A blog devoted to chronicling the douchebaggery of Richard Dawkins and the rest of his New Atheist super-team. We’re agnostic, by the way. We believe in evolution, the separation of church and state, and kittens. We just think Dawkins is a tool. As are the rest of the “four horseman” — Daniel Dennett, Sam Harris and lazy Limey lush Christopher Hitchens.
And that “Oasis” thing? That’s because Dawkins calls his website “A Clear-Thinking Oasis.” Can you believe that? What a douchebag.
You can email us your praise and thanks at catlebrity [at] yahoo.com
(Cartoon from The New Humanist.)
Wow, a fellow non-theist who also can’t stand Dawkins or the New Atheists?
I applaud you, good people! ^_^
Finally! Somewhere where I can escape from this snobby antitheist dickheadedness that PLAGUES the internet! (Unless you count the brainless Dawkinsite sycophants who moan on the comments of a site that they don’t HAVE to visit.) Thank you!
Wow. The new atheists have had this coming for a long, long, time. Someone seriously needs to write a parody of these new books on atheism. It should be entitled “How to Write a Best-Selling Book on Atheism” and have chapters entitled, “How to Condescend” and “The Importance of Rhetoric over Evidence.” There are more than enough examples in the work of Harris and Dawkins to provide thorough inspiration for any would-be writer to follow in their footsteps
ahmen brother. lol. these guys are major douchebags using false logic and kindergarden fart joke insults to proove their points. it is disgusting.
I’m a cauldron churning, tarot card reading, crystal ball gazing, Hippie, free love, artist, drop out, Mystic Buddhist/Pagan, with delusions of non conformity.
I hate Dawkins because he is no different then any other fanatical religious zealot.
The difference being Theologians believe they can put God in a box, Atheist believe they can make themselves God through a debate of logic (actually that isn’t a difference) and make them selves the ultimate authority in policing thought.
Notice you haven’t posted in a while, please keep it up.
DICK Dawkins is as much tabloid as Rush Limbaugh or Al Franken, …
accept maybe he’s funnier,
by accident of course.
My friend, tarot and crystal ball are not going to worry Dawkins, me or any other friend of science and reason. You are either deluded, confabulating or hallucinating. Dawkins is not fool proof but he is a man of science and reason and is doing the world a favour by spreading the concept of evidence based reasoning. The real douche is the closet godbotherer who set up this page.
Yes but the concept of evidence with based reasoning can simply be reversed to be seen from the other end of the stick. I completely am for bringing to light what we know, but he is himself defying logic by making the assumptions that he does while also demoralizing others for their beliefs. With bridge-less assumptions in which the gap is not filled to explain the basis of his thoughts, it is wrong to be acting as if what he is saying is the absolute truth. The truth is no one truly knows. You can bring up all the evidence you like for whatever belief you believe in, but when its all said and done there is no true answer, and it is much better to just accept each other rather than try to have us all think in one manner. There’s more important things to be worried about.
I just want you to know how much I enjoy your blog. I’m no fan of any extremist, whether it’s Osama Bin Laden or Fred Phelps or Richard Dawkins. I’m sorry to see that you haven’t updated your blog in 14 months. We open-minded types need more people like you.
Love the site. Finally, someone who’s not a theist but also doesn’t believe that eliminating religion (an imposible task) will magically solve all of the world’s problems. These guys don’t realize what hypocrites they are and how oversimplified their view of the world is. Thank you.
Richard Dawkins is rude and I do not like him either. He’s very stereotypical in that he can walk around, flashing his ideas, and call every theist on this planet stupid, but when they open their mouths to respond or even object, he just calls them stupid even more. He just repeats and repeats and repeats, not stopping for a second to hear anyone out.
I’m an atheist who doesn’t believe in evolution. The way I see it, there’s no way for me to know anything that has never been observed.
But yeah, Dawkins is a fucking moron who doesn’t speak for atheists. In fact, he’s more of a cult leader than anything.
Yay! I’m excited to see people like you
Personally, I’m a theist, and just ended up here cos I think Richard Dawkins is a pompous jerk… but y’know, after careful consideration, I decided that even if I was atheist or agnostic I couldn’t believe in evolution, the reason you gave being among my own reasons 
It’s just neat to see one of the small minority of non-theists who don’t believe evolution 
I’m a spiritualist who believes in God and accepts the theory of evolution, and I can’t say how pleased I am to see a website put up by atheists who are over Mr Attention-Grabber Dawkins. The man’s a pain in the proverbial, like many another school bully of the “I’m cool and my group’s cool, and if you’re not one of us then you’re a loser” variety.
All of you(agnostics, atheists, theists, whatever belief) in this website are rare bc most atheists in the internet have mostly expressed a militant approach to everything. Ah a fellow agnostic/nonbeliever who feels this way.
I found this website today after reading countless views from atheists. They say they are not the same sheep theists are, but I’ve heard the same condescending, arrogant, intolerant, closed minded and hypocritical rhetoric from majority of of them. They say that only few and not all behave this way. I beg to differ. I’m not gonna be politically correct and say “some” act this way. If the internet, where either you troll or let your true colors show, is an indication for how majority of the atheists are I’d say it’s fair to assume atheists are arrogant.
Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens make my blood boil. I want a shift in spirituality and truth as well, but their approach is gonna get us no where.
I would seriously hesitate to say that the internet can give an indicative representation of any group. The only majority the internet accurately represents is the population who are inclined to post things on the internet. That internet-posting population only represents a minority of any other one group (aetheists, Christians, harry troglodites….)
Using any one venue as a sample of >6 billion humans is bound to skew one’s view.
huh. criticising the use of “oasis” but instead, having the articulate ability to use “douchebag”?
Yeah, i guess Dawkins can be quite rude, but from the debates i have seen, its not always without reason. The ones ive seen are just an attempt to stop the person ignoring the facts.
and tom? Evolution has been observed.
fyi, boxing atheists together is like boxing all those that dont believe in unicorns: its pure folly.
Thank God (if there is one) for this website. I’m a Christian who has been sliding fast towards agnosticism for the last several weeks. In frustration, I googled the phrase “Richard Dawkins is a Douchebag” and it’s good to know there are people who aren’t necessarily theists who agree with me. It’s a good follow-up to the statement I made when I had to disect Bertrand Russell’s “Why I’m Not a Christian” in my college theology class: “Bertrand Russell was an asshole!”
I’m a Christian, but I’m also a strong proponent of evolutionary theory.
Dawkins is really a nobody. Atkins is worse.
I guess we’re all here united for 1 thing, and 1 thing only.
Richard Dawkins is a tool.
Thank you! I thought I was the only agnostic who loathed this missionary pompous ass! Don’t forget Hitchens, his dumpy, smug partner/slug in preachy atheist dogma either.
All these comments, except those of the petty Dawkins fanboy troll, are so true and frighteningly observable on youtube blogs and anywhere spirituality/religion is discussed. The violent, sometimes sexual threats to those (eg “remove her larnyxs!”) who use their free speech rights and independence of thought to question the lofty Dawkins is not only cause for concern, but makes you wonde about the mental psychological state of the Dawkins movement.
As a religious and evolutionary agnostic I am so grateful to this forum. Keep up the good work.
In “The God Delusion” Dawkins made it clear that the agnostic view is the only logical and fair stance to take on religion. He even states that he is as close to atheist as possible while remaining respectfully agnostic. But yeah, he does come off as arrogant quite often… as do many atheist. Looking at what is and has been carried out in the name of religion I would think a little arrogance could be over-looked. Besides, Dawkins is a scientist. He’s probably still a little irritated that the Coperican Revolution took 150 years to come round full circle because of the church, among other oppressions against science. I know I am…
http://www.evolutionary-philosophy.net/review_god_delusion.html#tpoa
Try again, ‘name’.
I’m sure you all have many Christian friends who are lovely people and tend to keep their religious feelings to themselves, as I do, but even that kind of gentle mainstream religion is dangerous. All of the millions and billions of harmless believers make the ground a little more fertile for more people to strap bombs to themselves, shoot doctors who perform abortions, or teach their children that the Earth is 6, 000 years old. Those are all terrible things to do for a god who almost certainly doesn’t exist. I think Dawkins does the responsible thing in attacking religion. It’s just a peculiar version of liberal relativism for atheists to not attack religion. (Dawkins might call that a “belief in belief”).
Dawkins is different from religious fundamentalists because what he argues is based on evidence, not faith or scripture.
Dawkins is not at all an extremist in his beliefs; they are perfectly mainstream. Perhaps he is extreme in expressing his views, but that doesn’t make him wrong in those views, or wrong for expressing them so aggressively. Calling him “militant” is absurd when he is perfectly nonviolent but countless killings have been and still are committed in the name of religion.
Maybe Dawkins is a rude asshole, but I agree that the world would be a better place without supernatural religion. Humanism, personal responsibility, acceptance of one’s mortality, and a sense of wonder about the natural world. Those are all the things one needs to reap the benefits of religion.
Religion exists, peroid. i wish i had billion dollars as the song goes, maybe you and your boy toy rdicky hawkins could shit in each others hands and wish for religion to magically disapear in the other.
I am just curious if Dawkins thinks he’s convincing any theists of the errors of their ways. I bet not.
If Dawkins was truly a rationalist, then he would see the irrationality of his behavior. He’s an extremist and therefore not rational. And therefore, not worth listening to.
Oh please. How many atrocities have been carried out NOT in the name of religion? I’m thinking Hitler & Nazi experiments, communist Russia & China…heck, even the wars in the Middle East right now are all about politics, and not religion. Some people are nutjobs, and they’ll use any avenue they can to express that nut-jobbery. You could shut up every religious person in the world (which, by the way, is a rather crude thing to suggest) and we’d all just find some other reason to kill each other.
Yes, Dawkins can be very arrogant and idiotic at times, but so do so many people. I don’t agree with how this website seems to not criticise Dawkins but Atheists as a whole. What’s the point in talking about Atheist 16-year-olds on World of Warcraft, they aren’t representative of Atheists.
But like Dawkins, so many other people behave like “Douchebags”, as you like to say. For example people who say: “I do have proof of God: The Bible”. While these people are “douchebags”, they don’t need an entire blog set up to criticise them.
I think that to create a blog just to insult somebody is an action filled with “douchebaggery”.
I agree, Joe. Here’s to seeing individuals for the complex creatures that they are and recognizing that even within a group, members usually vary greatly in their beliefs, values and agendas.
A good example of why I won’t identify as atheist or Christian or Buddhist or….
