Other A serious question to atheists...

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Now, if we've only got two animals aboard - one male, one female - and we're relying solely on those two to bring back their species, this would result in a VERY narrow gene pool with each of the animals of the same species being prone to the same illnesses. This is why animals vary in terms of our genes. If one of us gets a lethal disease, some of us won't be prone to it and the species will live on.
 
Now, if we've only got two animals aboard - one male, one female - and we're relying solely on those two to bring back their species, this would result in a VERY narrow gene pool with each of the animals of the same species being prone to the same illnesses. This is why animals vary in terms of our genes. If one of us gets a lethal disease, some of us won't be prone to it and the species will live on.

Oh yeah, I'm pretty sure its an established thing that you can't repopulate from 2 of a species. You can't repopulate from 10 of a species. You need a deceptively large number, but I also have no idea what that number is.

But really I think the whole Noa's arc debate became a moot point when all the answers on the far side become 'well God can fix that' until God (not to rude) just becomes some guy who was really keen on Noa having a boat while God solved all of the other issues.

Thats why talking about evolution is far more interesting. You're not really disputing a bunch of God stuff so much as just the Bible.
 
Alright, I feel we're both working hard on our answers to create a very well reasoned debate, so this is good.

1. Okay, so you have two of every infant creature on Earth. Including dinosaurs, apparently. Now, since you said that this was a place where they couldn't hurt each other, that means they each had there own area, which means with a bit of math we can calculate that we have (drum roll) not nearly enough space, even with infant creatures. Especially considering you would need to feed all of these creatures for all of this time, and storing all of that food would take even more space. You would also need God to intervene and allow the food to be in the pens with the animals while also giving the animals self-control to not eat it all at once and then starve, because there's no way Noah could've fed them all.

Next up, you just stated that at this point, all animals could've been herbivores. Which means that, A. the predators would've had to evolve from the herbivore's, which is definitely a big enough change to be considered full-scale evolution. It also means that, B. All of the vegetation had to survive that entire time underwater. I don't know if you've ever tried to water your plant and seen it die that way, but plants can definitely be over-watered, and 150 days of flooding plus 220 days of receding waters (I looked it up.) would definitely kill most all land-based plant life on Earth. Where do we get food then? Or if they were kept alive by a "miracle", why didn't God just do that for the animals too and just tell Noah to build a little dingy to keep him and his family alive. Or better yet, he could make them immune to the effects of water too!

Also, if all creatures were herbivores at this time and the Earth is as young as you say it is, when was the flood? Because I guarantee we can find older carnivores fossils.

2. Sure, I don't care enough about tree rings to argue that, but carbon dating is reliable. Yes, it can get shaky enough that you can't get a to the date reading, but it's not going to be thousands of years off until you go far enough back that thousands of years are insignificant. I can tell you that with certainty.

I did a three second Google. It was flooded for 150 days, and then receded for 220. I didn't bother to go through for the accuracy of the sources, but Google was confident in that answer so so am I. Even if the water created the lines after only one day (which isn't possible), there still wouldn't be enough lines.

Additionally, I'd like to ask you, if the water got high enough to cover the highest mountain on Earth, where did all this water go? If you say into the atmosphere and the ground, then yes, that would account for a very small percentage of that. I'll do the math on this if I have to, but God would've had to have created all that water just for that one purpose, and then simply make it disappear into nothingness when he was done. Even if God is real and he does do miracle's, God has no reason not to play by his own playbook (that being the laws of physics).

