Two Questions for Atheists

[Boss]

That is not at all what scientists have determined. In fact it was the exact opposite. Even though we cannot detect dark matter directly, we know that it does have mass, as demonstrated by the fact that it affects gravitational force. You presume that because we have no way to directly observe dark matter now, that it is, magically. different fro all observable matter, and has no mass. There is absolutely no existing model that supports that hypothesis.

The ONLY way we know it has what we can call "mass" is because of the gravity it produces. We cannot physically interact with it to observe it. It doesn't have physical mass in the sense of physical matter and no existing model has ever proven otherwise.

Now... IF you want to call that "MAGIC" ...then that's fine! You've just proven that "MAGIC" things can certainly be REAL things that DO exist in our universe!

We cannot physically interact with it to observe it.

Presently. That is the word you keep not using. Science developed the atomic theory of matter long before we were able to directly detect them. No scientist actually suggests that either WIMPS, or axions have no mass. In fact, you're the first person I have heard suggest that.

Well... PRESENTLY we can't physically interact with God! *BOOM* Mic drop!

 

[Tuatara]

And now you're just playing semantics. when we want to define something. anything, we do so by describing it using language.

I'm having to stop and play semantics because you act like you're three years old! To DESCRIBE is not to DEFINE! Two entirely different words with different meanings!

For breakfast this morning, I consumed something brown and crunchy with something sweet, sticky and fruity spread on it. I have DESCRIBED my breakfast... I have NOT DEFINED my breakfast! You have no fucking clue whether I had toast and jelly, English muffin and marmalade or a bagel and jam... or possibly any combination thereof, or possibly something entirely different that isn't DEFINED!

Now... Again... you have NOT defined gravity! You have described the effects of gravity or what you believe to be the effects... you're not even getting that part entirely correct.

The description of gravity is the force that attracts a body towards the centre of the Earth. Now, you can say that you do not understand what is meant by force. Then the word force is described - a push or pull upon an object resulting from the object's interaction with another object.

That may be YOUR description of the effects of gravity but it is not defining what gravity is. And AGAIN.... According to Einstein, gravity is the consequence of curvature in space-time. It has nothing to do with the center (or centre(sic)) of the Earth. Gravity certainly hasn't anything to do with interaction of objects if dark matter produces gravity because dark matter doesn't interact with material objects.

It certainly does. The gravitational pull is dependent on the size and density of the object. Also gravity does have something to do with the interaction of objects as we see from Newton's Law of Universal Gravitation in which describes gravity as a force which causes any two bodies to be attracted to each other, with the force proportional to the product of their masses and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between them. You most definitely are playing the semantics game.

 

[Czernobog]

And now you're just playing semantics. when we want to define something. anything, we do so by describing it using language.

I'm having to stop and play semantics because you act like you're three years old! To DESCRIBE is not to DEFINE! Two entirely different words with different meanings!

For breakfast this morning, I consumed something brown and crunchy with something sweet, sticky and fruity spread on it. I have DESCRIBED my breakfast... I have NOT DEFINED my breakfast! You have no fucking clue whether I had toast and jelly, English muffin and marmalade or a bagel and jam... or possibly any combination thereof, or possibly something entirely different that isn't DEFINED!

Now... Again... you have NOT defined gravity! You have described the effects of gravity or what you believe to be the effects... you're not even getting that part entirely correct.

Really?!?! DEFINE an English Muffin!

 

[Czernobog]

That is not at all what scientists have determined. In fact it was the exact opposite. Even though we cannot detect dark matter directly, we know that it does have mass, as demonstrated by the fact that it affects gravitational force. You presume that because we have no way to directly observe dark matter now, that it is, magically. different fro all observable matter, and has no mass. There is absolutely no existing model that supports that hypothesis.

The ONLY way we know it has what we can call "mass" is because of the gravity it produces. We cannot physically interact with it to observe it. It doesn't have physical mass in the sense of physical matter and no existing model has ever proven otherwise.

Now... IF you want to call that "MAGIC" ...then that's fine! You've just proven that "MAGIC" things can certainly be REAL things that DO exist in our universe!

We cannot physically interact with it to observe it.

Presently. That is the word you keep not using. Science developed the atomic theory of matter long before we were able to directly detect them. No scientist actually suggests that either WIMPS, or axions have no mass. In fact, you're the first person I have heard suggest that.

Well... PRESENTLY we can't physically interact with God! *BOOM* Mic drop!

Fantastic! So, I assume, just like dark matter, while we can't detect God, you can demonstrate objective, verifiable evidence of God's effect on the universe? If not, your mic drop was rather premature.