I agree with you…. The last thing people in science discipline wants a repeat of the Alexandria Library and the Ionian Civilization…
I’m a agnostic atheist and do not engage in a militant atheist approach, but we need people such as Harris, Dawkins and Hitchens to help people see the light specially the youth who are apatheists…. If there is one area where they need to improve is to get their voice in developing and developing nations… In 40 years time the world population will be 9 billion and the current western world will account only for a billion of the population; by which time majority of the people living in western nations will be atheists and they need to spread secular humanism to other parts of the world.
I admit, I googled ‘I hate Dawkins’ and found this. He’s on the telly tonight and I’m so sick of people either sucking his jizm or else becoming apologists for him. He’s an arrogant little glory seeking twat and I am totally bloody sick of him – even slightly more than that Paris Hilton on TV phase and wotsher face with the boobs who covered all the magazines for ages. Get a champion with bizang atheist people – he’s a total dick! Oh oh, and stop with the semantics – seerrriouussly – it’s so boring! I don’t give a toss how many moronic defnitions you stab to death – he’s a feckin atheist, with an agenda, riding a popularity wave by being a tad extreme, fundamentalist, Atheist – yes i said those things, that’s right, let’s break it down, the term wan-ka comes from the etymological root of YOU, known in mathematical formula as idiot+pseudo intellect+ivory tower+lack of life’s experience+chip on your shoulder+need a cause+bored and lazy+never gave to a charity+never knew how many churches set charities up+ never knew how many fought against Bush X also against Iraq+ slightly validated points – extreme beam in your own eye bigots who say they hate bigots+some small fat man who wants to be famous.squared. And you know how I will really fuck you all up – I haven’t spell checked any of this and I don’t even care!! As for the validity of this website – I LOVE that the author is taking the piss out of this man – and arguing that this should be anything other than what it is is like demanding the life of brian be historically founded. get. over it.tanx.bai.
Brilliant! Best post here!
Max Brown, fuck you. You are an asshole. First of all, the peaceful, loving Christians are NOT fucking supporting the crazies who bomb abortion clinics or the assholes who run around saying “God hates fags”, they’re strictly AGAINST those kind of people. Also, what’s wrong with believing that the Earth is 6,000 years old? There’s nothing dangerous or harmful about that whatsoever. It’s an opinion. Learn to respect other people’s opinions or just go fall on your ass. Dawkins is a prick, end of story.
Lisa- Clearly you lack any level of adult maturity. It’s funny how you can tell that I’ve never given to charity from one comment. If I was to judge your comment I would assume you are a 15 year old girl, fundamentalist Christian, living in Nowhere, USA, who has no friends.
Nobody’s going to pay attention to someone devoid of any intelligence or class, who uses phrases such as: “He’s an arrogant little glory seeking twat”, “term wan-ka comes from the etymological root of YOU”, “you know how I will really fuck you all up”, “I’m so sick of people either sucking his jizm”, “he’s a total dick!”, “seerrriouussly” and “small fat man who wants to be famous.squared”.
Seth- Christians are both the people who run charities and help people, and the “God hates fags”, abortion-clinic-bombers.
Also, the notion that the Earth is 6,000 years old is not an opinion, as it is a proven FACT that it is far older.
But do you not think that Dawkins extreme, and sometimes offensive views and opinions on Christianity deserve to be respected too? You yourself said: “Learn to respect other people’s opinions”, or is it only the views of Christians that should be respected? If you read my previous comment you will see that I myself do not like Dawkins method of conveying his opinions, but I respect them.
P.S. The child molesting priests (including the non-Catholic ones) are Christians too. As are is the Pope and other Worldwide Church leaders who covered up the abuse of children.
Joe, you’re missing the point of my comment. I KNOW that the anti-abortion bombers, “God hates fags” crazies, child molesting priests, and Church leaders who covered up child abuse all belong to the Christian religion. I’m defending the DECENT Christians, who still get an unfair amount of crap thrown at them. There are bad apples in every barrel, so of course Christianity is going to have some shitty people in it. The point is to not let one bad apple spoil the rest of the bunch.
And about the “respecting each other’s opinions” part; no, I don’t believe that only the Christians’ views should be respected. Dawkins’ “views” on Christianity aren’t simply an “opinion”, he flat-out attacks Christians as being “delusional” and that they “need to stop believing in fairy tales”. HE’S the one who needs to learn a thing or two about respecting others’ opinions. He’s free to disagree with Christianity and not believe in God, but calling them “delusional” just isn’t the way to go. And yes, it does go both ways; if someone insults you for not believing in God and tells you you’re going to Hell, that person is a f-ing asshole who needs to fall on his/her ass.
I know I’m just repeating myself to the point of nausea by now, but disagreeing with Christians is fine, throwing insults at them for having a different opinion than you is NOT. Does that make more sense?
Thankyou for clarifying your comment. However, Dawkins opinion is that Christians are delusional and that they believe in fairytales. That is his opinion, and that is what should be respected. I’m not to respect his “flat-out attacking of Christians” or insults. And from whom are you protecting Christians from?
Richard Dawkins is the John Hagee of atheism. Gnostic, dogmatic atheism is no better than gnostic, dogmatic religion.
Richard Dawkins makes me so embarassed to be English. For someone to devote their lives and almost ‘get off’ on ridiculing peoples faith upsets me. Either be agnostic or religious. Athiests just put to much effort into demeaning people and I think its so rude.
same here. but dont get too down on it, british are the best a celebrating other cultures holidays.
How can you call Sam Harris douche? He’s very open-minded when it comes to meditation, spirituality and shit. He doesn’t even consider himself “atheist” (that’s like calling someone non-astrologer).
This site is run by fucking pussies.
I am comfortable with the atheism of those folks. I just can´t stand the fact that some good people who should know better, label the New Atheism as liberal and humanist, when clearly is not. Creatures like Dawkins and Harris are a bunch of misantropes hidden on a pseudo-intelectual face.
Wow… you fucking losers.
Legion you actually took time off from sucking on Dawkins balls and come here to comment? Impressive.
FINALLY. Finding this made my day…
Finally , an escape from the swam of dawkin’s fanboys on the internet and youtube. There really pissing me off.
I know this site hasn’t been updated in three years, but I constantly find myself checking back, just to remind myself what a complete and total douchebag Richard Dawkins is.
What a bunch of lovely hypocrites you all are.
Any argument based on the assumption that it is possible for ANYTHING to happen FOR NO REASON and which ends with the conclusion that humans have no free will or personal responsibility is BEYOND DOUBT absurd and deserves only contempt and ridicule however elegantly it is presented.
The Principle of Causality is the basis of all logic. Remove it and only absurdity and chaos remain – leading to solipsism and finally nihilism.
The influence of the so-called “new atheists” lies only in their ability to attack minds that harbour illogic and unnecessary sophistry. Any simple and honest appraisal of their output immediately reveals that is nothing but drivel!
Any argument based on the assumption that it is possible for ANYTHING to happen FOR NO REASON and which ends with the conclusion that humans have no free will or personal responsibility is BEYOND DOUBT absurd and deserves only contempt and ridicule however elegantly it is presented
EXACLTY. THANK YOU. COMMON SENSE.
You do realize that you have provided no argument here.
Premise: Any argument based on the assumption that it is possible for ANYTHING to happen FOR NO REASON (You are equivocating the term reason)
Premise: and which ends with the conclusion that humans have no free will or personal responsibility
Conclusion: (Any argument) is BEYOND DOUBT absurd and deserves only contempt and ridicule however elegantly it is presented.
Your jump from Premise one and two is your conclusion merely begs the question.
You haven’t really shown why or how this claim follows from your premises. Is this an inductive argument? Is it based on definition? Is it based on modus ponens? There is simply no argumentation here. Just a claim that you don’t like what someone else has said.
You terms are very vague.
You do seem to have some tenuous claim here, but this claim seems to be based on an equivocation
You are equivocating the term “Reason”
Reason can mean at least three things.
(1) Reason can mean logical calculation in the determination of a possible output
Ex: He was reasoning about how to solve the puzzle.
(2) Reason can mean someone’s intention for a specific action.
Ex: What is your reason for being so rude?
(3) Reason can mean a logical or causal explanation for why something happened.
Ex: What is the reason that earth is round?
Many things happen for “no reason 1 and 2, as when the winds blows over a tree, there is no “reason” why this happened. Yet this no reason (1 and 2) is not related to Reason 3
Yes, scientist explain things without resorting to definition #1 and #2, but it doesn’t mean they reject #3.
This shows where your argument goes wrong. One may say that there is no reason for why a volcano erupts, but he simply means the volcano is not intentional or calculating. He is not making the absurd claim that there is no causal explanation for the volcano’s eruption. Without clarifying your terms, you are not making much of a point here.
You then seem claim that anyone who does not have free will cannot reason. Presumably this is why they are beyond contemptible. They deny reason, and thus they deny free-will.
But if one is clear with one’s terms, appealing to “reason” (whether it is 1, 2, or 3) does not imply free will.
Forget the fact that you are appealing to a very empirically empty notion, “free will”. I will assume that by “free-will” you mean that one can rationally decide between various possible actions and understand the various consequences or potential consequences of these various actions. Thus, I have free will when I decide, when given the choice whether or not to cheat on my wife. I understand that I have two options, and I understand the consequence of the choices, and let’s examine the evidence. But this is just calculation, in which case you don’t need free will. You must mean something more like the capacity to transcend ones biological impulses, genetic predisposition, activity of the brain, etc. and somehow make a choice free of these biological processes. The question you beg is, is this “something else” necessary.
Let’s reason about this.
First A computer can reason in sense number #1(that it has calculates and follows logical steps in determining outputs, reason 1), but I doubt anyone would say that it has a free will.
Thus, some entities reason (1) without the capacity for free will
Secondly, a child many not be able to have Reason 1, but it can have an intention (Reason 2). A small child is not legally responsible for its action because it does not have free will in the sense that an adult freely makes choices between a set of possible action. Thus, something like a baby can have intentions, as when baby cries for milk (it is expressing a desire), yet it is difficult to say this is free will if free will involves the rational capacity to choose between two possible courses of actions and he transcend one’s instincts and biological desire and make “free choices.” However, small babies lack the capacity reason among a set a possible actions and desired outcomes and their actions are guided by instincts (for they lack the capacity to reason 1), yet babies have “reasons” (intentions) for crying out when they want milk.
Thus at least some entities reason (2) without the capacity for free will.
