Creation vs. Evolution

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Lon

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Are we back to this evidence schtick? You kinda wimped out the last time on even pretending to have evidence for some things said in that ancient nomadic tribal religious account. The evidence that people actually turn to pillars of salt is?

And, wondering if you will again dodge answering something you brought up a while back, - how do you add things to embryos?

I think it must/necessarily move from personal attacks on this though. Sincerity is ours alone to verify most of the time and I think evidence can be shared, yet it is still something that has to be interacted with on our own specifically because no man or woman comes to Christ but as an individual.

Science can and does verify some things for us: Energy in the universe is never lost. That being the case, what exists as me necessarily will scientifically carry on. Here is why I think it must at the very least, be entertained that you and I go on after death as an if/then.

If I have consciousness now, then it is a property of the universe beside myself else I'd not have it. If that is a fact, and it is, then there is good indication that it is not lost simply because it no longer resides in one physical form upon the very premise that it had to be there before I got here, in the first place. Such would be, imho, clear evidence, at the least, that we carry on after death. Logic does not always a fact make, but I do think it solid evidence. I 'guess' it fits the thread in that if I have the where-with-all to observe it, it must then necessarily exist and be up for at least partial science investigation. I'm not sure how we'd go about it, but I can think of a couple of experiments that could be done to test it, at least in logic if not working theory. (this is simply addressing after-life btw, not taking too big a bite that can't be chewed but one bite at a time). -Lon
 

Lon

Well-known member
Only after giving it the old college try for several decades. If I have any regrets, it was that I was so slow in recognizing (or more truthfully - in admitting) that Christianity was not true.

See, just the opposite for me. I assume scripture is true, so my prayers were always in line with them and God showed Himself as He portrays Himself there and I don't expect different. Now I didn't float an ark, I didn't see a hand writing on the wall, but there are unmistakable answers to prayer that can only lead to the existence.

Let me ask you another question: Did God 'need' to answer your prayers or was it something different, in order for you to believe?
Thomas wouldn't believe. If it weren't for Jesus being able to stand before him, I'm not sure Thomas wouldn't have been like you, BUT I'd kind of like to think that God wouldn't have to perform for me, as it were, for me to believe in Him. What I mean is this: The good of Him just existing is enough for me, would have been, I'd hope, enough for me.

I think that the world is, indeed, a better place because of the Christian message AND believing He was/is a real person who existed/exists (not really on the table for me but I'd likely be a liberal Christian if I doubted rather than going your route. It is a bit of Pascal's wager with that I'd reckon).
 

Stripe

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We know.

You assert things that you have no hope of ever providing evidence for.

And you have the temerity to accuse us of believing without evidence, when the fact is that it abounds.

I have looked at numerous claims from religionists purporting to show an afterlife does exist, but none were even remotely credible.
And I have looked at ideas and found them credible.

Your reaction is not evidence.

If, as I believe, my “life” is the term we give to this complex biological entity called my body, when it ceases to function, then by definition, my “life” is over. If you have some evidence of a “spirit” that animates my body, and transcends death, bring it on.
Already presented.

Do try to keep up.
Are we back to this evidence schtick?
We know you hate it.

You kinda wimped out the last time on even pretending to have evidence for some things said in that ancient nomadic tribal religious account. The evidence that people actually turn to pillars of salt is?
We know why you want to change the topic and that you'll say anything to goad people into following you down a rabbit trail.
 
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musterion

Well-known member
As an atheist holding convictions much the same as Alwight’s, I think you present a rather distorted view of how we view these things. We don’t take comfort in oblivion, in fact we quite enjoy life.

Enjoying or hating life here on earth isn't the point.

When compared with the prospect of standing naked before your Creator in judgment for your sins, oh yes, you very much take comfort in the alternative notion of oblivion.

If you can't follow a conversation, don't participate.
 

Jamie Gigliotti

New member
I am apparently an evolved creature with all the inherent imperfections and clearly not somehow magically immune to all the undesirable elements of life. I see none of the divine input to it that you seem to.

