The facts behind the myth of abiogenesis

[M.D. Rawlings]

Prufrock's Lair
Years of experience have shown me that most atheists are more obtuse than a pile of bricks. They are either breezily unaware of their metaphysical biases or are unwilling to objectively separate themselves from them long enough to engage in a reasonably calm and courteous discussion about the tenets of their religion: namely, abiogenesis and evolution. While science's historical presupposition is not a metaphysical naturalism (or an ontological naturalism), most of today's practicing scientists insist that the origins and compositions of empirical phenomena must be inferred without any consideration given to the possibility of intelligent causation and design. The limits of scientific inquiry are thereby reconfigured as if they constituted the limits of reality itself, the more expansive potentialities of human consciousness be damned. In other words, if something cannot be quantified by science, it doesn't exist, regardless of the conclusions that any rational evaluation of the empirical data might recommend. Hence, should one reject what is nothing more than the guesswork of an arbitrarily imposed apriority, one is said to reject science itself, as if the fanatics of scientism owned the means of science.

Ultimately, the essence of this perversion is a Darwinian naturalism run amok: mere theory elevated to an inviolable absolute of cosmological proportions, which displaces not only the traditional conventions of methodological naturalism (or mechanistic naturalism), but is superimposed on the discipline of science itself. Never has so much been owed to so little.

I'm well acquainted with the hypotheses, the research and the findings in the field of abiogenesis. Also, I understand evolutionary theory, inside and out. I know the science, and I'm current. Indeed, I'm light years ahead of the vast majority of atheists who routinely sneer at theists as the former unwittingly expose their ignorance about the science and the tremendously complex problems that routinely defy their dogma. These are the sheeple blindly following an ideologically driven community of scientists, which, since Darwin, is determined to overthrow the unassailable. God stands and stays: science can neither prove nor disprove His existence; it's not equipped to venture beyond the temporal realm. But this does not mean that the empirical data do not testify to His existence. Science is a contingent source of wisdom, not the beginning and the end of it. And science in the hands of materialists is the stuff of fairytales.

Prufrock's Lair: Abiogenesis: The Unholy Grail of Atheism

"...most of today's practicing scientists insist that the origins and compositions of empirical phenomena must be inferred without any consideration given to the possibility of intelligent causation and design."

Since there is zero scientific evidence for any deity, which would have caused or designed life, there is no allowance given for it. Offer some proof, of a scientific nature, and I am sure scientists will make allowances.

You demand that scientists allow for the effect of something that you cannot show the slightest evidence exists.

what scientific evidence exists to support the idea of abiogenesis?....are creation and abiogenesis simply competing non-falsifiable ideas?.....

Excellent question, but you’re asking the wrong person.

First, let's be clear about the point being made in the clause cited from my article in context.

The limits of scientific inquiry are thereby reconfigured as if they constituted the limits of reality itself, the more expansive potentialities of human consciousness be damned. In other words, if something cannot be quantified by science, it doesn't exist, regardless of the conclusions that any rational evaluation of the empirical data might recommend. Hence, should one reject what is nothing more than the guesswork of an arbitrarily imposed apriority, one is said to reject science itself, as if the fanatics of scientism owned the means of science.

I believe abiogenesis is falsifiable, at least theoretically. Indeed, I think it has been falsified for reasons propounded in my article, while all the empirical evidence and the imperatives of logic and mathematics point to the necessity of intelligent design concerning the origin of life.

Given the limits of scientific inquiry, the origin of life, or for that matter, the ultimate origin of the material realm of being itself, appears to reside in a region beyond the kin of science.

The extent of science’s utility is emphatically limited, and the baby talk of atheistic scientism would have us believe that the object of scientific inquiry constitutes the limit of existence itself or that the processes of scientific methodology constitute the limits of justifiable knowledge about the same.

WinterBorn unwittingly affirms my allegation in the opening paragraphs of my article regarding the atheist’s embarrassingly unimaginative and naive understanding of things.

He confounds the distinct concerns and actualities of ontology with those of epistemology. He confounds the distinction between mechanism and agency as well. But most of all, he fails to apprehend the difference between the interests and objectives of philosophy and theology, and those of science. The range of inquiry of the former is not constrained by the limits of the latter. In fact, the former precede and encompass the interests of the latter. Hence, the imperatives of the former not only dictate the boundaries of the latter, their various calculi are the means by which the assertions of science are evaluated in terms of their reliability. It’s not and cannot be the other way around.