Finally, scientific laws give reasons (3) to the universe. The laws of electricity that determine lightening activity and give reasons for lightening phenomena, also do not have free will.
Here are three examples of “reasoning” without any need to appeal to a free will.
Many people explain thing s that occur in universe as having no reason (1 or 2), but still claim that humans can reason (1 and 2) or have reasons for their actions and that things happen in the universe for specific scientific reasons (3). There is also no need to appeal to human free will just because one supplies reasons (whether 1, 2, or 3) for their explanations. So people can be perfectly reasonable (that is explaining various phenomena by appealing to reason 1, 2, or 3) without any appeal to free will. In other words, people can have both intentions and calculations with any need to say they have free will. In fact, the notion of free-will is not necessary for a rational account of the universe or human behavior.
If you want to say that people who deny free-will are contemptible, I guess you mean people who reason and don’t come to the conclusion you derived.
Zaki is in complete error on just about everything.
He places a lot of stock in the condensation theory of consciousness.
This is a highly controversial theory not widely accepted by scientists for it lacks any empirical foundation and it is doubtful if statistical randomness found at the subatomic level could have any causal role in the mechanism of the large scale structures of the brain. Let me be clear, just because most physicists and neuro-scientists doubt the plausibility of this theory does not make the theory in and of itself false, but it does show that it is the highest state of arrogance to claim that it is an established and obvious fact as Zaki claims. You would think that someone who supports such a highly debated position (that is highly questionable within the relevant field of experts) would show a little more humility. Some great physicists (e.g . Bohm, Pensrose, and others) have supported various versions of this theory, but even they have pointed to need for empirical confirmation. In other words, the proponents of this highly elaborate theories have sown much more humility than Zaki, who seems to adapts these theories into his own designs
Secondly , on some accounts of condensation theory, consciousness is merely derivative of sub-atomic states. This shows that consciousness is not a causal factor in the chain of physical events that leads up to it, but merely the last state in the casual link. This is what philosophers used to call epiphenomena. Clearly Zaki wants his consciousness to be a bigger player in the cosmos than this. Other condensation theories give a top down approach and see the mind or holistic process guiding quantum process (such as collapsing wave functions). Still, all of this occurs within a complex neural system, and as shown below, Zaki wants consciousness go far beyond bio-neural-networks.
The bottom line is that this is all highly speculative as it may be interesting. It is not yet a confirmed theory and it is rejected by most of those in the field. Many of these theories are fascinating, and they may help guide science in trying to understand consciousness, but they are far from established theories. For one to base his whole world-view on them seems irrational. Zaki must have some other reason for holding these views (I will address this below).
Zaki claims that quantum mechanics supports free will, but all quantum mechanics reveals are that statistical probabilities guide events at the subatomic level. This works much like the rolling of dice in which over time an equal amount of 1s, 2s, 3s, etc will turn up, but at each individual role no prediction can be made on what side will come up. However, this is only an analogy because strict causality underlies the dice, many physicist argue that at the quantum level of subatomic particles, there is no strict causality determing each individual outcome. The questions arises that if consciousness states are guided by random statistical processes, the human mind and the actions and events that following from the human mind are just randomness. This is hardly the free-will that Zaki wants. Zaki is clearly confusing spontaneity (of the will) with randomness. Interestingly, Zaki ignores how consciousness is demonstrably connected to the neural system and the brain. Neuroscience has clearly shown that brain states affect states on consciousness. Philosophically speaking, consciousness is a great mystery, but no state of consciousness has ever been discovered apart from a neural system. Zaki makes the bold claim the whole universe is full consciousness. Arguing with Zaki is like arguing with people who believe in ghosts and spirits possess trees and rocks and streams. This is a view called animism. But Zaki wants to be taken as a serious thinker. If Zaki has a certain mystical view of the universe, no one can or should fault him for that. But the presumption he shows in delivering his highly speculative ideas is incredible. Most mystics choose to be silent about such things because they experience a realm divorced from reason and conceptual thinking, perhaps Zaki could show more wisdom and humility before demanding other except (without empirical confirmation) his highly speculative views without question.
Zaki also claims that his aesthetic view of nature is objectively true. He keeps referring to concepts like harmony. He claims that rats and vermin are deviations. But this is highly conjectural. Humans cause more damage to the environment than rats; perhaps human are equally deviations from harmony. Zaki would claim that humans are guided by free-will and that’s why they deviate from God’s plan. But rats and humans are both part of nature; why does Zaki chose things he doesn’t like to claim they are deviation. Rats carry piousness bacteria viruses (and this is not their fault unless Zaki believes the rats chose the bacteria); that is why they may cause disease. Many rats are harmless and contain highly complex biological structures. They also make great pets are used in lab experiments that benefit mankind. And what about the bacteria? They are also a highly complex arrangement of particles. So all living creatures are highly complex harmonies (well mabe not some single-cell amorphous entities) but it becomes clear that any attempt to distinguish harmony from disharmony along the lines Zaki has established is arbitrary (though distinguishing disharmony from harmony itself may not be arbitrary) Many destructive things lead to new creations. This disharmonious sate of collapsing stars leads to the creation of new solar systems. Similarly, many things that are destructive are also contribute to the environment. Take bacteria, some of which can destroy life, some of which is necessary to destroy the waste in the world, and thus have a vital function in our world. The universe is full of creative-destruction. So do you blame the rat, the bacteria, the person who carries the disease from the rat, or the creator of all life who created all destruction, disharmony, and creative destruction? And what of Zaki himself? Zaki is also a deviation from harmony because he uses highly insulting language, vulgar forms of language, and intentionally seeks to be offensive; therefore, Zaki is someone who contributes to disharmony of the universe. Therefore, Zaki is a deviation of the universe. Conversely, the gays that Zaki condemns are often highly creative individuals who contribute to art, business, and music. They also design wonderful houses. Their fashion sense alone shows that any God who created them surely must wants gays to be his ambassadors of harmony (Just look at their sense of proportion and symmetry). Zaki will not understand the joke being made here, a joke which proves the point that his understanding of harmony and deviation are merely arbitrary conceptions.
Zaki also is very confused about his cosmological argument. It is at best a speculative proposition. It in no way every be confirmed empirically because it is in principal beyond scientific investigation. He blames scientist for not wanting to talk about the cause of the big bang, but Zaki sees humility as a flaw. Zaki continues to talk about the universe being brought about, being caused, etc. but what cause the big bang is beyond our knowledge. It is doubtful if the question makes any sense. The cosmological argument is in many ways similar to a speculative theory called string theory, but there are a few differences in this comparison.
The theories are similar in that they both lack empirical confirmation, and they both seek to give a unifying account of your universe. However, physicists freely admit that string theory is just a theory; and therefore, until it is given confirmation by empirical findings, it will just remain a theory (BUT SCIENTISTS HAVE THE HUMILITY TO ADMIT THIS). It is reminiscent of general relativity theory, that was not widely accepted until Eddington confirmed Einstein’s theory in Africa. A similar case was the Big Bang theory that did not receive wide scale acceptance until discovery of the cosmic microwave background. But it wasn’t just the empirical findings that gave scientists confidence in these theories, it is the complex mathematical models and the amazing explanatory power these theories offer. In other words, they are fruitful scientific theories that have provided research programs and new scientific discoveries during much of the last century and well into this century and probably beyond. Could the Cosmological Argument give us anything similar? What if we knew there were a Prime Mover of the universe? Well then we would have to inquire about the Prime Mover. Could we have a scientific theory of the Prime Mover? These would be legitimate questions to ask, but Zaki seems to want to make the buck stop there. That is the explanation! This would just be special pleading; he wants to make his chosen entity the ultimate cause of everything. So why go back as far as Zaki’s Prime Mover, why not just say the universe itself, or the primeval atom, or a cosmic computer, or a universal mother, is the ultimate source of everything. Perhaps some supercomputer printed out the universe. There is no empirical test to settle the matter. Zaki’s Prime Mover is just one among many arbitrary choices one could make, and this is why scientist choose to remain agnostic on anything “bringing about” the big bang.
Zaki’s complete weirdness is demonstrated by Zaki’ biological metaphysics. He insists on life forces and seedlings and other such quaint notions. Again he goes way beyond empirical evidence and scientific theories. Biological sciences have convincingly shown that life is a physical process that begins with the DNA, and all life has its basis in chemistry. (Zaki will probably dispute this claim, but I will side with the biologist here.) How did life begin on earth? Nobody knows. And scientists freely admit this. This is analogous to our “what caused the Big Bang” problem, but it may have a more reasonable chance of actually being answered some day. If it is ever answered, it will be by a scientists, not by someone who spins volumes of meaningless jargon out of highly fanciful imagination.
We could also discuss Zaki’s ethical views, but Zaki is so discredited by this point that one needs to go one. So why does Zaki created these endless screeds of confused understanding of popular readings of quantum mechanics, 19th century biology (pre-chromosome days) and 18th century biology (pre- Darwin days). The answer becomes clear. Zaki continues to reference homosexuals. Of all the worlds sins (and I am not admitting this is a sin)Zaki chooses to condemn homosexuality. He could condemn mass-murders or rapists, but he puts his fingers on gays (I am not implying anything about Zaki’s behavior). Why? After spending hours obsessing over homosexuality, he must feel a need to then cleanse his mind by writing screeds that will cover his own dirty thoughts.
Of Course Zaki will respond to this. He will insult me and provide some extreme rationalizations for his bizarre theories. All of this will be further confirmation of what he is trying to hide. God have mercy on Zaki’s soul.
Hopefully Zaki will realize that what he is hiding from himself is not a sin, but a propensity that is beaitful and adds harmony to the universe.
Above I stated that seedlings were a quaint notion. I am obviously not referring to seedlings as a biological concept (or as it may be used in science), but to Zaki’s bizarre notion of spiritual seedling are found throught the world in order to bring about ordered phenomena we find in nature. At least this seems to be (it’s often hard to know exactly what he means) what he is referring to in one of his comments.
St Mary,
Here is further elaboration of some of the claims you have made.
Clearly consciousness is a hard problem. This is not my term; this is how experts in the field describe it. Amazingly Zaki has “solved” this hard problem. Maybe he should get a Nobel Prize.
If Zaki wants to condemn anyone who denies that consciousness is real; I’m on board. If he wants to pretend his pseudo-explanations are as good as established scientific theory, one can only laugh at his arrogance.