Except you can only assert that something called a "soul" exists, perhaps it gives you comfort to believe that as your own sands run out?
If I'm compelled to stand before the supposed all powerful one who has engineered all the human suffering and diseases that have afflicted so many people in this obviously not so supernatural place, including my own, then clearly if I'd had had the chance to have said "yes please" or "thanks but no thanks" then I might have known whom I was dealing with. However my understanding does not include any implied debt to a being far more powerful than I am, who has not even bothered to reveal Himself to me, who certainly didn't ask me if I wanted to exist. I was simply dealt a hand in life just like everyone else, that was what it was, with all its built in iniquities.
And I have to explain myself to your supposed version of God?
Pull the other one, but I might just have a few questions of my own. :plain:

Al I have appreciated my debates with you. I appreciate you. My prayers for you are heartfelt.
I can't imagine your thoughts and feelings concerning what you are facing. I would think coming from an atheistic/agnostic perspective would be most difficult in a situation such as yours.
I watched my father-in-law suffer with cancer and he was very much a doubter in Jesus. What the cancer did do was give him comptemplation time. Time in which He did seem to find faith and hope in Christ. In His experience I began to see the blessing cancer can be, where a person has the opportunity to seek and find peace with God, with ones convictions. As opposed to sudden death when finality is set.
I remember many of your doubts I onced shared them and I appreciate the realness they present for someone, the difficulty they are in overcoming obstacles to faith.
Life is most unfair. Nothing I can say will change that. I've railed against God in utter anguish and misery because of the injustice in my life. I know the feelings all too well.
Evidence?? We know there some evidence, but the question is: Is there enough evidence for you to take a leap of faith, of trust. For Thomas it took a visit. If that is what it is gonna take for you I do pray Jesus Himself visits you just as He did Paul on the road to Damascus. If it's gonna take a miraculous healing to demonstrate in you His power, realness and testimony in you, I pray for that.
For a lot of us It takes coming to the end of our ropes, before we say yes Jesus I need you, your love. Al I know He loves you. Praying you find Him, His love.
 

alwight

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Enjoying or hating life here on earth isn't the point.

When compared with the prospect of standing naked before your Creator in judgment for your sins, oh yes, you very much take comfort in the alternative notion of oblivion.

If you can't follow a conversation, don't participate.
Clearly it's you who has little or no understanding of the issues here.
Atheists are not for some reason required to form their beliefs around your doctrine. They are not looking for ways to avoid your doctrinal divine judgement because they don't believe that any such thing is remotely likely. They simply conclude that without evidential support, regardless of Stripe's disingenuous claims that it has all somehow been presented before, that the most likely scenario for an atheist is that the person's personality and life-force is entirely part and parcel with their physical body. When that body no longer functions then that person is no longer extant, obliviated. Assertions that a person's life-force goes on in some other place is part of the lure of most religious beliefs. A way that some people deal with their own mortality, to provide them with comfort, which probably works quite independently of the real truth that perhaps some are not prepard to face.
 

alwight

New member
Al I have appreciated my debates with you. I appreciate you. My prayers for you are heartfelt.
I can't imagine your thoughts and feelings concerning what you are facing. I would think coming from an atheistic/agnostic perspective would be most difficult in a situation such as yours.
I watched my father-in-law suffer with cancer and he was very much a doubter in Jesus. What the cancer did do was give him comptemplation time. Time in which He did seem to find faith and hope in Christ. In His experience I began to see the blessing cancer can be, where a person has the opportunity to seek and find peace with God, with ones convictions. As opposed to sudden death when finality is set.
I remember many of your doubts I onced shared them and I appreciate the realness they present for someone, the difficulty they are in overcoming obstacles to faith.
Life is most unfair. Nothing I can say will change that. I've railed against God in utter anguish and misery because of the injustice in my life. I know the feelings all too well.
Evidence?? We know there some evidence, but the question is: Is there enough evidence for you to take a leap of faith, of trust. For Thomas it took a visit. If that is what it is gonna take for you I do pray Jesus Himself visits you just as He did Paul on the road to Damascus. If it's gonna take a miraculous healing to demonstrate in you His power, realness and testimony in you, I pray for that.
For a lot of us It takes coming to the end of our ropes, before we say yes Jesus I need you, your love. Al I know He loves you. Praying you find Him, His love.
Thank you for your sincere wishes, much appreciated. My only real fears are to do with the manner of my passing not in being dead. Animals will be quickly dispatched if their situation becomes hopeless.
If I have been presented with any sign of your God's love then it has gone by unnoticed.
 

rstrats

Active member
Jamie Gigliotti,
re: "We know there some evidence, but the question is: Is there enough evidence for you to take a leap of faith..."

Is belief involved with this leap of faith?
 

Jamie Gigliotti

New member
Jamie Gigliotti,
re: "We know there some evidence, but the question is: Is there enough evidence for you to take a leap of faith..."