3. Bravo, you just explained a hundred processes that have to work for an organism to work. And if humans were the only creatures on Earth with a reproductive system, I'd agree with you here. Instead, though, all advanced life has this, and simpler organisms have simpler systems. The system could have definitely been built up little by little over billions of years. But actually, I don't think it could be built twice in that time, wihch means... all animals stemmed from a common ancestor, thereby proving evolution. Or, if God just kept going from the same recipe book, like you said, how does he expect anyone to find anyway to even remotely confirm his existence. Now you may respond with "that's the point because faith," but my response to that is, if I was God, not even I would be convoluted enough to tell people that if they don't believe in me I'm going to make them burn in a fiery hell for all eternity and then just disappear for two thousand years without any solid evidence I was ever there in the first place. If that's the type of God we're dealing with, I'd happily take Hell just to prove a point. So I'm expecting God, if real, to have some kind of evidence here.

http://www.sciencealert.com/scientists-have-grown-dinosaur-legs-on-a-chicken-for-the-first-time And before you say that's fake, here's one from Google Scholar: https://www.researchgate.net/profil...f-Birds-a-Analogs-for-Dinosaur-Locomotion.pdf
It's been a while since it happened, but chickens totally have the DNA necessary for many dinosaur things. Btw, if those links are weird I only glanced through them, but I'm pretty sure they're talking about the right thing.

4. So tell me then, why didn't dinosaurs survive off of the arc? And why did dinosaurs have teeth for tearing into things if everything was a herbivore at that time? Because there are dinosaurs with teeth for eating plants, and dinosaurs are different, along with many other carnivores.

A, they were definitely herbivores during the time of the garden, since that one sheep was the first thing in the world to die, ever. Not too hard to revert.
B, simply put, the grasses grew back quickly, but they had to subsist until then. Of course, as we all know, dinosaurs can't subsist on grass for long...

We do, I threw out the theory that everything on the ark was reverted to its Garden mentality.

I'm not an expert in geology. I'll just say that's what I've been told.
Let's go ahead and just agree to disagree on that one. I'll see about updating you if I get anymore info.
Well, yes. Atmosphere, clouds, and the oceans. Back in their day, the oceans didn't exist, or at least not as much. Their water didn't come from rain; it came from the ground in a mist. So when it was released, the oceans were created/expanded.

Oh ty! But the thing is, that and more has to ALL work at ONCE, or it doesn't work at ALL. (using vague terms) So if, say, the motor didn't exist, then they couldn't move, and the entire system would burn out. If the walls didn't exist, non-self would cause the phagocytes to eat them up in their own body. If the fluid wasn't there, everything would be screwy, and the survival rate would be much, much lower.

Good thing you're not God, though. I'm sure there's a couple people you would have killed in anger, and then your holy nature would be tainted.
Which is also why God can't be in the presence of sinners, or let them come in. Basically, they can't because otherwise, heaven itself would be tainted.

You say you'd glad take hell, but no, you wouldn't. You've probably ben burned before on a stove. Picture that, times 78, and you can't avoid it, and it will continue for all eternity, and you can draw no comfort from God, who has separated himself from you.

Archaeopteryx was a special kind of dinosaur. It's kind of not even a dinosaur, tbh. So while ye may count that, I actually don't. But I'll humor ye.
If I wanted to and had the ability, which I don't, I could probably add dino legs to myself and have them work eventually, given time. It's unsurprising that we've tried it on chickens.
AAGH SO MANY WORDS
I can't read that much in the early morning! I just woke up!
Let me judge by the title.
It's cool, to be certain, but honestly, I see God in that, too. Basically, he made it so the chicken had such a sense of balance that its legs could be forwards wand backwards and still stay upright.
When you think about it, when's the last time you've seen a chicken fall over?

Oh, easy! Not enough food! Changing climate! Their egg-laying habits couldn't survive in the new world!
To tear leaves and berries off trees. And probably eat stones, too. :/ silly dinosaurs.
 
GUESS WHO'S BACK

What does a Mandelbrot set have to do with God? Having spent the last twenty minutes researching that connection, no one has been able to say anything that logically amounts to more than "Well, infinity is like, y'know, cool man."

Its a simple mathematical concept that just happens to be infinite. What's the big deal?
The fact that it can structure itself and repeat itself. The fact that it looks beautiful.
The fact that we didn't actually come up with the shape, we just plugged in the numbers.
The fact that we didn't even know about it until the eighties.
We had nothing to do with it.
But there it is, a mathematical beauty that has infinite amount of exploration!
 