 

[Boss]

And now you're just playing semantics. when we want to define something. anything, we do so by describing it using language.

I'm having to stop and play semantics because you act like you're three years old! To DESCRIBE is not to DEFINE! Two entirely different words with different meanings!

For breakfast this morning, I consumed something brown and crunchy with something sweet, sticky and fruity spread on it. I have DESCRIBED my breakfast... I have NOT DEFINED my breakfast! You have no fucking clue whether I had toast and jelly, English muffin and marmalade or a bagel and jam... or possibly any combination thereof, or possibly something entirely different that isn't DEFINED!

Now... Again... you have NOT defined gravity! You have described the effects of gravity or what you believe to be the effects... you're not even getting that part entirely correct.

Really?!?! DEFINE an English Muffin!

English muffin - Wikipedia

 

[Boss]

It certainly does. The gravitational pull is dependent on the size and density of the object.

No such thing as "gravitational pull" has nothing to do with density of any object.

 

[Boss]

Fantastic! So, I assume, just like dark matter, while we can't detect God, you can demonstrate objective, verifiable evidence of God's effect on the universe? If not, your mic drop was rather premature.

Sure... as soon as you present objective, verifiable evidence of dark matter's effect on the universe.

 

[Tuatara]

It certainly does. The gravitational pull is dependent on the size and density of the object.

No such thing as "gravitational pull" has nothing to do with density of any object.

Relative density, or specific gravity, is the ratio of the density (mass of a unit volume) of a substance to the density of a given reference material. Specific gravity usually means relative density with respect to water. The term "relative density" is often preferred in scientific usage. It is defined as a ratio of density of particular substance with that of water.

The moon's gravitational pull of our water (the tides) has to do with the density of the water.
Fundamentals of Fluid Mechanics

 

[Boss]

oh yeah... still waiting for you to define what gravity is.

 

[Boss]

It certainly does. The gravitational pull is dependent on the size and density of the object.

No such thing as "gravitational pull" has nothing to do with density of any object.

Relative density, or specific gravity, is the ratio of the density (mass of a unit volume) of a substance to the density of a given reference material. Specific gravity usually means relative density with respect to water. The term "relative density" is often preferred in scientific usage. It is defined as a ratio of density of particular substance with that of water.

The moon's gravitational pull of our water (the tides) has to do with the density of the water.
Fundamentals of Fluid Mechanics

This is not defining what gravity is.

 

[Tuatara]

Do you hope that you are wrong or do you hope that you are right?

You really need to clarify this question. Atheists do not believe in all gods. Are you asking specifically about the Abraham-ac God?

It certainly does. The gravitational pull is dependent on the size and density of the object.

No such thing as "gravitational pull" has nothing to do with density of any object.

Relative density, or specific gravity, is the ratio of the density (mass of a unit volume) of a substance to the density of a given reference material. Specific gravity usually means relative density with respect to water. The term "relative density" is often preferred in scientific usage. It is defined as a ratio of density of particular substance with that of water.

The moon's gravitational pull of our water (the tides) has to do with the density of the water.
Fundamentals of Fluid Mechanics

This is not defining what gravity is.

You did not ask me to define gravity. You directly stated that "gravitational pull" has nothing to do with density of any object. I pointed out you were wrong. You are now being very dishonest.

 

[Tuatara]

oh yeah... still waiting for you to define what gravity is.

Simple google search will do that . It's really a handy tool.

definition of gravity - Google Search

 

[hobelim]

I wasn't necessarily referring to Nostradamus or the Bible, but since you brought it up one would have to understand what scripture is referring to before they would know whether any prophecy came true or not.

For instance, if you read a prophecy about the dead coming out of their graves you could sit in the graveyard for as long as some people will wait for Jesus to come down from the clouds in the sky and it will never come true.

However if you understood that the dead coming out of their graves and tombs is a prophecy about people rejecting all that is false about irrational beliefs and degrading religious practices and embracing a new life in harmony with actual reality you would have seen it fulfilled with your own eyes for your entire life if you weren't as blind as a dingbat.

Heck, you wouldn't even know it if the resurrected dead were standing everywhere, all around you, watching.