Behold the stupidity of the new atheism which fails to grasp, let alone get beyond, the first principles of epistemology. The inability of atheism to account for and the specter of irrationality that arises in the act of denying the necessity of these inescapable imperatives of human consciousness should be enough to alert those with an IQ above that of gnat that there’s something seriously wrong with the notion that nothing exists beyond the space-time continuum or its intermediate progenitor the quantum vacuum!

 

[M.D. Rawlings]

Prufrock's Lair
Years of experience have shown me that most atheists are more obtuse than a pile of bricks. They are either breezily unaware of their metaphysical biases or are unwilling to objectively separate themselves from them long enough to engage in a reasonably calm and courteous discussion about the tenets of their religion: namely, abiogenesis and evolution. While science's historical presupposition is not a metaphysical naturalism (or an ontological naturalism), most of today's practicing scientists insist that the origins and compositions of empirical phenomena must be inferred without any consideration given to the possibility of intelligent causation and design. The limits of scientific inquiry are thereby reconfigured as if they constituted the limits of reality itself, the more expansive potentialities of human consciousness be damned. In other words, if something cannot be quantified by science, it doesn't exist, regardless of the conclusions that any rational evaluation of the empirical data might recommend. Hence, should one reject what is nothing more than the guesswork of an arbitrarily imposed apriority, one is said to reject science itself, as if the fanatics of scientism owned the means of science.

Ultimately, the essence of this perversion is a Darwinian naturalism run amok: mere theory elevated to an inviolable absolute of cosmological proportions, which displaces not only the traditional conventions of methodological naturalism (or mechanistic naturalism), but is superimposed on the discipline of science itself. Never has so much been owed to so little.

I'm well acquainted with the hypotheses, the research and the findings in the field of abiogenesis. Also, I understand evolutionary theory, inside and out. I know the science, and I'm current. Indeed, I'm light years ahead of the vast majority of atheists who routinely sneer at theists as the former unwittingly expose their ignorance about the science and the tremendously complex problems that routinely defy their dogma. These are the sheeple blindly following an ideologically driven community of scientists, which, since Darwin, is determined to overthrow the unassailable. God stands and stays: science can neither prove nor disprove His existence; it's not equipped to venture beyond the temporal realm. But this does not mean that the empirical data do not testify to His existence. Science is a contingent source of wisdom, not the beginning and the end of it. And science in the hands of materialists is the stuff of fairytales.

Prufrock's Lair: Abiogenesis: The Unholy Grail of Atheism

Good post!

The bottom line: It takes pure FAITH to believe that "billions" of years ago everything was created by nothingness as a result of a chaotic "big bang" or that a living organism just **popped** into existence by pure chance. That hypothesis/theory is 100% pure conjecture based on totally inconclusive and scant evidence.

It makes far more sense to believe that complex designs were created by and intelligent Designer than to believe that all that we see came to exist by pure mistake.

The proponents of abiogenesis would have us believe that it's possible for a tornado to blast through a junkyard resulting in the creation of a 777 jet. But anyone with even a partially functioning brain can plainly see that the intricate design of a 777 MUST be the result of an intelligent designer.

I mostly agree with you, but keep in mind, the atheist is not necessarily asserting that the universe arose from nothing; rather, he holds that the material realm of being, in one form or another, has always existed and that our universe, perhaps one among many, was caused by a fluctuation of gravitational energy in the quantum vacuum, the ground state of energy for all matter. The only dispute I have with him in that regard, i.e., insofar as the processes of the quantum vacuum obtain, goes to the notion that the ultimate origin of all things is not transcendently immaterial and sentient.

 

[M.D. Rawlings]

it saddens me just how proud of being ignorant people are when it comes to math and science. Ask someone if they can read or write and if they can't it's a source of shame. Ask someone if they can do a quadratic equation or understand what f=ma means and they are almost proud to tell you they don't know and never will.

I understand math and science are hard, require work, and have the power to threaten long held beliefs, but to revel in ignorance as though it is a badge of honor is just something I can't wrap my head around.

Hmm.

Well, I can solve a quadratic equation, and I know what f=ma means. I also understand the mathematics of functions, which includes the understanding that any value divided by infinitely, for example, is not zero. I'm also well-versed in the science of abiogenesis and evolution.

The topic has to do with what abiogenetic research has revealed about the prerequisites of life and the conditions under which life appeared. Aside from a big fat zero and the false insinuation that recent developments in mathematics or science have in any way, shape or form undermined history's predominant, long-held belief concerning the ultimate nature of the eternally existent uncaused cause of all other things, have you anything to add to that store of knowledge?