We do know that consciousness and human experience is tied to the brain. Neuroscientists have studied the brain in great detail, and neuroscientists have discovered much about how the electrochemical process of the brain causes various states of consciousness. How “phenomenal” first-person states of consciousness arise from neural-chemical processes in the brain, however, is a great mystery. But to suggest that a mind is pulling the lever of subatomic quantum processes in order to create free choice is a great a leap of faith and to go way beyond humility and modern scientific evidence.
Again, not every scientist is convinced that quantum mechanics is promising for solved the “free-will problem. One problem is that quantum mechanics discusses statistical probabilities that govern the sub-atomic world. Statistical probabilities that govern quantum phenomena (not the statistical probabilities that govern a Vegas crap table) , if could be successfully shown to govern some macroscopic events such as brain processes would give us actions guided by random processes, hardly free will. If Zaki then claims that it is not the quantum processes that are governing our brain process, but a mind working from a “top” down model governing the quantum processes that ultimately connect to our brains and actions that result there from, he is presupposing the “mind,” but the existence of the mind is one of the very things that is being called into question in the free-will debate. Again Zaki likes to import into his premises what he what to prove in this theories. Granted, for the sake of argument, there is a “mind”; it is not clear that this would still give us free-will. Two fascinating proposal have been made that show how our observations of the macroscopic world could be connected to the world of quantum mechanics. What is interesting about these demonstrations is that the say nothing about the free-will problem. One is the two-slit screen experiment. Individual photons are shot through a screen with two slit holes this process will produce an amorphous blob pattern as the photons over time collectively contact a larger screen in the back, that is, unless the whole processes is being observed. When the process is observed, a pattern emerges of interval light and dark patterns that indicate the photons, as a group, are following a wave-like patterns and these wave like patterns interfere with one another causing the alternating light and dark bands. A second demonstration, which is really just a thought experiment, shows how the fate of a cat caught in a closed box is tied to quantum probabilities in such a way that the cat has an equal chance of being found dead or alive. According to some interpretations of quantum mechanics, the cat, his fate being tied to quantum statistical probabilities, is neither dead or alive until an observer opens the box. These two examples show that an observer is a necessary part of the whole process, and not just a passive observer. What they do not show is that the observer intentionally causes anything only that as part of the whole process, the outcome (which is related to the collapse of the wave function governed by statistical probabilities that have been connected to the macroscopic world of human existence and observation) is dependent on “an” observer. An analogy is that a tree shadow is “caused” by a tree. In other words, the tree is necessary for the tree-shadow, but to say the tree is willfully causing the shadow would be the same error as to claim the an observer willfully causes the wave-like patterns on the screen, or that he maliciously or benevolent has direct control of whether the cat lives or dies. To go from the idea that an observer has a causal role in the outcomes of quantum mechanical processes is not say the observer is consciously, intentionally and willfully bringing out desired results in the same way one talks of my intentional desire to grab an apple and not an orange from my refrigerator. Quantum mechanics does not prove free-will; if one wants to get free-will from quantum mechanics one has to build ideas and conceptions into his understanding of quantum mechanics that go way beyond what quantum mechanics physicists actually claim.
Many great scientists (but by no means a majority) have suggested that quantum mechanics may open a door into an explanation of how consciousness can solve the mysteries of free-will. Such theories presuppose a mind (and do not prove that a mind exists), and most (if not all) of these scientists are humble enough to admit they are far from anything like an acceptable scientific theory. Should we be open-minded to these proposals? By all means. But no one (except Zaki) seems to thinks of this problem is currently solved by quantum mechanics.
The great Richard Feynman said that anyone who understands quantum mechanics is lying. It seems very precarious (though not altogether wrong) to try to appeal to one great mystery (quantum mechanics) to explain another great mystery (the “hard-problem” of consciousness (or vice-versa). As a layman I can only wish the scientists who are currently exploring the relation between quantum mechanics and the brain the best of luck, and hope they develop a successful model that can be tested, verified, and accepted by the scientific community.
Until that day, it is best to say the great scientific mysteries still surround both consciousness and quantum mechanics.
There is another door open, and that is called mysticism. Amazingly mysticism leads its practitioners to humility and compassion to others even if non-mystics, as myself, may be skeptical that it opens a door to human knowledge. Perhaps Zaki would benefit from admitting his ideas have more in common with mysticism than scientific knowledge
Zaki has a bizarre notion of life. It is loosely related to a theory called hylozoism (you described his view as animism) This is an ancient doctrine long ago supported by Pre-Socratic philosophers. The theory saw all things within the universe as “alive.” Since Darwin, genetics, the discoveries of chromosomes and later DNA, these theories have largely been abandoned. Why? Because life is complex arrangement of chemistry. This is all that science shows us; life is complex chemistry. To argue “hylozoism” with Zaki is like trying to argue with someone who proposed that world is flat. If fact, there are people who make such a claim. They give long and complicated arguments that “agree with the facts of observation.” One would be foolish to try to convince such people as one would be foolish to argument with the insane asylum victim who claims that the world is ending tomorrow.
There is Zaki’s aesthetic theory, but it is so patently obvious that he applies harmony where he likes and refuses to see harmony in things he doesn’t like. A rat displays just as much of an integral harmony of parts as Zaki, yet because it carries bacteria (also highly complex and organized), his claiming that rats are deviations of God’s plan shows once again that he looks at evidence based on his own presuppositions, forgetting that Zaki contains more bacteria in his body than human cells. If Zaki gets sick from bacteria, I hope that no one would call him vermin just because he contains a co9ntagious disease. I would hope that someone would call a hospital.
The cosmological argument is one of those great intellectual proposals that goes back to Aristotle and has been reinstate for consideration by modern apologist (Swinburne and Craig).
Not surprisingly cosmologist are not that impressed by the argument. Most scientists are content start at the Big Bang and not look for explanations beyond the initial “bang.”
The problem is that at most a cosmological argument can at most only get us to a First Cause. If someone asks about the cause of the First Cause special pleading is resorted to. That’s it. A First Cause can have not cause; a first cause is an unmoved mover. But the question arises if this is this case, cannot other first cause besides Zaki’s God be presupposed. First, one could suggest and loving and merciful God, but many one contend that this would impossible due to the amount of suffering found in the universe. Zaki’s cruel monster god, who makes Huitzilopochtli, the Aztec God who demanded blood sacrifice of thousands of Aztec victims, look like a pussy cat. It’s hard to imagine a God who created the destructive forces such as black holes and large-scale mass extinctions would be so loving and kind, so Zaki may have a point.
However, other suggestions have been given as to what “brought about” the universe.
The Prime Mover could be a gigantic computer that transcends space and time and “prints” out a universe. If Zaki has a problem with this, then he needs to ask why this computer could not do anything his “god” could. The problem Zaki would find that any objection he could make about why a giant computer could not produce a universe, I could just readjust my own terms. If he complained that I was just making ad hoc assumptions, the same charges could be leveled against his Prime Mover arguments. The Prime Mover exists outside durational time even though we have no concept causality separate from durational time. We do have notions of numbers and logic, which have a non-durational quality, but these are not notions we imbued with will, consciousness, and creativity. Any sort of causal agent that is outside of durational time is beyond what is normally understood by these term. One has adjust his definitions and standard ways of using terms such as cause, willing, intention, in order to explain how a Prime Mover can bring about the universe. Whatever adjustments Zaki could make in order to have a self-consistent theory, the Prime Computer could do likewise. In fact just about any theory can be made to fit the facts. Cosmological Arguments are made to fit the fact as we currently understand them, but I could do the same with my Cosmological Computer. Neither theory (the Cosmological argument of the Cosmo Computer) gives us a scientific explanatory model that could lead to new discoveries. This is largely due to fact that one builds into his premises the very ideas he wants to prove (or makes adjustments to his premised after new facts have been discovered). In the end, we have a game of words without any hope of resolutions through empirical demonstration.
Another proposal that a few serious scientists have suggested is that the big band sprang from the inverse of black hole from a previous universe.
A final proposal is that by Stephen Hawking that universe is a necessary result of gravity itself. This proposal is connected to a scientific endeavor called string theory (at least one version of string theory), As of yet, string theory has not been confirmed empirically, but at least its backed by a deep mathematical model and is made in conjunction with scientific theories (as opposed to the sort of speculation divorced from scientific activity).
In the end the Cosmological Argument does not have the commanding force that Zaki wants it have. Zaki needs to realize that his Prime Mover being is not the only possible explanation and that other possible explanations have been proposed. Until there is a way to decide the matter empirically, it is merely dogmatic to say that the Cosmological Argument is anything but a suggestion. It is interesting speculation, but one is best to regard that matter of what “brought about” the Big Bang as unresolved (and perhaps irresolvable.)
A final claim that Zaki makes is belief in God is needed for morality. Zaki ignores the Euthyphro argument of Socrates: Do the gods declare the moral loved by the gods because it is moral, or is something moral because it is loved by the gods (the actual word in Plato is not moral, but Pious, but the dilemma still stands) The dilemma is that if the Gods chose certain deeds to be moral because these actions are moral (or pious) than the gods are not necessary for morality. On the other hands, if the gods choose what is moral and not moral arbitrarily (and not according to a standard of morality) than this reduces morality to the caprice of the Gods. Given Huitzilopochtli-like God of Zaki (Huitzilopochtli was the Aztec god that demanded thousands of victims’’ blood to spilled at the Aztec alter), it is no surprise that Zaki thinks that morality is just that, a caprice of his monster-like God narrowly guided by what Zaki sees as Just (for all gays to burn in an eternal lake of fire) Since Zaki hates gays and atheists (and probably equates the two) he imagines that his God hates what he hates. Zaki’s god and Zaki himself are incapable of comprehending compassion or the golden rule. This give’s Zaki’s moral pronouncements a very primitive quality, of such low standards that one could barely call them moral.
correction for Abigail: I inadvertentl switched the results of the two slit experiment. I should have writt_en that the observser’s causing of the wave function to collapse causes a non-interference pattern to result; whereas non-observation results in a wave interference pattern. Above I wrote the opposite. However, the point still stands the observer is not willfully and intentionally causing the result even if the observer is a necessary part of the process. Thus one needs to go way beyond. q. m. to arrive at free will.
DAWKINS USES ARGUEMENTS LIKE “IF YOU BELEIVE IN RELGION THEN UR A STUPIED HEAD POOPY PANTS” AND PEOPLE ACTUALLY
TAKE HIS SHIT SERIOUSLY.
THE DOUCHBAG FAMILY TREE
RICHARD DAWKINS
SARA PALLIN
RUSH LIMBAUGH
GLENN BECK
RON PAUL
ALEX JONES
PETER SCHIFF
THEY ARE ALL THE SAME – THEY ALL PEDAL LIES AND UPROAR FOR A FEW MISRABLE DOLLARS. PATHETIC.