Okay, so there is a lot I'd love to discuss, but I think the best thing would be to tackle the evolution stuff.

So, right off the bat you've got a problem that a lot of people who don't think evolution will work; You're only at 4/5ths on the frame of mind or the understanding of it. What i'm talking about is:
"Well, how did they receive information to know that they had to transform from a normal cell to one that has a motor"
No one told them. You probably know that, but lets not even use that language (Not that I didn't say 'you don't believe in evolution' either?). Evolution is a constant barrage of small, accidental changes. The only thing that makes it intelligent is the 'survival of the fittest' mechanism culling the loser changes. But there has to be a reason for particular changes to survive compared to the alternatives.

Reproductive Tails
For the sperm tails, you've got to take a step back. No one forms a whole tail 'like that'. At least, its unlikely. Much more likely is a little protein in the cell wall that allowed the sperm to move forward by deforming the wall. Because, if you think about it, sperm would probably work fine being 'fired' into a mate and given the chance to drift about. Fertility would be less likely, but it could still happen. BUT. If your sperm started moving a little they are way better off. Even if they all run in opposite directions, there will be a few that go the right way.
Now this is a great example too because we can see directly how this tiny improvement would have a HUGE impact on reproductive success.

Now, thats speculation my speculation, but it is also a good (theoretical) example of evolution. I don't know where sperm tails came from but I will throw out this short video explaining how proteins make your muscles work. http://study.com/academy/lesson/muscle-contraction-actin-and-myocin-bonding.html Please hit me up if you have questions.

(Also, I expect you want to tell me that these crappy, slow moving sperm would dissolve in the acidic environment, or would not be able to make it through the fairly complex architecture of the female genitalia. Remember that women evolved along side men. Its likely that when sperm were much simpler, so were vaginas and fallopian tubes. There probably were females who had mutations causing high acidity, but they couldn't breed until sperm became more resilient so they did not direct evolution in the wrong direction)

Real example - single cell eye
So, a real example from actual researchers (Sadly I can only find articles, not the paper). Anyway, take an eye. Its hard to see how an eye could form. But here is a single cell organism with a perfect analogy of an eye. A bowing in the cell wall allows it to focus light like your eyes cornea and lense and a photosensitive chemical (I think) acts as the detector, much your your far more complex retina. The thing I like about this is that all of these elements exist in a cell anyway. It just happens that they have aligned here to serve a whole new purpose.
Heres a link: https://cosmosmagazine.com/biology/single-cell-eyeball-creature-startles-scientists

Turning Chickens into Dinosaurs
Here a link I'd prefer, mostly because its about the skull, rather than the legs. http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20150512-bird-grows-face-of-dinosaur
Heres how that works: You don't use all of your DNA.
If you think about that it makes a lot of sense. You only grow arms (hopefully) where you're supposed to. But the cells in your arm get all the same DNA as every other cells. They filter out the 'arm' DNA (I've forgotten how exactly) so that you only get those cells where you need them. That 'filter' is also effected but the random mutations of evolution,which acts to random;y turn on an off which parts of your DNA are affect which parts of your body.
In some cases, there are entire sections of DNA that are not actually used (So my biologist friend tells me). There are also likely parts of your DNA that are used in different areas of your body. For example, I'd say there is some good overlap between an arm and a leg, but obviously they would get a few different parts as well.

So, the chickens. Essentially, the scientists have turned off some elements of DNA, or turned on others by changing that filtering effect and its resulted in a chicken that grew a skull much more similar to a dinosaur. Actually, in that article, they give an alligator skull for comparison. Its not proof that chickens are dinosaurs, but it does suggest that they are related.

Tell me if you have questions about any of this.

Yours looks pretty fun to tackle, actually. I have stuff to do, and this isn't available in school, so I'll see you in.......
Um, hours.
 