 

[M.D. Rawlings]

That will surely win over the Atheists!

Obviously your little rant is for persuading believers, not Atheists.

Obviously, my interest in this instance is to expose the ignorance and arrogance of atheists, not win atheists over. . . .

My little rant? That's the introduction to a rather involved work . . . exposing the ignorance and arrogance of atheists.

It's intended to arm the creationist concerning the illusions of materialism, the religion of atheists, and that faith's doctrine of metaphysical naturalism.

Yourself!

And the implied examples of my ignorance are?

And your counter argument predicated on the available data of abiogenetic research is?

And the empirical substance of your scientific presupposition and metaphysics (ontological naturalism and materialism) is?
__________________________________________

How very pathetic and predicable. . . .

We have WinterBorn's incoherent, pseudoscientific blather.

edthecynic's baseless gibberish.

Steven_R's vapid bromides.

And this rather unenlightening missive from Matthew:

Hi, you have received -836 reputation points from Matthew.
Reputation was given for this post.

Comment:
The closes thing to god is black dick. True story

Behold, creationists, the paper tiger that atheism truly is. Behold the mindless screeds that it's articles of faith truly are. But most of all, note the typical atheist's staggering ignorance and his inability to formulate any argument that isn't irrelevant or moonbat crazy in the face of real science and philosophy.

 

[DriftingSand]

The bottom line: It takes pure FAITH to believe that "billions" of years ago everything was created by nothingness as a result of a chaotic "big bang" or that a living organism just **popped** into existence by pure chance. That hypothesis/theory is 100% pure conjecture based on totally inconclusive and scant evidence.

It makes far more sense to believe that complex designs were created by and intelligent Designer than to believe that all that we see came to exist by pure mistake.

The proponents of abiogenesis would have us believe that it's possible for a tornado to blast through a junkyard resulting in the creation of a 777 jet. But anyone with even a partially functioning brain can plainly see that the intricate design of a 777 MUST be the result of an intelligent designer.

When you have to misrepresent science to disprove it, you subconsciously admit you really believe science is on the right track and your religion is not.
Thank you.

There is nothing intrinsically wrong with science as long as it's based on fact rather than conjecture or wishful thinking. The word "science" simply means "knowledge." Considering the fact that abiogenesis has NEVER occurred in a controlled, measurable situation then nobody can "know" beyond a shadow of a doubt that it ever occurred at all. One must close his eyes real tightly and say "I believe in abiogenesis - I believe in abiogenesis - I believe in abiogenesis" (three times) to convince himself that it's true. Otherwise, it's pure guesswork and requires lots of faith to believe it.

 

[edthecynic]

Prufrock's Lair
Years of experience have shown me that most atheists are more obtuse than a pile of bricks. They are either breezily unaware of their metaphysical biases or are unwilling to objectively separate themselves from them long enough to engage in a reasonably calm and courteous discussion about the tenets of their religion: namely, abiogenesis and evolution. While science's historical presupposition is not a metaphysical naturalism (or an ontological naturalism), most of today's practicing scientists insist that the origins and compositions of empirical phenomena must be inferred without any consideration given to the possibility of intelligent causation and design. The limits of scientific inquiry are thereby reconfigured as if they constituted the limits of reality itself, the more expansive potentialities of human consciousness be damned. In other words, if something cannot be quantified by science, it doesn't exist, regardless of the conclusions that any rational evaluation of the empirical data might recommend. Hence, should one reject what is nothing more than the guesswork of an arbitrarily imposed apriority, one is said to reject science itself, as if the fanatics of scientism owned the means of science.

Ultimately, the essence of this perversion is a Darwinian naturalism run amok: mere theory elevated to an inviolable absolute of cosmological proportions, which displaces not only the traditional conventions of methodological naturalism (or mechanistic naturalism), but is superimposed on the discipline of science itself. Never has so much been owed to so little.

I'm well acquainted with the hypotheses, the research and the findings in the field of abiogenesis. Also, I understand evolutionary theory, inside and out. I know the science, and I'm current. Indeed, I'm light years ahead of the vast majority of atheists who routinely sneer at theists as the former unwittingly expose their ignorance about the science and the tremendously complex problems that routinely defy their dogma. These are the sheeple blindly following an ideologically driven community of scientists, which, since Darwin, is determined to overthrow the unassailable. God stands and stays: science can neither prove nor disprove His existence; it's not equipped to venture beyond the temporal realm. But this does not mean that the empirical data do not testify to His existence. Science is a contingent source of wisdom, not the beginning and the end of it. And science in the hands of materialists is the stuff of fairytales.