Is belief involved with this leap of faith?

Personal belief and trust in Jesus as Lord and Savior, with a coinciding love relationship, fellowship with God the Father and His Son Jesus through the Holy Spirit.
 

DavisBJ

New member
… there are unmistakable answers to prayer that can only lead to the existence.

Let me ask you another question: Did God 'need' to answer your prayers or was it something different, in order for you to believe?

Thomas wouldn't believe. If it weren't for Jesus being able to stand before him, I'm not sure Thomas wouldn't have been like you, BUT I'd kind of like to think that God wouldn't have to perform for me, as it were, for me to believe in Him. What I mean is this: The good of Him just existing is enough for me, would have been, I'd hope, enough for me.
Regarding answer to prayer, I have accumulated a rather diverse list of testimonies of answers to prayer. Mormons, Baptists, Catholics, 7-th Day Adventists, Jehovah’s Witnesses, etc. have all testified how it was answer to prayer that undeniably confirmed to each of them that their unique branch of religion was the one and only true faith.

And I confess, when I was a believer, I made similar claims. But for many years my lips were making professions of faith while deep inside of me there were important and unresolved questions. I realized I could have equally been an exemplary member of any of the competing sects if I did exactly as I was doing – publically professing what others wanted to hear, while being less than fully honest within the private recesses of my own soul.
I think that the world is, indeed, a better place because of the Christian message AND believing He was/is a real person who existed/exists (not really on the table for me but I'd likely be a liberal Christian if I doubted rather than going your route. It is a bit of Pascal's wager with that I'd reckon).
I don’t question the obvious value of Christianity for many people in the world. But for me, that does nothing to alleviate my convictions that it is still just a man-made social structure. And for me to embrace Christianity would require me to accept as true some Biblical stories that I am convinced are false. To move into the creationist camp for me would be equivalent to digging a really deep hole and hiding from the real world.

As I have said to Cadry in earlier posts – when someone asks me to accept the Christian message, in reality they are asking me to debase myself by becoming a liar to myself, to society and (if He exists), to God.
 

DavisBJ

New member
Musterion prefers deceit over honesty

Musterion prefers deceit over honesty

Enjoying or hating life here on earth isn't the point.

When compared with the prospect of standing naked before your Creator in judgment for your sins, oh yes, you very much take comfort in the alternative notion of oblivion.

If you can't follow a conversation, don't participate.
Rather, since you have to distort the atheist positon into some perverse caricature to your liking, you are a poor example of what a Christian should be. If you cannot participate without resorting to distortion, you may excuse yourself from the conversation.

Would your God prefer that I (or Alwight) stand before Him as a liar who pretended to believe, or in honesty as someone who sincerely did not believe?
 

DavisBJ

New member
You assert things that you have no hope of ever providing evidence for.
For starters, there are umpteen billions of people that have already died. Are their spirits all playing canasta and singing songs, too busy for even one single one of them to stop by and say “Hi” to me? Or to anyone?
And you have the temerity to accuse us of believing without evidence, when the fact is that it abounds.

And I have looked at ideas and found them credible.
The number of times you make ephemeral claims of having already presented evidence is a substantial number, yet the frequency with which you actually present the evidence is on a par with the frequency with which ghosts visit me.

And, ladies and gentlemen, expect Stripe to run like a rabbit once again to ignore answering a subject he inserted into the conversation:
How do you add metaphysical things to embryos?
 
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rstrats

Active member
Jamie Gigliotti,
re: "Personal belief...in Jesus...[is involved]"


Since beliefs can't be consciously chosen, what is alwight suppose to do?
 

Yorzhik

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Hardly. For the nth time in this thread, I would like some member of your cult to forthrightly admit that many fundamentalist ideas about what the Old Testament says are diametrically in opposition to the science that is routinely and successfully used and taught in every major university and industry in the world.
Since the popularity of an idea does not prove it's veracity, your truth test fails when faced with reality.

Even further, what I have never seen is an evangelist atheist or agnostic admit that God, as described in the bible, does not know the future exhaustively. And thus they admit they prefer a skewed version God just so they can reject Him.
 

DavisBJ

New member
Specifics are beyond Musterion's abilities to present

Specifics are beyond Musterion's abilities to present

That is a false dilemma and a retardedly stupid question.
I take it that simply dissing posts you disagree with is the epitome of what you can contribute?
 
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