Except there are five expectations of prophesy:

1. It must be accurate - A statement cannot be Biblical foreknowledge if it is not accurate, because knowledge (and thus foreknowledge) excludes inaccurate statements.
2. It must be in the Bible - A statement cannot be Biblical foreknowledge if it is not in the Bible, because Biblical by definition foreknowledge can only come from the Bible itself, rather than modern reinterpretations of the text.
3. It must be precise and unambiguous. - A statement cannot be Biblical foreknowledge if meaningless philosophical musings or multiple possible ideas could fulfil the foreknowledge, because ambiguity prevents one from knowing whether the foreknowledge was intentional rather than accidental.
4. It must be improbable - A statement cannot be Biblical foreknowledge if it reasonably could be the result of a pure guess, because foreknowledge requires a person to actually know something true, while a correct guess doesn't mean that the guesser knows anything. This also excludes contemporary beliefs that happened be true but were believed to be true without solid evidence.
5. It must have been unknown - A statement cannot be Biblical foreknowledge if it reasonably could be the result of an educated guess based off contemporary knowledge, because foreknowledge requires a person to know a statement when it would have been impossible, outside of supernatural power, for that person to know it.

Now, you're example falls short of the third principle for Biblical prophesy. You see, if the prophesy is not unambiguous, and requires an interpreter, then it isn't prophesy. So, either the prophesy means exactly what it said, or it isn't prophesy.

Not so fast sparkie.

In scripture the subject of the living and the dead is very unambiguous to the intelligent reader.

Choose life and live; If not you will surely die.

Just as Adam did not die a physical death in the very day he ate of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, the subject of the resurrection of the dead is not about the resumption of a former physical life.

it is about entry into a new higher realm of conscious existence, one that conforms to reality, free of the fear, torment and confusion of a religiously addled mind or the mind that tries to base its conclusions on only half the facts which is like trying to build a shelter with only half the money required..

Just as the gulf that exists between you and believers is a great as the gulf that exists between the living and the dead, the transformation of the person that abandons superstition for reality , all the facts, amounts to the resurrection of the dead. A several thousand year old prophetic miracle according to every definition, certainly not evident, likely, or a logical extrapolation at the time of prophecy..

For so long as you refuse to see what has been put right in front of your eyes, the facts, you too cannot be counted among the living.....

The problem with your attempt to reinterpret the Biblical origin story, there is no philosophical gymnastics necessary for that story to be accurate. "Eat of this tree, and you shall surely die," Didn't say, "You'll fall dead on the spot," Just said you. Will. Die. Correct me if I am mistaken; Adam is not still alive, is he? See, you want to reinvent the Genesis story, all so that you can reinterpret every instance of the Bible speaking of death where a physical death never took place, so that you can claim the prophesy was correct, we just didn't understand it.

Adam did not die a physical death in the day he ate the fruit but he did die a death of awareness when he was driven from paradise to live out the rest of his days like a naked numbskull among wild beasts of the field...

In the same way the promise of death for failure to comply with the teaching in the law is not a promise of physical death. Physical death has been a natural part of physical life for all life forms from the beginning. Don't you believe that?

Its more like this. If you fill your head with superstitious nonsense it will defile and contaminate your mind and you will lose the ability to be rational which, in scripture, is what defines a living being. Those who stand guard over the purity of their mind will never know what it is to die in this way. When was the last time you prayed to a block of wood for protection or favors and felt forsaken when nothing happened?

Jesus compared false religious beliefs and degrading practices to whitewashed tombs and unmarked graves.

Are the dead not leaving their tombs and coming out of their graves in droves all over the world or not?

And this is one of the problems with religion. Because so much of the Bible is interpretive, the entirety is subjective, and can be interpreted in 100 different way. Science? Not so much. The Law of Gravity - What goes up, must come down. Not a whole lot to interpret there. It is clear, concise, and not reliant of subjective interpretation.

Yes, there is no limit to the absurdities that can be produced by an unrestrained imagination and I agree that it is a problem, but not such a big one if you keep in mind that everything recorded in scripture supposedly happened here on earth where what is within the realm of possibility or not has been determined by well established biological, astronomical, and geological scientific facts.

Anyway, does anyone over the age of 8 really need scientific confirmation to know with 100% certainty that serpents don't have deceitful discussions with human beings?

Doesn't it logically follow that the serpent must be a metaphor for a type of person in real life simply because in the story it talks and in reality only people talk to other people?

How could it possibly more complicated than that especially given the fact that unbelievers love to cite that the authors of these stories were simple nomadic shepherds who had absolutely no knowledge of science ?

What is also a fact is that they had been literate and teaching their children to read and write for thousands of years. With that in mind the probability is that their children's stories, as ancient as they may be , would be far more sophisticated than goldilocks or the three pigs easily encrypting meaning with words that flew above the grasp of the superstitious and the irrational during times when they were being oppressed by the superstitious and the irrational and there was no such thing as freedom of expression..