Prufrock's Lair: Abiogenesis: The Unholy Grail of Atheism

Good post!

The bottom line: It takes pure FAITH to believe that "billions" of years ago everything was created by nothingness as a result of a chaotic "big bang" or that a living organism just **popped** into existence by pure chance. That hypothesis/theory is 100% pure conjecture based on totally inconclusive and scant evidence.

It makes far more sense to believe that complex designs were created by and intelligent Designer than to believe that all that we see came to exist by pure mistake.

The proponents of abiogenesis would have us believe that it's possible for a tornado to blast through a junkyard resulting in the creation of a 777 jet. But anyone with even a partially functioning brain can plainly see that the intricate design of a 777 MUST be the result of an intelligent designer.

I mostly agree with you, but keep in mind, the atheist is not necessarily asserting that the universe arose from nothing; rather, he holds that the material realm of being, in one form or another, has always existed and that our universe, perhaps one among many, was caused by a fluctuation of gravitational energy in the quantum vacuum, the ground state of energy for all matter. The only dispute I have with him in that regard, i.e., insofar as the processes of the quantum vacuum obtain, goes to the notion that the ultimate origin of all things is not transcendently immaterial and sentient.

If your God is not "immaterial" then what material is it?
The proven First Law of Thermodynamics says essentially, "you can't get material from the immaterial."

 

[edthecynic]

Obviously, my interest in this instance is to expose the ignorance and arrogance of atheists, not win atheists over. . . .

My little rant? That's the introduction to a rather involved work . . . exposing the ignorance and arrogance of atheists.

It's intended to arm the creationist concerning the illusions of materialism, the religion of atheists, and that faith's doctrine of metaphysical naturalism.

Yourself!

And the implied examples of my ignorance are?

Not implied at all, your ignorance of your arrogance is obvious!

 

[M.D. Rawlings]

Good post!

The bottom line: It takes pure FAITH to believe that "billions" of years ago everything was created by nothingness as a result of a chaotic "big bang" or that a living organism just **popped** into existence by pure chance. That hypothesis/theory is 100% pure conjecture based on totally inconclusive and scant evidence.

It makes far more sense to believe that complex designs were created by and intelligent Designer than to believe that all that we see came to exist by pure mistake.

The proponents of abiogenesis would have us believe that it's possible for a tornado to blast through a junkyard resulting in the creation of a 777 jet. But anyone with even a partially functioning brain can plainly see that the intricate design of a 777 MUST be the result of an intelligent designer.

I mostly agree with you, but keep in mind, the atheist is not necessarily asserting that the universe arose from nothing; rather, he holds that the material realm of being, in one form or another, has always existed and that our universe, perhaps one among many, was caused by a fluctuation of gravitational energy in the quantum vacuum, the ground state of energy for all matter. The only dispute I have with him in that regard, i.e., insofar as the processes of the quantum vacuum obtain, goes to the notion that the ultimate origin of all things is not transcendently immaterial and sentient.

If your God is not "immaterial" then what material is it?
The proven First Law of Thermodynamics says essentially, "you can't get material from the immaterial."

The Laws of Thermodynamics pertain to that which is divisible and, therefore, finite only, i.e., to the space-time continuum only . . . or, perhaps, to other universes beyond our own generated by energy fluctuations in the quantum vacuum.

This article may be of further help to you concerning the nature of your error: Prufrock's Lair: A Mountain of Nothin' out of Somethin' or Another

 

[M.D. Rawlings]

Yourself!

And the implied examples of my ignorance are?

Not implied at all, your ignorance of your arrogance is obvious!

Oh, I see. Well, that's a different matter altogether now, isn't it? But is it arrogance or confidence? Or in some cases, contempt for the arrogance of the ignorance expressed by atheists?

 

[edthecynic]

I mostly agree with you, but keep in mind, the atheist is not necessarily asserting that the universe arose from nothing; rather, he holds that the material realm of being, in one form or another, has always existed and that our universe, perhaps one among many, was caused by a fluctuation of gravitational energy in the quantum vacuum, the ground state of energy for all matter. The only dispute I have with him in that regard, i.e., insofar as the processes of the quantum vacuum obtain, goes to the notion that the ultimate origin of all things is not transcendently immaterial and sentient.