The fact that it can structure itself and repeat itself. The fact that it looks beautiful.
The fact that we didn't actually come up with the shape, we just plugged in the numbers.
The fact that we didn't even know about it until the eighties.
We had nothing to do with it.
But there it is, a mathematical beauty that has infinite amount of exploration!

To be fair, none of that has anything to do with God either. Beauty in nature isn't evidence of God. On a personal note, its part of why I don't need God. The universe is beautiful enough with me needing to add extra's.

Yours looks pretty fun to tackle, actually. I have stuff to do, and this isn't available in school, so I'll see you in.......
Um, hours.

Yeah, thats cool, we've all got life in the meantime.

But on that set and on a spiritual note; That beauty exists in nature isn't evidence of God. If anything its a part of the reason that I don't need God. The universe is amazing enough without us needing to add extras.

I don't like all of Collinbu98 Collinbu98 's points (take some, leave some) but I feel the need to point out:
- Things evolve together, but you'll see that in my previous post
- We know what types of teeth animals that eat berries and leaves have, and they are pretty different to a carnivore. Its not worth pursuing the idea that carnivores had teeth and digestive systems that also functioned effectively for eating only plants.

Keep in mind Hall Kervean Hall Kervean , The Bible doesn't have to be true. God didn't write it and its largely non-literal (Actually, I heard in a podcast with guest who had a PhD in Theology that the large-scale idea of taking the bible literally is only about 100 years old).

Just a message to all of us:
If something makes sense or is hard to dispute, often that is a sign to take it on board. We'll all draw our conclusions about God but while I think the traditional God is not compatible with science, there's a lot of smart people who still believe in God and agree with science because they choose to believe that the bible isn't a true story, but God might still be out there using it to offer guidance. It doesn't have to be true.



Also, fun side note:
We know that evolution as a process does work in areas other than biology. For instance, on an AI course I recently used a genetic algorithm that employed the principles of evolution (reproduction, mutation and survival of the fittest) to design a neural network that was effective at classification of flavour's of wine.
 
Can confirm Ironrot's thing about literalism being a recent phenomenon as mainstream. Fundamentalism arose in the 1800s as a "Rational" response to secular skepticism. If you look at just about any of the foundational philosophers of Christian ethics, they were all under the impression that much of it was supposed to be seen as a metaphor. It gets problematic because its just about intellectually untenable to hold literally.
 
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Huh, turns out my school's wifi decided to take a break from blocking.
If you'll note, the crusades, inquisition, etc. took place when the Bible wasn't taken literally.
So, uh, benefits for taking it literally in that regard.
 
Huh, turns out my school's wifi decided to take a break from blocking.
If you'll note, the crusades, inquisition, etc. took place when the Bible wasn't taken literally.
So, uh, benefits for taking it literally in that regard.

Much more like "Benefits of living in a more reasonable, secular society." The decision not to burn people at the stake for having a different opinion didn't exactly stem from biblical literalism, nor did the idea that maybe holy war isn't great.

We've also had the KKK (fundamentalist Protestants), attacks on doctors, abortion clinic bombings, a conspiracy to attack Jewish holy sites in Israel, the Centennial Olympic Park bombing, and on and on. All done by people claiming to be devout literalists. There's still a lot of "getting better" to do that literalism clearly has not addressed.
 
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You could see it as secularism, I can see it as literalism.
Since both sprouted at around the same time (going off what you've said), then there isn't a definitive cause.

Also, look at the fruit, as the Bible says.
Someone who claims to be a Christian but lives out an awful life that directly contradicts the Bible in many ways, they're not really a Christian, or if they are, they're a very weak one.
Hitler claimed to be a Christian. You realize that the Bible specifically says "I will bless those who bless you, and curse those who curse you" to the Israelites, so obviously if Hitler was a Christian, he was a very weak, very dead Christian.
 