Wow “deliverer” you took a break from kissing dawkin’s ass to spend some time with us.
The funniest thing about this dolt, Richard Dawkins, is that he actually – shamelessly – says that he rejects the very truth he claims he has discovered in Darwinism as a guide for living. He’s always going on about how he would hate to live in a Darwinian society. Well then, if Darwinism is no good for practical application in one’s life what exactly is the use of it? It’s not as if it can explain macro-evolution, is it?
It is not surprising that even this boneheaded wanker realizes that a world order – or indeed any other kind of order – whose basis and guidance is devoid of intelligence can only produce what is unsound, chaotic and unlivable. Now if only he’d apply that consistently in the rest of his ruminating which he calls “thinking”, and in his waffling and scratchings which some mistake for writing.
I love this website, its really funny but what is even more funny are the low life dawkins fanboys who troll on it.
I love this website, its really funny but what is even more funny are the low life dawkins worshippers who troll on it.
Richard Dawkins says life is meaningless and purposeless – yet he wants people to make up their own moral standards. What, pray, is supposed to guide them in this? Besides, since it is his opinion that people are just machines – with no free will – how does he suppose they can make up anything at all?
He tries to wave away questions of this sort with tripe about how human beings have big brains. If big brains have been created and are controlled in their behavior by selfish genes, as he claims, and we have no free will then how exactly could we break free of “genetic tyranny” with big brains – as he also claims we have done? Dawkins might be a professor of thinkology but he isn’t much of a thinker.
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/geraldwarner/9416255/The_Dawkins_Delusion_Benedict_XVI_is_stupid_ignorant_or_dim/
Just another example of Dicky Dawkins boneheadedness!
FFS Dawkins has just joined in setting up of a new private university in London with twice the tuition fees of Oxford or Cambridge. Its purely for humanities of which Dawkins has FA expertise or qualification, which time and again he and his born again devotees have slagged off. You couldn’t make it up, he is a parody of himself. He’s just joined the elitist bs for the cash and publicity. No doubt he will get another set of programmes courtesy of the BBC and Channel 4 or another lucrative book is coming up. Makes me ashamed to be a feloow Englishman. The “man” is pure turd.
Richard Dawkins is an Asshole. His mother has been raped by Hindus in Mumbai.
I suggest we clone Carl Sagan and we train him as a spokeperson for non religious people.
My favourite qute from this incredibly cool dude:
“The chief difficulty I see in the skeptical movement is in its polarizations: Us vs. Them — the sense that we [skeptics] have a monopoly on the truth; that those other people who believe in all these stupid doctrines are morons; that if you’re sensible, you’ll listen to us; and if not, you’re beyond redemption. This is unconstructive. It does not get the message across. “
What message would this be? That it is possible for EVENTS to occur FOR NO REASON – WITHOUT A PREEXISTING CAUSE? If that is the message, then NO INTELLIGENT PERSON could EVER accept it as it is contrary to logic and sanity!
Equally absurd is the suggestion made by Sagan that one should not ask the question of what the Ultimate Cause is – and the assertion that the Ultimate Cause must Itself also be caused. Only EVENTS are caused and NEED to be caused. The Ultimate Cause – UNIQUELY – CANNOT be caused, since NOTHING preexists It – since then it could not be the Ultimate Cause.
Mere persuasion can NEVER supplant LOGIC! However nicely it is wrapped up, Atheism is still arrant BULLSHIT!
Interesting perspectiveZaki and commendable.Only one little problem,dude,the word you should have used is errant not arrant.Probably some little typing glitch. Anyway because we are on the subject of that crap for brains,Richie Dawkins,I would like to know why this dipshit moron spends so much energy trying to denigrate an entity that he purportedly doesn`t believe in? I mean Richard is a self proclaimed champion lol of logic,reasoning and the scientific way yet he spends a lot of time and energy excoriating something that he doesn`t believe in! Where is the logic here?If I,personally,don`t believe that something exists then I am not concerned in the least by it and won`t dwell on something that I am convinced does not exist.Personally,I believe in God but I believe God is not subject to the constraints of time and space and God certainly is not of this material world but is spirit that is both omniscient and omnipotent.
Actually, I did mean “arrant” defined as follows by Webster’s:
Definition of ARRANT
: being notoriously without moderation : extreme
— ar·rant·ly adverb
See arrant defined for English-language learners »
See arrant defined for kids »
Examples of ARRANT
Origin of ARRANT
alteration of errant
First Known Use: 14th century
On the rest, we’re in agreement. Dawkins’ inordinate vanity forces him to denigrate ANYTHING that is manifestly superior to him. God being the greatest of those things. This is the psychology in operation behind the atheistic worldview. It has NOTHING to do with a desire to be logical – just an overwhelming desire to assert one’s will as superior to all else. That is the fundamental character of ALL tyrants – great and small.
Dawkins can be arrogant, but most of the people on this thread appear to have sewers in place of their brain.
What is this conclusion based on? ANY logic AT ALL? Or did you arrive at it after one of those sessions spent on your knees with Dicky Dawkins?
You’re an atheist who openly admits that you are incapable of supporting your worldview with knowledge – hence you’re agnostic. Exactly what then do you have to offer the youth of developing countries and others? A similar level of ignorance that you confess to now? And, by the way, how is this different from the blind faith which you atheists roundly condemn?
Militant atheists are simply an aggressive version of the above attitude. Aggressively seeking to spread their materialistic ignorance and prejudice. Is this not so?
Zakiaminu = CRAIG’S LORD HAW HAW PROPAGANDIST CACKLES ON.
No LOGICAL counter-argument to present implies hurl invective at opponents for atheists, eh? It doesn’t work anymore! Hahahahahahahahahahahah!
Religious people can now simply ignore Dawkins or refer him to Craig any time he comes sniffing around trying to harass them into a state of doubt about their faith. Peace at last! Hahahahahahahahahahahahaha!
“We’re agnostic, by the way.”
So are you agnostic theist or agnostic atheist? Agnosticism is not some half-way point between atheism and theism. It is a position on knowledge, while (a)theism is a position on belief.
Good to know there are some people out there willing to sit back, do nothing, and let the world blow it self up instead of standing up for what is right, breaking down bullshit taboos and bringing freedom to humanity.
Good to know you can sit and bitch about outspoken, passionate atheists while letting the theists continue to oppress gays, kill each other (and anyone in their way), and suppress women as sub-human. Good job! Oh don’t forget mutilating their kids genitals in the name of God.
You’re so open minded towards religion, that your brains have fallen out.
Whenever you call someone else a douchebag, rest assured you’re just looking in a mirror.
It’s truly hilarious in a macabre sort of way to see atheists casting themselves in the role of freedom fighters for humanity and world saviours. These are people who say that existence is meaningless; that human consciousness and sense of self as well as free will are all illusions. That the Principle of Causality is false and that people have resulted from random accidents and are nothing more than jiggling bags of mindless chemicals with absolutely no OBJECTIVE morality to guide them.. And yet atheists see themselves as champions of morality on behalf of humanity! All this would be funny if it weren’t so tragic.
I hate Richard Dawkins more than anyone else on earth. Every time I post something on his circle wank website he gets his circle buddies to ban me. I have to keep registering on new free mail websites just to make another comment before being banned again. Every day I search for phrases like the one that got me to this page. I like to picture him in fishnet stocking getting shunted by some big woman wearing a strapon.
He is a NAIVE, ARROGANT ARIES male who doesn’t even know that he is a typical NAIVE ARROGANT ARIES male.
By the way, to clarify my viewpoint on him, I am a male too.
Dicky Dawkins talks a lot of dick but, as we all know, he has no balls – which makes whiat he has to say rather impotent, doesn’t it?
Wow. You really act like to believe in God. You must be saint of the year.
To be fair, Dawkins saves a dictionary compiler the need to define ‘smug’.
Except he has no justification for his smugness.
Very glad I stumbled across this page. As an agnostic who doesn’t appreciate being referred to as a ‘fence sitting coward’; I couldn’t be more pleased, or tickled;)
I don’t hate anyone, so I cannot endorse this website. If I were a Christian, I would pray for Dawkins’s soul, especially when he acts like a douche bag spider monkey. I keep feeling that we atheists get bad press mostly due to these evangelical atheists who feel a need to convert everyone else by calling them stupid and ignorant (a proven method for persuasion). Most atheist are not eager to start a fight, so they are not constantly insulting others as delusional dimwits, demanding that the word God be obliterated everywhere they see it, and simultaneously crying that nobody likes them. I should also give a shout out to the stink badgers at the Atheist Experience for also painting all atheists as smug, superior assholes.
What is the LOGICAL basis of your atheism? Is it just a bit of fun – or is there some deeper reason why you came to the conclusion that there is no Supreme or Ultimate Truth – God – to Existence?
For my response, please go to the following link (sorry it is so long).
http://www.google.com/imgres?q=no+phishing&um=1&hl=en&rlz=1R2RNQN_enUS454&biw=1280&bih=770&tbm=isch&tbnid=NRh7ejEo9-qJoM:&imgrefurl=http://www.iphoneworld.ca/news/2009/09/14/update-on-iphone-os-31-anti-phishing/&docid=-qomCVCeY7PujM&imgurl=http://www.iphoneworld.ca/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/no-phishing.jpg&w=335&h=400&ei=uesmT7aWKoz4sQKZy6SMAg&zoom=1&iact=hc&vpx=673&vpy=123&dur=281&hovh=245&hovw=205&tx=123&ty=122&sig=114089237078233993326&page=1&tbnh=136&tbnw=114&start=0&ndsp=26&ved=1t:429,r:3,s:0
The link points to some jumbled nonsense. I take it you DON’T KNOW why you have decided to be an atheist, eh? Never mind.
Some people are very thick!
Yes. They’re called “atheists”.
You are a beautiful human being. God loves you even if you are thick.
What’s thicker than my granddaddy’s thick Bible?
Answer: zakiaminu
Dude, that’s not nice. You shouldn’t be so rude to the less intelligent. Some people can’t help it. It’s not nice to make jokes about the less fortunate among us. God loves all creatures, even the less among us.
Atheists don’t actually believe that there is anything like intelligence, do they?
Well, I’m NOT the one claiming that ANYTHING can JUST HAPPEN – FOR NO REASON/WITHOUT CAUSE, am I? That’s ATHEISTS! Isn’t the nadir of thickness?