If your God is not "immaterial" then what material is it?
The proven First Law of Thermodynamics says essentially, "you can't get material from the immaterial."

The Laws of Thermodynamics pertain to that which is ...http://michaeldavidrawlings1.blogspot.com/2012/10/a-mountain-of-nothin-out-of-somethin-or.html

Real.

 

[edthecynic]

And the implied examples of my ignorance are?

Not implied at all, your ignorance of your arrogance is obvious!

Oh, I see. Well, that's a different matter altogether now, isn't it? But is it arrogance or confidence? Or in some cases, contempt for the arrogance of the ignorance expressed by atheists?

I would say arrogance.

When you sow contempt you reap contempt. Did you ever think the arrogance of ignorance you see in Atheists is nothing more than arrogance of your contempt reflecting back to you?

Whatever God that has taken over your soul is contemptible based on your behavior under its influence.
Get it?

 

[BobPlumb]

I find my faith going back and forth concerning God. We seem to demand an explaination of how we and our universe came to be. Many through faith beleive that God must have created everything due to all the complexities of the universe, yet accept that God has existed forever. Isn't God greater than his creation? If so, then by the same logic that people use to say that our complex universe must have been designed by an intelligent being, then that intelligent being must also have been designed by someone. When I dwell on this I get lost in the contradictions of this process of inductive reasoning.

I think maybe I should accept living in the here and now. It is very unlikely that a being as small and with such a short life span as myself will ever discover how the universe really began. The best we can do is make some SWAGs (Scientific Wild Ass Guesses ) which are impossible to verify.

 

[M.D. Rawlings]

Not implied at all, your ignorance of your arrogance is obvious!

Oh, I see. Well, that's a different matter altogether now, isn't it? But is it arrogance or confidence? Or in some cases, contempt for the arrogance of the ignorance expressed by atheists?

I would say arrogance.

When you sow contempt you reap contempt. Did you ever think the arrogance of ignorance you see in Atheists is nothing more than arrogance of your contempt reflecting back to you?

Whatever God that has taken over your soul is contemptible based on your behavior under its influence.
Get it?

I know both agnostics and atheists who know the canon of history's very best philosophical and theological thought, and grasp the unassailable implications of the rational and empirical supports for theism. They know they're nothing to sneeze at. They're as contemptuously fed up with the intellectually obtuse and dishonest prattle of the new atheism as I. Why they remain agnostics and atheists is to some extent a mystery even to them, though I know it to be a spiritual problem.

Concerning the history of ideas and events, the average atheist is an illiterate dolt, but any keen mind can handily dismantle the atheist's nonsensical metaphysics at a glance.

You really have no idea just how ignorant and embarrassingly bad the arguments of the new atheism are. The Internet is rife with them. Even the likes of Dawkins, Hawking and Krauss, for example, for all their undeniable brilliance, are poorly read outside their respective fields of expertise and woefully lacking in commonsense with regard to the fundamental, categorical distinctions of ontology and epistemology.

They're theological and philosophical retards who routinely and unwittingly affirm the very opposite of what they think their arguments prove--the inherently contradictory, self-negating complexion of their arguments flies right over their heads. But worst of all, the vast majority of their arguments are not only risible on the very face of them, appallingly stupid, they were vanquished by the leading lights of philosophy, theology and science centuries ago!

You complain about my supposed arrogance when in fact I'm fully cognizant of just how little I know, how staggeringly complex reality is. It's the atheist who naively believes that science, which is inextricably contingent to the imperatives of philosophy and theology, is the Alpha and Omega of knowledge, despite the fact that each new discovery, both real and imagined, divulges yet a whole new set of innumerable questions, the very most important aspects of which are philosophical and theological.

God in the gaps? The atheists who attribute this nonexistent fallacy to theists are delusional, plagued by the very real fallacy that confounds the distinction between agency and mechanism.

Arrogance? The average atheist reeks of it virtually every time he opens his yap to sneer at the theist . . . as he mindlessly spews the silliest things. WinterBorn, for example.

What about the truth?

Get it?

 

[M.D. Rawlings]

I find my faith going back and forth concerning God. We seem to demand an explaination of how we and our universe came to be. Many through faith beleive that God must have created everything due to all the complexities of the universe, yet accept that God has existed forever. Isn't God greater than his creation? If so, then by the same logic that people use to say that our complex universe must have been designed by an intelligent being, then that intelligent being must also have been designed by someone. When I dwell on this I get lost in the contradictions of this process of inductive reasoning.