And you're free to hold that opinion (because of secularism), but a cursory review of history says its factually wrong. Two things occurring in tandem doesn't mean what happens next is inexplicable - it means you have to think about it.

Free speech, freedom of conscience, civil liberties, and the like stemmed from opposition to Christianity and religious fervor, not collusion with it. Most of what are today considered inalienable rights are directly opposed to most literal religious practices - free speech is the right to slander god, freedom of worship is the right to follow other gods, the right to defend yourself is the right to violate the sixth commandment, the right to privacy is opposed to the arcane rules of books like Deuteronomy, so on so forth. These rights may not have been created specifically for the above reasons, but they all are inclusive of them.

To place literalism in its historical context, it was a reactionary move to respond to a predominantly non-theistic philosophical trend (which either eliminated god from the equation or put him/her in a corner) in Europe which recognized that the ethical system suggested by the Bible is highly irrational and unfair. Rather than admit there might be something less than 100% true, fundamentalists decided the only way to stand their ground was accept a completely literal reading. The problem with the belief that the world is getting better because of Christians turning to biblical literalism in the last two hundred years is that more people are turning away from Christianity in the last two hundred years, and the world has gotten demonstrably better in that time. Christianity hasn't substantively improved, they're just no longer in charge of all the decision making, which is why we're where we are.

The point is, fundamentalist Christians haven't exactly been behind a lot of the things worth calling "good causes." Historical records and surveys of the general Evangelical Protestant population and their Church Organizations (the broad genre which encompasses the large majority of literalists) indicates the following: They opposed abolition, they opposed women's suffrage, they supported Prohibition, they opposed accepting Jewish refugees fleeing Hitler, they supported Jim Crow, they opposed the Civil Rights movement. Today, the majority (57%) don't even believe in any form of evolution, and display condescending attitudes toward the poor, sick, and addicted. The Vice President of the USA, a staunch literalist, has displayed tacit support for the notion that federal funds be directed to organizations that psychologically abuse and use electric shock therapy on homosexual adolescents. The literalist/conservative American South has made a habit of washing slavery out of textbooks or talking about it like it was a wonderful example of Christian charity.

I don't see precisely where they're doing better, and, to toss out some other related bits of info -
1. Martin Luther King Jr., the "golden boy of Christians doing good things in America" wasn't a literalist.
2. Ranked by numbers, the American founding fathers were primarily Christian non-literalists influenced by Deism, then Evangelicals (and even then, fundamentalism wasn't common among them), and then atheists and agnostics. This all stems from study of their public and private words, religious backgrounds, etc.
3. The household name Enlightenment philosophers the Western world is built on today were either Catholic (non-literalist) or atheists.
4. Religiosity is steadily declining, not growing.
5. The world is a better place despite literalism, not because of it. They've lost all their attempts at influencing public affairs - couldn't stop abolition, couldn't stop evolution being taught in schools, couldn't stop women's suffrage, couldn't stop Civil Rights, couldn't stop gay marriage.

Throw the factors together, and the conclusion is clear - they're not responsible for making the world more equal, more safe, more open to discussion, more democratic, or more fair. That goes to, well, everyone opposed to them.
 
They've lost all their attempts at influencing public affairs - couldn't stop abolition, couldn't stop evolution being taught in schools, couldn't stop women's suffrage, couldn't stop Civil Rights, couldn't stop gay marriage.

Not related, but I do wonder if the Conservative movement ever reflects on the fact that they have eventually lost every major battle on a social issue.
 
Are you an atheist because you genuinely, truly believe and are convinced that there is no God, or are you an atheist simply because you're mad at God for not letting things go your way?

PLEASE, NOTE: This post mainly refers to the God that most of the Roman-Catholic Church believe in.