What a cool name for a rock band. The Nadir of Thickness! Cool Dude.
Don’t you mean “least” among us?
What yardstick are you using to measure thickness here? Do you know – or NOT? You DON’T KNOW, do you? Never mind.
I guess I’m as thick as zakiaminu
But how would you know that? Atheists don’t believe they really have consciousness, do they?
No, that’s impossible.
And you know that – HOW? In fact, given that you claim you have no real consciousness, how can you possibly really know ANYTHING?
You … are … right. I … have… no… consciousness.I… am … a… robot from… the… planet … Zobert. … I … have… come … to… destroy… the evil … atheis of … planet… earth!
I think thick heads who thinks its their business to tell others how to think and try to start arguments with people not interested in arguing are hot! I hope I can meet zakiaminu some day so I can know him better. zakiaminu, you will be in my fantasies tonight. I love angry, argumentative young men who are trying to save the world. They really do a number on me!
Don’t be silly! Just ‘cos you have NO LOGICAL ARGUMENT to offer…..
I love you baby. Kiss, kiss
I mean, how can you adopt a belief that there is no God WITHOUT a shred of evidence to support this? Atheists claim they’re waiting for SOMEONE ELSE to give them sufficient reason to believe in God. What lazy buggers! Why wait for SOMEONE ELSE to come up with evidence for your most sacred belief? Or why not just admit that you are ignorant as to whether God Exists or not – which is stupid enough. Why insist that because YOU haven’t discovered evidence for God’s Existence, He can’t exist. As if, He needs to clear it with you before He can exist. What boneheads!
The real Marilyn was known to spread it around a bit too, wasn’t she?
You like the dirty stuff!
I will not make fun of zakiaminu .
I will not make fun of zakiaminu .
I will not make fun of zakiaminu .
I will not make fun of zakiaminu .
I will not make fun of zakiaminu .
I will not make fun of zakiaminu .
I will not make fun of zakiaminu .
I will not make fun of zakiaminu .
I will not make fun of zakiaminu .
I will not make fun of zakiaminu .
I will not make fun of zakiaminu .
I will not make fun of zakiaminu .
I will not make fun of zakiaminu .
I will not make fun of zakiaminu .
I will not make fun of zakiaminu .
You’ve gone bonkers, haven’t you? Ah well, I suppose there’s only so far that one can go with half-wits. I’ve better things to do than trash you intellectually.
Just note: NO LOGICAL COUNTER-ARGUMENTS from atheists to my comments. Just mindless dribble!
Pobrecito, nobody will play with you anyomore. Too bad; don’t cry. I’m sure you can find some friends.
What a cowardly cop-out! Typical atheistic behaviour! When routed, try to change the subject, eh?
The problem is that you make very few actual arguments. The arguments you do make show very little rational construction.You mostly just rant and rave, claim that your claims are obvious and insult those who disagree with you. Provide a sound argument, and the others can actually respond to the claims you make.
Evidence! Reason! Counter Argument! Logic!
You are so cute when you pout, but your inner beauty would shine through if only you smiled a little more. Turn off your computer, go pick up a puppy, eat some ice cream, watch the stars, and talk to a girl (or boy if you prefer). Remember that nobody is ultimately accountable to you, except yourself. But if you are not careful, you are going to miss the point to the grand and mysterious place we call the universe.
For all your misplaced sincerity, you are a wonderful human being.
Love and Peace,
Wes
Whatever are you on about? Are you proposing to understand and appreciate the universe without recourse to REASON and LOGIC? That’s silly, isn’t it? Sure, an intuitive understanding of the universe is VERY important – indeed MOST IMPORTANT – in life. But you will find that, if it’s genuine intuition, it will be COMPLETELY integrated with REASON and LOGIC and is NOT something separate from them.
It is reassuring to know that other atheists feel the same way I do. I always feel that I am a human being first, and atheist somewhere down the list (mother, wife, citizen, etc.). The new atheists seem to have created one more reason to divide the world between “us” and “them.”
I apoligize. I was not responding to you, but making a general comment. Please excuse me.
Susan Jones
“I apoligize. I was not responding to you, but making a general comment. Please excuse me.”
Don’t be afraid. I don’t bite.Well not just anyone.
Ben Family Guy Stein: Now I get it. Zman is the deity. He holds everyone accountable and tells everyone how they should think. If they disagree with him, he is ready to zap them. Wow, now I see the light. Zman is the god.
Mum: Z. cannot be the god. The god is Holy and One. Zman is only a prophet. Anyone who believes that Zman is the god is the great Satan and shall be put to the sword.
Ben Family Guy Stein: I beg your pardon. If you do not believe in the divinity of Zman, you are a heretic, and we shall burn you at the stake.
Hin: No, you are all wrong. Everything is Zman, the plants, the flowers and the trees. If you obtain oneness with the Zman, you are among the blessed and when you die you shall not be reborn but obtain Zness and live in the bliss of his presence. If you are a lowly pariah, then you shall return to earth as a worm.
Big Dick Dawk Don of Ox: Don’t be silly. All this God talk is rubbish. Where is the evidence? I don’t believe in fairly tales, flying tea cups, or Monotheistic Gods. Anyone believes in a delusion is insane and should not be allowed to have children because they will only brainwash them with these pernicious lies.
Zman: Damn you all. I think I am going to fly a plane into your houses for this. Can’t you see that there must be a God? How else do you explain the order of the universe, morality, mind, and the self? All the order you see around you shows us that clearly there is a higher intelligence that created the universe. Just use reason you stupid half- wits. Moreover, you have no rational account of morality or ethics. It is only by believing in God that one can truly be moral. You stupid jack asses deserve to be tortured.
Big Dick Dawk Don of Ox: There, there. Please be civilized you moron. You cannot explain the complexity of the universe by appealing to a more complex entity than the universe itself. This is clearly not an explanation. We know about evolution and the big bang, so why should we explain what we understand by appealing to that of which we have no understanding or empirical data. There is no evidence for God. Clearly it is a delusion, an evil delusion.
Zman: If you are an atheist, then you don’t believe in minds (or can’t explain their existence!) So you can’t really believe what you are saying because you are mindless. In fact you are a mindless dim-wit.
Big Dick Dawk Don of Ox: I’m sorry, but you are not being civilized. Saying that you are just an evolved ape is an insult to apes. I’m sorry, but you cannot expect me to believe in that which I have no evidence.
Zman: You are the one with no evidence. Reason shows that the universe logically must have a cause for its existence. How can you explain the fine-tuning of a universe that contains irreducibly complex forms of life? The odds are completely against life just popping out of the mud! You are such an ass! Without God morality makes no sense, and we can just all kill each other. Because God exists, we can be moral, and then we can have justification for killing those who think differently.
Big Dick Dawk Don of Ox: There is no call for your being so rude. It is God who is immoral: the monotheistic God that prescribes genocide and jihad. You must be a morally inferior creature to believe such a horrible myth. You are not worthy of the ape-like creature from which you evolved. In the future, please show respect ole man and be civilized.
Zman: But where is the evidence for your position?
Big Dick Dawk Don of Ox: I’m sorry, but I debate no one of a lower stature than a bishop or pissing camel such as yourself. Debating you may look good on your resume, but for me it’s just a waste of time. I’m sorry, but I’m busy.
Z: You resort to insults when you have no evidence for your position. Typical atheist!
Big Dick Dawk Don of Ox: I do not supply you evidence because you are an idiot and are mentally incapable of processing data. Furthermore, you are rude and violate all standards of civilized conversation.
Zman: Your momma wears combat boots!
Big Dick Dawk Don of Ox: Your momma sleeps with mommas who wear combat boots.
Zman: This is silly. I am going to find someone with whom to have a rational conversation.
Big Dick Dawk Don of Ox: I’m going to write another book of a civilized tone that shows that all people who believe in God are not highly evolved creatures but similar to blood worms. Please do not respond to me if you cannot show respect, you deluded primate (with apologies to all other primates).
Z: Where is your evidence!?
Big Ox Dick Dawk of Don: I don’t have to have evidence for fairies, Bigfoot, orbiting tea cup, the flying spaghetti monster or for anything these things because I don’t believe in. It is for you to show evidence; you are making the positive assertion that something exists, just as I do not believe my grandchild when she says there is a monster in the closet. I am not the one making the existential postulation. The onus is on your to provide evidence. Where is your evidence? Stop being childish and grow up. Please show respect and stop insulting those who disagree with you, you damn idiot.
Zman: The evidence for God is obvious! The onus is on you to provide evidence because you are denying the obvious! Where is your evidence for atheism! Or are you too lazy to find evidence to support your position?
Big Dick Dawk Don of Ox: I just explained all that. Stop being intellectually lazy and think critically about what you believe; that is if you have half a brain. Moreover, treat others with respect, you intellectual fascist. Where is your evidence?
Zman: I just explained this to you. Where is your evidence, dumb piece of crap!
Big Dick: I just explained all that. Where is your evidence, cockroach dung!
Zman: I just explained this to you. Where is your evidence, stomach bacteria!
Ben Family Guy Stein: Zman is my god. I shall have no other Zmans before me. Z has shown me how to be a highly ethical and moral being. I shall have no tolerance for those who have different points of view than my own.
Hymn of Praise:
Zman is so good.
Zman so good.
Zman is so good.
Zman He’s so good to me.
Z: Finally, you see the light. I am the god, and you shall believe what I say! You must justify all your beliefs before me because I am the mandarin of the universe.
Father Guido Sarducci: You mean ZZ Top is God.
Zman: Where’s the evidence. I kill you, heretic. Go find some little boys.
Why a load of verbose shite! A good argument doesn’t go on and on like a spastic rapper! It is direct and to the point! What exactly is this flood of verbiage supposed to be communicating other than clear evidence of the unstable mind of its author – exactly as in the case of man possessed by a legion of devils in the Bible, who also called himself “Legion”?
Why a load of verbose shite! A good argument doesn’t go on and on like a spastic rapper! It is direct and to the point! What exactly is this flood of verbiage supposed to be communicating other than clear evidence of the unstable mind of its author – exactly as in the case of man possessed by a legion of devils in the Bible, who also called himself “Legion”?
You are the God I worship. The God of the Old Testament. Vengeful and no sense of irony. I worship you.
The God you believe in cannot possibly exist.
You are a representative of the God you claim exists.
You are rude, arrogant, insulting and have no sense of humor.
Most representatives of God claim to act God-like.
