian because "it's a blanket" for the cold weather.

Added (11/Feb/10, 1:20 Am)
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I remember hearing Richard Dawkins saying the argument from design is the most convincing.

"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbour. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover." - Mark Twain

of course those that claim to be religious yet commit terrible crimes conveniently weren't true Christians, right? at least we own up to the fact that someone was an atheist when an atheist does something terrible.

it isn't harsh at all. atheists view the world in a more realistic, natural, organic way in which we realize that there is nothing past this life so we cherish everything that much more. we are at one with nature. what do beheadings have to do with anything?

http://debunkingchristianity.blogspot.com/2008....ed.html

if i chose to believe in God and devote myself to Christianity, i would have to give up many of the pleasures of life (including, and most importantly for me, free thought, logic, critical thinking, philosophy, reason, etc., not to mention pre-marital sex ) that i enjoy as a non-Christian and i would have to put my thinking in a box. i don't want that. i want to think for myself without any outside help. if Christianity is, in fact, wrong, i would have given up any opportunity to do those things during my tenure on earth, and on top of that, even if i did convert, there would be no guarantee i would get into heaven and the likelihood would be low anyways because my belief would not be sincere. it would only be belief for the sake of fear.

lol coming from him that would be equivalent to saying "feces partially composed of beef particles tend to be the tastiest logs of shit".

my new theme song



erikboyd60@hotmail.com

"True poetry can communicate before it is understood"

-T.S. Eliot

battle record:

7-0-0

Do not take revenge, my friends, but leave room for God's wrath, for it is written: "It is mine to avenge; I will repay,"says the Lord.

Quote (eboyd)

if i chose to believe in God and devote myself to Christianity, i would have to give up many of the pleasures of life (including, and most importantly for me, free thought, logic, critical thinking, philosophy, reason, etc., not to mention pre-marital sex )

what person didn't believe in the Christian God? both of those people were Christian fanatics!

no you won't because as a rabbit you wouldn't have the mental capacity to understand the concept of God and heaven.

and you think that because atheism has no scripture to tell us not to do that, we will do it more often? take a look around! the US is the most hardcore God fearing country in the world and it has one of the highest crime rates, is one of the main proponents of the death penalty, has the highest prison population, etc. and the overwhelming majority of the people in the prisons in the US are self-proclaimed Christians.

http://www.skepticfiles.org/american/prison.htm
http://americanhumanist.org/hnn/archives/index.php?id=219&article=7
http://moses.creighton.edu/JRS/2005/2005-11.html

now i'm not posting these to assert that religion leads to immorality (though, unfortunately, these studies do actually suggest that), but rather that there is no correlation between atheism and immorality or religion and morality.

these pleasures include thinking and reasoning and doing things that go against the idea of the existence of a God (and i can't give up my pre-marital sex )

maybe not, but i guarantee my disbelief in God would last. i'm too intelligent not to question.

i was baptized Catholic.

my new theme song



erikboyd60@hotmail.com

"True poetry can communicate before it is understood"

-T.S. Eliot

battle record:

7-0-0

Aside from that, religious mentality holds back human growth. Religion (Abrahamic religions especially) are anti-life.