I think maybe I should accept living in the here and now. It is very unlikely that a being as small and with such a short life span as myself will ever discover how the universe really began. The best we can do is make some SWAGs (Scientific Wild Ass Guesses ) which are impossible to verify.

God, by definition, is the epitome of perfection, lacking nothing, eternally self-subsistent and, therefore, uncreated. There's nothing logical about imaginary contradictions. You merely fail to apprehend the ramifications of the reductio ad absurdum of the irreducible mind or of the infinite regression of origin.

We are here; therefore, something or another has always existed, and that something is the ultimate origin of all other things. The known potentialities in terms of being are two, and one of them is greater than the other: inanimateness or sentience.

Choose.

I'm really sorry that you feel conflicted, but it's really not a problem.

As for how the universe began. We already known that or least we know that it began as a result of an energy fluctuation in the quantum vacuum. As to ultimate cause, make no mistake about it, the universe screams God's existence. His fingerprints are all over it.

Prufrock's Cave

 

[JWBooth]

I have enjoyed making love to atheist women, but they still scream My God!!

In that moment you became a diety to them?

 

[SAYIT]

Nonsense, the empirical evidence screams God's existence, i.e., that the eternal, self-subsistent uncaused caused of all other things is sentient and immaterial. The greatest minds have always understood that.

Absolute nonsense. If you are suggesting that science accept (and even promote) the idea that an unknown deity caused/designed life, then there must be some evidence of the existence of that deity. Otherwise there is just an unknown mechanism.

And no, the empirical evidence does NOT scream God's existence. There are, obviously, things we have not yet discovered or that we cannot explain. To suggest that all of those are evidence of the existence of God is ridiculous. Your posts are the modern equivalent of suggesting the sun moves around the earth.

Absolute nonsense, back at you. I suggested no such stupid thing, that is to say, insofar as you comprehend the matter, given your risibly stupid, incoherent baby talk.

The limitations of science are profoundly obvious. It can neither affirm nor falsify the substance of things beyond the material realm of being. That's what you actually meant, right? It can't even affirm its own presupposition as the latter is metaphysical.

But as we shall soon see below, once all the smoke and mirrors of your unwitting folly are demolished, that's not what you said at all.

Empirical evidence and logic, in and of themselves, YOU BRAYING JACKASS, are not science, which is what you actually argued in your foolish and clumsy attempt to misrepresent my observation. If what you imply were true (your idiocy which confounds the distinction between epistemology and ontology), there would be no grounds for supposing or falsifying anything, whether it be material or immaterial, but no doubt that fact of reality flies right over your head.

Idiot.

You don't fly anywhere near the altitude of my intellect. It's not even close.

You talk to me, you had better pay attention, infant. You had better read who you're up against before you open your piehole again. I'll embarrass you every time you think to instruct me on matters of science, the philosophy of science, philosophy in general, logic or theology.

You're strictly a second-rater, a clueless twit, an unexamined life.

Woo. You opened by trashing atheists and whining about their inability or unwillingness to, and I quote, "objectively separate themselves from them (the tenets of their religion) long enough to engage in a reasonably calm and courteous discussion..." yet when confronted with just such an argument you strut like a pompous jackass and prove incapable of having "a reasonably calm and courteous discussion." My guess is your are far too "intelligent" to see your raging hypocrisy. Go figure.


"Years of experience have shown me that most atheists are more obtuse than a pile of bricks. They are either breezily unaware of their metaphysical biases or are unwilling to objectively separate themselves from them long enough to engage in a reasonably calm and courteous discussion about the tenets of their religion." - M. D. Rawlings

 

[edthecynic]

Oh, I see. Well, that's a different matter altogether now, isn't it? But is it arrogance or confidence? Or in some cases, contempt for the arrogance of the ignorance expressed by atheists?

I would say arrogance.

When you sow contempt you reap contempt. Did you ever think the arrogance of ignorance you see in Atheists is nothing more than arrogance of your contempt reflecting back to you?

Whatever God that has taken over your soul is contemptible based on your behavior under its influence.
Get it?

I know both agnostics and atheists who know the canon of history's very best philosophical and theological thought, and grasp the unassailable implications of the rational and empirical supports for theism. They know they're nothing to sneeze at. They're as contemptuously fed up with the intellectually obtuse and dishonest prattle of the new atheism as I. Why they remain agnostics and atheists is to some extent a mystery even to them, though I know it to be a spiritual problem.