Your actions (assuming you really believe in the God you represent); therefore, indicate that you believe in a rude, arrogant, insulting, fuddy duddy God
Richard Dawkins, the duckbill platypus, the Republican Party, Kin Jon IL (RIP), Lady Gaga and you exists.
These things clearly show that any being that created this universe must have a sense of humor.
Ergo: Your God does not exist.
Oh shut up! Say something when you have a LOGICAL argument to present!
There once was a man named Zaki Aminu
Who could have no fun,
Ever since he took a class
called Philosophy 101
He made silly arguments
and no one cared
So sounds of his terror
filled all of the air.
He had never read Darwin, Hume or Kant
and he had no more fun than a little piss ant.
If he would only laugh and smile
He would see his troubles go away after a little while
What a load of shite! Is there even ANY LOGICAL argument here AT ALL? It’s just NONSENSE from start to finish! You claim you see errors in my argumentation: Why not point them out – AT LEAST ONE! But of course you CAN’T! Since you’re simply LYING!
As for Darwin, Hume, and Kant, I’ve read enough of them all to know their philosophy is UTTER DRIVEL! Perhaps you’d like to defend them here and demonstrate the worth of what they have to offer? But, Oh no! You don’t! You just want to assert blankly that they’re great and should be revered wit’hout question – and still have the effrontery to think you are qualified after that to criticise people who practice blind faith! You atheists are sick souls!
If you have read Hume, Kant and Darwin, then Give some evidence. Just saying UTTER DRIVEl is a cop out. If you have read their arguments, then give some evidence for this because you don’t seem to understand that all your arguments have been made before (and much better by greater thinkers, i.e Aquinas), yet you have addressed none of the objections to them.
You made the claim that you read Darwin, Hume and Kant, and yet you tell the everyone else that they must give evidence. Now be consistent show by example that you have actually read and understood the arguments made against your positions (by these thinkers) and that you have rational response (if possible) to these objections and then eveyone will be convinced that you are someone to take seriously. Then, and only then, may people consider a serious discussion with you. Until then you are just some lonely boy phising aroung on a website not designed for you, but designed for atheists (who have no need to prove anything to you—who are you by the way to make such a presumptious claim?—to talk about Dawkins. No one feels any need argue with you until you show some manners and prove that you have arguments that are not just rehashed Philosophy 101 arguments, but really contain something serious to consider. (P. S. you might also consider the arguments made more recently against your positions. Hume Kant and Darwin are by no means the last to offer criticism of traditional theism).
Think of it this way. If you believe the world is round, and someone come up to you and says, hey the world is flat and why do you think it’s round, you would think this person
If you really don’t know what the arguments are against your positions, I will be glad to offer them. But don’t pretend that you know if you don’t. If you have really considered the arguments against your position, then show us by a rational response. Otherwise, ask for help. Maybe then we can have a serious discussion. It’s not your place to demand for other people to prove themselves to you (again, this is presumptiousness on your part) when you have yet to prove your position (without resorting to rehashed and out-of-dated arguments long since refuted).
This is just an ad hominem argument! Write back when you can play with the big boys..
You’re not addressing me, are you?
No it’s ad sarcasmos. Get a clue!
The Nadir of Thickness:
The Winner is Zaki Aminu
Yeah! Three cheers for Zaki Aminu! God of thickness!
It’s idiotic! That’s what it is! You’ve got a cheek to be asking others to get a clue when you have NONE yourself!
Yeah! That gross little cockroach scurried away!
No. Someone called an exterminator.
Do you atheists even have the capacity for deep thought AT ALL? I mean, you don’t really believe you have Consciousness or Free Will, do you? Given that, you can’t believe you have Intelligence, can you? You regard yourselves as meat puppets of random unguided forces, do you not? As such, are your lives even worth ANYTHING? Will it not simply be pest control when you lot are INEVITABLY swept away by the rapidly approaching cataclysm?
If you are going to call me a cockroach at least have some evidence. I mean a cockroach can’t just come into being without a cause. Really! This is abusd
You might consider getting yourself another username, which doesn’t look like mine. Are you attempting to impersonate me or what? It’s not enough to have a username that’s like mine you know. You need MUCH MORE than that! KNOWLEDGE for one thing.
“Yeah! Three cheers for Zaki Aminu! God of thickness!”
Whenever atheists are routed in debate they resort to buffoonery – to try and give the impression they were not taking it seriously anyway. But no one is fooled!
“The God you believe in cannot possibly exist.
You are a representative of the God you claim exists.
You are rude, arrogant, insulting and have no sense of humor.
Most representatives of God claim to act God-like.
Your actions (assuming you really believe in the God you represent); therefore, indicate that you believe in a rude, arrogant, insulting, fuddy duddy God
Richard Dawkins, the duckbill platypus, the Republican Party, Kin Jon IL (RIP), Lady Gaga and you exists.
These things clearly show that any being that created this universe must have a sense of humor.
Ergo: Your God does not exist.”
This is just DRIVEL from start to finish! What does “sense of humour” even mean? A tendency towards licentious behaviour which tolerates ANY degree of NONSENSE! And this you expect of God? Perhaps you also think that God approves of FAGGOTRY and the like?
The Cosmos is built on IMMOVABLE, INVIOLABLE, LAW and JUSTICE! NOT limitless tolerance of bad behaviour – which is what you’re really asking for with this demand for “sense of humour”. It is the demand of a spoilt brat who’d like to get away with EVERYTHING and not have to take responsibility for the consequences of his/her actions. But that is only an atheistic wet dream! It is NOT A POSSIBILITY! NO ONE EVER GETS AWAY WITH ANYTHING! NOT EVEN IN THE SMALLEST WAY!
All I have done is speak the Truth! If you don’t like that, that is a matter for you. I DON’T CARE! If you think God is someone who tolerates ANY level of disgusting, irresponsible, behaviour – such as FAGGOTRY, for instance, you’ll soon find out just how wrong you are – TO YOUR GREAT COST!
Family Guy Ben Stein: Mr. Big Dick Dawk, would you consider debating Zaki Iamanus about the question of who the biggest d-bag in the universe is?
Big Dick Dawk Don of Ox: I don’t know who this Zaki Iamanus is, but I do not debate anyone who is less of a d-bag than the Pope or Charlie Sheen, well maybe at least a Kurt Cobain.
Family Guy Ben Stein: Don’t you mean Kurt Cameron?
Big Dick Dawk Don of Ox: I apologize. I stand corrected.
Zaki Iamanus: Where is your evidence that you are a bigger d-bag than I am?
Big Dick Dawk Don of Ox: I don’t know who you think you are, but I have been a dogmatic, arrogant tool for many years. The sheer amount of collected evidence in my long life would simply dwarf any attempt you could possibly make towards being a bigger d-bag than I.
Zaki Iamanus: Here’s my evidence and weep you pruned face geezer. I believe in God and I am a d-bag. That means I am a d- bag and hypocrite. You cannot possibly be a hypocrite because you have no morality to believe in.
Big Dick Dawk: Well, I guess I see your point. How could I have been so wrong? Now I understand why God must exist. How else could anyone justify being such a d-bag without any recourse to a transcendent being. I am seriously going to have to think this through. Forgive me if I can’t respond to you at this moment.
Zaki Iamanus: No atheist is ever going to be a bigger d-bag than I am.
Big Dick Dawk: All my years of research. Oh no. What can I possibly do?
Family Guy Ben Stein: Yes, once again Zaki Iamanus proves he is the biggest d-bag in the universe.
Zaki Iamanus: You damn well got that right!
You win. I was joking this whole time, but now I get your joke! You have just proved that God is a d-bag. I am an atheist and not even I would not dare to be so sacrilegious. You had better hope there is no God, because if there is, He is really going to be pissed off at you for insulting him like this. Good job.
Do you not understand irony? Whoever wrote that is a genius and was having fun at your expense. Instead of taking it so seriously, you should be able to laugh at yourself.
“Do you not understand irony? Whoever wrote that is a genius and was having fun at your expense. Instead of taking it so seriously, you should be able to laugh at yourself.”
Well, I imagine a fool like you is bound to think of another fool as a “genius”. I bet you can’t even define “genius”. it certainly has NOTHING to do with irony. Your friend is just playing the buffoon – and of course one expects other buffoons to understand his buffoonery. That’s all.
“….Richard Dawkins, the duckbill platypus, the Republican Party, Kin Jon IL (RIP), Lady Gaga and you exists.
These things clearly show that any being that created this universe must have a sense of humor….”
Free Will exists and allows created beings to deviate from the path that leads towards God – if they so wish. But the consequences of such behaviour – as the consequences of good behaviour leading towards God are INESCAPABLE! It has NOTHING to do with some idiotic notion of “sense of humour”! That is just something comiing from the depraved ruminations of a cretin!
So a duckbill platypus has free will? Wow, man you have lost it.
How can ANY living thing not have Free Will to some extent? What is the meaning of “life” without freedom of action OF ANY KIND? How is that different from a machine’s existence? Is a machine’s existence “life” in your opinion you unmitigated idiot?
You think it’s sufficient to just assert that the duck-billed Platypus had no Free Wil without providing ANY evidence to back up this claim? Or perhaps you’d like to present some evidence now, would you? Be my guest!
You evil lion. Why did you eat that azebra? Don’t you know you have a choice. Just ask Zakianus. Lions are evil. Thanks you for your clarification.
By the way, does deviating from one’s truth path mean that you insults others and call them names. Is this what it means to follow in the path of God. I am so wrong about God. I was always taught that God had mercy and love, but you are showing me more more that God is really a giant d-bag. You draw such a clear picture of who this “higher” being is that for the first time in my life I understand what it means to believe in God. I see now. You represent your God so well.
How can ANY living thing not have Free Will to some extent? What is the meaning of “life” without freedom of action OF ANY KIND? How is that different from a machine’s existence? Is a machine’s existence “life” in your opinion you unmitigated idiot?
What do you mean that animals have “free will.” Do you mean that all animals are not guided by instincts, but are directed mysterious life force. Really, for someone who demands that others show evidence, you should at least provide evidence for this very strange claim. Don’t just ask how this is different from a machine when biologists understand the chemical and biological basis of life. Scientists can point to brains, hearts, cells, etc.and other physical organs and show how animals act and respond to their environments. Scientists can give deeper explanations of animal behavior by understanding the genetic code that underlies the animals natural instincts and bodily processes. However, I never heard of a scientist successfully pointing to an animal’s free will. Their is no evidence that such a mysterious force or entity exists. In fact scientists have been able to give a very good explanation of life, but this explanations relies on biology and chemistry, not a notions such as “free-will” Why do you keep insisting that others provide evidence when you make such empirically unverifiable claims?