I don't believe in God simply because it is... insane from a psychological standpoint.
---
Technically, Theists worship a paranormal force they claim is omnipotent and omnibenevolent, however, the two rule each other out. A being can't be omnipotent AND omnibenevolent at the same time, without enforcing a stern brainwashing on anything that HAS a brain. And let me remind you about this so called "free will," that God gave us, which also doesn't make any fucking sense. If God is omnipotent, that means he is omnipresent. If he is omnipresent then he is the one that decided who goes to Hell and who goes to Heaven before time and space existed, which rules out a thing like free will existing. By applying all of that, we have two options: A) God doesn't exist. B) The God portrayed in the Bible is actually a huge asshole.

Let me put it this way:
God created everything.
God is infinitely good.
God created everything, thus God created Satan, who is infinitely evil--
Wait, what? How? When? Yeah, exactly. Nothing like a being that is 100% good creating something that is 100% evil, because it had free will, but it did not because the being that made it is omnipotent and thus knew that the evil being would go rog-- Okay, enough.

Also, Theists claim that things cannot appear by themselves and need a universal programmer. A "God," so to speak. Then what gave beginning to God? If he made us, then what made him?

Not to mention, the Bible is (with all due respect,) a load of bullshit, and I have scientific proof to back that up. I don't doubt some of the events in the Exodus might be true, but Genesis? By doing proper mathematical calculations, we can determine the World (according to the Bible) was created roughly 6015 years ago. But there is scientific evidence that 7000 years B.C, (That's a little over 9000 years ago, bruh) the city of Jericho suffered heavy earthquakes. Wanna know where Jericho is? Not far off from Jerusalem, actually. Not to mention that Evolution is pretty much a proven phenomenon in nature at this point, which argues with the way that humans were created according to the book of Genesis.

Also, the whole thing with Noah and the Flood? That's probably just a bad mistranslation of one of the many chapters of the Epic of Gilgamesh, which is regarded the earliest survived work of literature in human history. There is a lot of stuff about a Flood, an Ark, a guy collecting animals, and letting birds scout if it's safe to go off the Ark in there too.
 
Not to mention that Evolution is pretty much a proven phenomenon in nature at this point, which argues with the way that humans were created according to the book of Genesis.
The Bible is a HUGE metaphor. By the creation of a man and a woman, they meant that God created males and females.





(Yes, only those two. ONLY. THOSE. TWO.)
 
The Bible is a HUGE metaphor. By the creation of a man and a woman, they meant that God created males and females.





(Yes, only those two. ONLY. THOSE. TWO.)
Really? Because from what I've read is he took out Adam's fucking rib and Eve grew out of it.

Never knew primates reproduced via ribs. Hey, I guess the Medic from TF2 was right after all!


If you refuse to accept that as fact, fair enough, I suppose you have disproved one of my numerous points.
 
Omnibenevolent shouldn't describe God.
Because, even though he is, he still punishes people who sin.
Omnibenevolent means he doesn't. But he does.
If i have that wrong, my bad :/
 
Iv read through a couple of debates here, on a question appointed towards ATHEIST.
Anyway, to put my pov out there (which isn't fully atheist), I believe in god, as in the god of the religion christianity....but I also believe I shall be burning in hell.
 
Omnibenevolent shouldn't describe God.
Because, even though he is, he still punishes people who sin.
Omnibenevolent means he doesn't. But he does.
If i have that wrong, my bad :/
Omnibenevolence means that someone is infinitely benevolent. As in: Infinitely good in all imaginable ways.

I don't understand, or WANT TO understand how a being that saves some people and sends others to hell to live through eternal torment is meant to be infinitely good. And yes, I know that the Book of Revelations says there'll be a long period where people rise and get to straighten themselves out. But after THAT, some will STILL go to hell. Especially since that same being is ALSO Omnipotent, which means he is the architect of everything, including our actions and the actions that earned us Hell in the first place.

To be honest, the concept of the God that Christians have is a huge clusterfuck of unexplained plans, intents, powers, and a general mindfuck overall.

At least Zorostarianism was kind enough to make it clear from the get-go who is evil and who is good.
 
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