Did you never consider the scriptural implications of the fact that the Pharaoh who supposedly disputed with Moses and tried to deceive and enslave the children of Israel wore a serpent on his headdress?

Why would they not be using figurative language and fantastical stories to teach their children the hard learned lessons of their distant past? We do.

If modern man is so superior in intelligence and knowledge how is it that modern people cannot come to a consensus as to what these stories written by primitive people are actually about?

Maybe they weren't so dumb or, if they were, we really aren't that smart.

 

[Czernobog]

Fantastic! So, I assume, just like dark matter, while we can't detect God, you can demonstrate objective, verifiable evidence of God's effect on the universe? If not, your mic drop was rather premature.

Sure... as soon as you present objective, verifiable evidence of dark matter's effect on the universe.

...and now you're just trolling. You posted yourself that the way we know dark matter exists it its effect on observable forces in the universe.

 

[Boss]

Fantastic! So, I assume, just like dark matter, while we can't detect God, you can demonstrate objective, verifiable evidence of God's effect on the universe? If not, your mic drop was rather premature.

Sure... as soon as you present objective, verifiable evidence of dark matter's effect on the universe.

...and now you're just trolling. You posted yourself that the way we know dark matter exists it its effect on observable forces in the universe.

No, I said because of mathematics. It appears dark matter is responsible for much of the gravity but I cannot demonstrate that. Not trolling, making a point.

 

[Boss]

oh yeah... still waiting for you to define what gravity is.

Simple google search will do that . It's really a handy tool.

definition of gravity - Google Search

except that doesn't define what gravity is. Again... I already know what gravity does and how it works. Maybe you should actually read the thread?

 

[Boss]

Do you hope that you are wrong or do you hope that you are right?

You really need to clarify this question. Atheists do not believe in all gods. Are you asking specifically about the Abraham-ac God?

It certainly does. The gravitational pull is dependent on the size and density of the object.

No such thing as "gravitational pull" has nothing to do with density of any object.

Relative density, or specific gravity, is the ratio of the density (mass of a unit volume) of a substance to the density of a given reference material. Specific gravity usually means relative density with respect to water. The term "relative density" is often preferred in scientific usage. It is defined as a ratio of density of particular substance with that of water.

The moon's gravitational pull of our water (the tides) has to do with the density of the water.
Fundamentals of Fluid Mechanics

This is not defining what gravity is.

You did not ask me to define gravity. You directly stated that "gravitational pull" has nothing to do with density of any object. I pointed out you were wrong. You are now being very dishonest.

I keep getting this complaint but I've not asked you about types of gods. I'm asking about your beliefs. Are you confused about what you believe?

As for "gravitational pull" that wasn't what the poster was talking about. I wasn't being dishonest it just wasn't the topic.

 

[Czernobog]

oh yeah... still waiting for you to define what gravity is.

Simple google search will do that . It's really a handy tool.

definition of gravity - Google Search

except that doesn't define what gravity is. Again... I already know what gravity does and how it works. Maybe you should actually read the thread?

Gravity - Wikipedia

 

[Boss]

oh yeah... still waiting for you to define what gravity is.

Simple google search will do that . It's really a handy tool.

definition of gravity - Google Search

except that doesn't define what gravity is. Again... I already know what gravity does and how it works. Maybe you should actually read the thread?

Gravity - Wikipedia

Wow, you can use Wikipedia as well as you can Google! Impressive.

It still doesn't tell me what exactly gravity is. All I am finding is a description of the effects of the phenomenon. Like I said, you cannot answer this question because we don't know what gravity is.

 

[Mudda]

Back a few weeks ago, I posed my first question to Atheists and I was surprised how suddenly we had so many posters proclaim themselves "Agnostic!" It was an amazing thing to see. We constantly get bombarded with the so-called "naysayers" on this forum regularly but for some odd reason, my question turned them away from Atheism to Agnosticism instantly. I don't think I ever got an honest answer to my question. So I decided it would be a good idea for a thread OP.

First Question for Atheists:

Do you hope that you are wrong or do you hope that you are right?

It's not a trick question. It's relatively easy. Just answer it honestly. If you can't answer, perhaps you need to ask yourself the question in quiet contemplation? How you answer is important and I will explain later.

The second question is:

Do you ever have doubts about your Atheism?

Again, not a trick question, relatively easy to answer.

Now, I wish that I could take credit for these profoundly brilliant questions but I can't. They are presented by Dennis Prager in an article he posted some time back. I will outline a little more about what he had to say later on. For now, I just want to get some feedback from our Atheist contingent... if we have one.

Atheists don't care if they're wrong. So what if god exists? Not the atheist's fault that god wouldn't show itself.