Concerning the history of ideas and events, the average atheist is an illiterate dolt, but any keen mind can handily dismantle the atheist's nonsensical metaphysics at a glance.

You really have no idea just how ignorant and embarrassingly bad the arguments of the new atheism are. The Internet is rife with them. Even the likes of Dawkins, Hawking and Krauss, for example, for all their undeniable brilliance, are poorly read outside their respective fields of expertise and woefully lacking in commonsense with regard to the fundamental, categorical distinctions of ontology and epistemology.

They're theological and philosophical retards who routinely and unwittingly affirm the very opposite of what they think their arguments prove--the inherently contradictory, self-negating complexion of their arguments flies right over their heads. But worst of all, the vast majority of their arguments are not only risible on the very face of them, appallingly stupid, they were vanquished by the leading lights of philosophy, theology and science centuries ago!

You complain about my supposed arrogance when in fact I'm fully cognizant of just how little I know, how staggeringly complex reality is. It's the atheist who naively believes that science, which is inextricably contingent to the imperatives of philosophy and theology, is the Alpha and Omega of knowledge, despite the fact that each new discovery, both real and imagined, divulges yet a whole new set of innumerable questions, the very most important aspects of which are philosophical and theological.

God in the gaps? The atheists who attribute this nonexistent fallacy to theists are delusional, plagued by the very real fallacy that confounds the distinction between agency and mechanism.

Arrogance? The average atheist reeks of it virtually every time he opens his yap to sneer at the theist . . . as he mindlessly spews the silliest things. WinterBorn, for example.

What about the truth?

Get it?

Again, your rant describes yourself more than anyone else.

For example, you accuse the Atheist of spewing the silliest things and you spew Atheism as Metaphysical! Atheism is Existential not Metaphysical, exposing your lack of knowledge about the most basic concepts of both.

 

[M.D. Rawlings]

Absolute nonsense. If you are suggesting that science accept (and even promote) the idea that an unknown deity caused/designed life, then there must be some evidence of the existence of that deity. Otherwise there is just an unknown mechanism.

And no, the empirical evidence does NOT scream God's existence. There are, obviously, things we have not yet discovered or that we cannot explain. To suggest that all of those are evidence of the existence of God is ridiculous. Your posts are the modern equivalent of suggesting the sun moves around the earth.

Absolute nonsense, back at you. I suggested no such stupid thing, that is to say, insofar as you comprehend the matter, given your risibly stupid, incoherent baby talk.

The limitations of science are profoundly obvious. It can neither affirm nor falsify the substance of things beyond the material realm of being. That's what you actually meant, right? It can't even affirm its own presupposition as the latter is metaphysical.

But as we shall soon see below, once all the smoke and mirrors of your unwitting folly are demolished, that's not what you said at all.

Empirical evidence and logic, in and of themselves, YOU BRAYING JACKASS, are not science, which is what you actually argued in your foolish and clumsy attempt to misrepresent my observation. If what you imply were true (your idiocy which confounds the distinction between epistemology and ontology), there would be no grounds for supposing or falsifying anything, whether it be material or immaterial, but no doubt that fact of reality flies right over your head.

Idiot.

You don't fly anywhere near the altitude of my intellect. It's not even close.

You talk to me, you had better pay attention, infant. You had better read who you're up against before you open your piehole again. I'll embarrass you every time you think to instruct me on matters of science, the philosophy of science, philosophy in general, logic or theology.

You're strictly a second-rater, a clueless twit, an unexamined life.

Woo. You opened by trashing atheists and whining about their inability or unwillingness to, and I quote, "objectively separate themselves from them (the tenets of their religion) long enough to engage in a reasonably calm and courteous discussion..." yet when confronted with just such an argument you strut like a pompous jackass and prove incapable of having "a reasonably calm and courteous discussion." My guess is your are far too "intelligent" to see your raging hypocrisy. Go figure.


"Years of experience have shown me that most atheists are more obtuse than a pile of bricks. They are either breezily unaware of their metaphysical biases or are unwilling to objectively separate themselves from them long enough to engage in a reasonably calm and courteous discussion about the tenets of their religion." - M. D. Rawlings

Oh, stop it. I'm gettin' a weepy, snot-stained hanky feelin'.

 

[M.D. Rawlings]

I would say arrogance.

When you sow contempt you reap contempt. Did you ever think the arrogance of ignorance you see in Atheists is nothing more than arrogance of your contempt reflecting back to you?

Whatever God that has taken over your soul is contemptible based on your behavior under its influence.
Get it?

I know both agnostics and atheists who know the canon of history's very best philosophical and theological thought, and grasp the unassailable implications of the rational and empirical supports for theism. They know they're nothing to sneeze at. They're as contemptuously fed up with the intellectually obtuse and dishonest prattle of the new atheism as I. Why they remain agnostics and atheists is to some extent a mystery even to them, though I know it to be a spiritual problem.

Concerning the history of ideas and events, the average atheist is an illiterate dolt, but any keen mind can handily dismantle the atheist's nonsensical metaphysics at a glance.

You really have no idea just how ignorant and embarrassingly bad the arguments of the new atheism are. The Internet is rife with them. Even the likes of Dawkins, Hawking and Krauss, for example, for all their undeniable brilliance, are poorly read outside their respective fields of expertise and woefully lacking in commonsense with regard to the fundamental, categorical distinctions of ontology and epistemology.

They're theological and philosophical retards who routinely and unwittingly affirm the very opposite of what they think their arguments prove--the inherently contradictory, self-negating complexion of their arguments flies right over their heads. But worst of all, the vast majority of their arguments are not only risible on the very face of them, appallingly stupid, they were vanquished by the leading lights of philosophy, theology and science centuries ago!

You complain about my supposed arrogance when in fact I'm fully cognizant of just how little I know, how staggeringly complex reality is. It's the atheist who naively believes that science, which is inextricably contingent to the imperatives of philosophy and theology, is the Alpha and Omega of knowledge, despite the fact that each new discovery, both real and imagined, divulges yet a whole new set of innumerable questions, the very most important aspects of which are philosophical and theological.

God in the gaps? The atheists who attribute this nonexistent fallacy to theists are delusional, plagued by the very real fallacy that confounds the distinction between agency and mechanism.

Arrogance? The average atheist reeks of it virtually every time he opens his yap to sneer at the theist . . . as he mindlessly spews the silliest things. WinterBorn, for example.

What about the truth?

Get it?

Again, your rant describes yourself more than anyone else.

For example, you accuse the Atheist of spewing the silliest things and you spew Atheism as Metaphysical! Atheism is Existential not Metaphysical, exposing your lack of knowledge about the most basic concepts of both.

Ah! Another attempt to assert something of substance rather than wasting space on personal irrelevancies as is the wont of you atheists on this thread. I wonder if you'll be as honest about your error here as you were about your error regarding the application of the Laws of Thermodynamics to eternal potentialities beyond the reaches of time and space.

I'm obviously referring to metaphysics proper, as in the branch of philosophy concerned with explaining the fundamental nature of being and the reality that encompasses it. The adjectival term metaphysical may also refer to that which is related to or based on the same.

However, in your post you're using the term--metaphysical, not metaphysics-- in the sense of things that may consist of a substance that cannot be detected by our senses, either directly or indirectly.

By the way, existentialism most certainly is a metaphysical claim (proper) about the fundamental nature of being and the reality that encompasses it.

You are refuted, infant.

Next.

 

[BobPlumb]

I find my faith going back and forth concerning God. We seem to demand an explaination of how we and our universe came to be. Many through faith beleive that God must have created everything due to all the complexities of the universe, yet accept that God has existed forever. Isn't God greater than his creation? If so, then by the same logic that people use to say that our complex universe must have been designed by an intelligent being, then that intelligent being must also have been designed by someone. When I dwell on this I get lost in the contradictions of this process of inductive reasoning.

I think maybe I should accept living in the here and now. It is very unlikely that a being as small and with such a short life span as myself will ever discover how the universe really began. The best we can do is make some SWAGs (Scientific Wild Ass Guesses ) which are impossible to verify.

God, by definition, is the epitome of perfection, lacking nothing, eternally self-subsistent and, therefore, uncreated. There's nothing logical about imaginary contradictions. You merely fail to apprehend the ramifications of the reductio ad absurdum of the irreducible mind or of the infinite regression of origin.

We are here; therefore, something or another has always existed, and that something is the ultimate origin of all other things. The known potentialities in terms of being are two, and one of them is greater than the other: inanimateness or sentience.

Choose.

I'm really sorry that you feel conflicted, but it's really not a problem.

As for how the universe began. We already known that or least we know that it began as a result of an energy fluctuation in the quantum vacuum. As to ultimate cause, make no mistake about it, the universe screams God's existence. His fingerprints are all over it.

Prufrock's Cave

If we can assume that a God has always existed, could the universe also have always existed?