What do you mean by “instincts”? Can you isolate on a petri-dish – or is it some “mysterious life force”?
If I asked you to point to air or gravity, you would fail – WOEFULLY! Does it follow from that that those entities do not exist? Do you doubt that prior to the existence of ANYTHING, its POSSIBILITY – MUST have existed FIRST? But can you point to this possibility? This idiotic notion that EVERYTHING that exists is limited to CONSTRAINED, RIGID, Matter is what dooms atheists to death. It forces you into the intellectual – from where it is IMPOSSIBLE to apprehend higher conceptions – such as Free Will. If you have no free will, what makes you think you’re capable of ANY action then? With what could you carry out ANY action? If there were no Free Will ANYWHERE in Existence, how are ANY events INITIATED? Do you think AT ALL?
Animals VERY CLEARLY make DECISIONS ALL THE TIME! They are NOT compelled to react in a particular way to the stimulus ALL THE TIME – and DON’T! Certainly, they have reflexes – but where do you suppose those have come from but THEMSELVES? Who or what do you imagine is handing out reflex systems to living things like candy?
Reflexes are the products of experience – long-repeated experience which can be regarded as a regularity. It is IDENTICAL to buffering in information systems where, for instance, a computer will keep in its buffer files that are called often by the user – anticipating the user’s actions somewhat. But all this HAS TO BE SET UP BEFOREHAND and isn’t JUST THERE!
Animals rely more on relexes because they are SPECIALISTS in terms of the survival strategies they use. Humans are GENERALISTS and so rely on “buffering” much less than animals. The conditions they encounter are too variable to be effectively dealt with using buffering. And so Free Will shows up more clearly in humans. That’s all. However, animals have itt too – just to a smaller degree. Just as humans have reflexes too – but to a degree less than that that of animals.
You are just wrong here. No other way to put it.
Air and gravity are concepts that play an explanatory role in science.
The concept of instincts is a meanignful concept within the framework of an scientific explantary theory called biolgoical evolution. In fact, instinct are encoded in DNA (so I guess you could look at an instinct in a petry dish, or maybe at least a microscope). “Life forces” and “free-will” are not party of scientific explantory framework. No free will or life force encoded in the DNA that has ever been found.
Scientifically speaking they are meaningless terms that have no empirical fondation or explanatory significance within a scientific framework.
Scientists at one time did appeal to “life-forces” but when chromosmes and DNA were discovered, scientist had no need for “life-forces” to explain biological life.
I am afraid that you are just explaining the explainable by appeals to mysterious forces. If you feel an emotional need to do this ((even though you hate appeals to emotions) feel free. Just don’t demand that others have to believe this empty terminology.
As far as your explanation of how a “mind” interacts with a body, you are just playing with words and making no sense at all.
“…Family Guy Ben Stein: Mr. Big Dick Dawk, would you consider debating Zaki Iamanus about the question of who the biggest d-bag in the universe is?
Big Dick Dawk Don of Ox: I don’t know who this Zaki Iamanus is, but I do not debate anyone who is less of a d-bag than the Pope or Charlie Sheen, well maybe at least a Kurt Cobain.
Family Guy Ben Stein: Don’t you mean Kurt Cameron?
Big Dick Dawk Don of Ox: I apologize. I stand correct….”
Just more buffoonery in lieu of a LOGICAL argument! That’s all atheists are good for! They’re nothing but vermin and pests in Creation!
Oh sweetie. Even vermin and pests are part of your beautiful God’s creation.
Don’t be silly! There’s NOTHING beautiful about vermin and pests! And they’re NOT part of God’s Creation but DISTORTIONS of it – that shall be removed forthwith!
Don’t be silly! There’s NOTHING beautiful about vermin and pests! And they’re NOT part of God’s Creation but DISTORTIONS of it – that shall be removed forthwith!
First, your claim that vermin and pests are not beautiful is just a persoanl expression of aesthetic taste. What do you mean when you claim these entities are just distortions? This is an unsupported claim.
Do you have any evidence to dack this strange and seemingly unintelligible claim? Perhaps from a rat’s point of you, you are failrly disgusting, but this does not means you are somehow less of an animal than a rat. You see to add ad hoc propisitions when evidence doesn’t fit your theory. You obviously detest these creatures, yet their very existence seems to contradict your notion of the divine creation. If you believe in a divine creator, you need to give evidence as to why these ungainly creatures are not part of the divine plan. As far as the evidence goes, pest and vermin are just as part of the chain of evolution as you and I (and this is an idea science has given evidence for). You confuse your personal preferences and appeals to what is “obvious” as real argumentation and evidence.
So stupid are atheists that they’re not even capable anymore to distinguish between life and non-life! Because they look only at externals they end up actually seeing NOTHING of the essence of things. They’re USELESS DRONES in Creation – who can’t be gotten rid of quickly enough!
What the hell are you talking about? At least you made sense before (no matter how much I disagreed with you); now you are just making drivel. I’m only joking with you; don’t lose your mind at start spouting nonsene. Maybe you need some help. Seriously, you sound very angry and cross. Maybe your God is not helping you (maybe you should insulting your God before he zaps you.)
And your argument is WHAT – PRECISELY? Do you know – or NOT? In fact, do you know ANYTHING other than that you disagree with what I’m saying? And do you even know why you disagree? Are you able to articulate it? Or are you only capable of uttering incoherent grunts like the moron you are?
the moron you are …
Zaki is a true follower of his god. What an example of his faith.
What’s this talk about essences? This is just metaphysical baggage from Aristotle and scholastic philosophy. I see that you demand from everyone else that they appeal to evidence, but you are appealing to non-verifiable entities that were long ago discarded by empirical scientists. Before you lecture everyone on this page about intellectual integrity, perhaps you should read some science books and learn a few things, like that animals are composed of cells and are constructed by genetic material, and stop supporting your claims by empirically empty notions like “essensces.”
“…Maybe you need some help. Seriously, you sound very angry and cross. Maybe your God is not helping you (maybe you should insulting your God before he zaps you.)…”
No. I’m NOT angry – just DISGUSTED with the DEPRAVED, BASE, behaviour of you atheists!
Worry about your own sins; no everyone else’s.
Certainly! But then who said I was worrying about the sins of others? They are free to sin as much as they like – just NOT in my vicinity. I just don’t see why I should have to endure it without complaining when someone else farts in public. I simply refuse to do so.
While others on this page show a sense of humor and irony, you just continue to insult others while never really supplying anything like a well-reason argument. You use terms that seem to have no real empirical content (free-will, First Cause, essences), yet you demand that others supply evidence. Did it ever occur to you, that if you treated others the way want to be treated and actually supplied reasons and data for YOUR claims, others may be compelled to respond to you in a rational way. You seem to miss the point that you act very much like Dawkins, arrogant and insulting, and more inclined refute straw ideas rather than actually engage with others who happen to have a different point of view. The same reason people don’t like Dawkins is why they mock you.
Well, can you point to a SPECIFIC example instead of just talking baseless nonsense? All you have done here is emote and opine – NOTHING ELSE! Point to a specific example and we can look at it.
People ARE responding to me – just not in a rational way as you admit – because they are INCAPABLE of producing viable LOGICAL counter-arguments to mine.
And on what basis could ANYONE here “mock” me? Indulging in buffoonery does not mock me – just makes fools of those who engage in such idiotic behaviour.
There once was a guy name Zaki
Who became so disgusted
For no one cared for his arguments,
All aged and rusted
They wouldn’t even debate
So Zaki could only hate and hate
Until he turned completely Blue
What to do, what to do?
This lad really needs a hug
And a shot of whiskey in his mug.
Zaki’s response
What! This is no Argument. Typical Atheist; you guys hurt my feelings. You aren’t very nice. You stupid little dung beetles. Don’t you know you must argue with me whether you like it or not. I am the mandarin of all thought! You must argue with me. I will decide what is rational. Please, please argue with me. I’m so lonely. You guys aren’t nice. Please play with me.
What a load of idiotic shite! Beyond buffoonery is there ANYTHING ELSE you have to offer?
Dear Zaki,
After reading your comments on this page as well as your passionate plea for people to use reaon and evidence, I have come across the following excerpts that I think convey your position:
Do you atheists even have the capacity for deep thought AT ALL? I mean, you don’t really believe you have Consciousness or Free Will, do you? Given that, you can’t believe you have Intelligence, can you? You regard yourselves as meat puppets of random unguided forces, do you not? As such, are your lives even worth ANYTHING? Will it not simply be pest control when you lot are INEVITABLY swept away by the rapidly approaching cataclysm?
It is not surprising that even this boneheaded wanker realizes that a world order – or indeed any other kind of order – whose basis and guidance is devoid of intelligence can only produce what is unsound, chaotic and unlivable. Now if only he’d apply that consistently in the rest of his ruminating which he calls “thinking”, and in his waffling and scratchings which some mistake for writing.
What is amazing about these two excerpts, which I hope represent you to some degree, is, that in spite of your demand that others give reason and arguments for their positions, you are, and with a great deal of passion, not putting forth any real arguments, but at best making assertions (without any display of rational premise making or any appeal to to empirical data, much less scientific data). Just saying that atheist don’t believe in minds
or thinking processes (or just meat puppets, I guess you mean an 1980′s punk rock band), may sound rational to you, but just saying doesn’t prove anything. At worst, you are just playing the straw man card.
I see nothing, as of yet, that I, as a non-believer in traditional theism, that I need to respond to. I do not believe I am mindless meat puppet (though I may have a different concept of mind than you). Also, just saying that mindless processes cannot give way to order is just the expression of an opinion, not an argument in and of itself. If you could articulate the reasoning process behind these “obvious” assertions, perhaps you could help me better understand why the atheist position is so untenable.
Please oblige without the insults. Maybe you are just a little wiser than the rest of us. I know you believe in God so please enlighten us with the best intentions
What do you even mean by “real arguments”? Do you even know – or NOT? All you have here is a load of verbose waffle with NOTHING of LOGICAL significance within it!
And how can you claim that pointing to what SOMEONE ELSE says makes your argument “real”? What you are asking is for me to engage in citing links to some website or other where SOMEONE ELSE has said something – which is probably INCORRECT. And then that allows YOU to cite another website – and then we go round and round playing silly buggers and no one puts forward a single reasoned arguemnt or is any the wiser at the end of the exercise! That’s simply idiotic – and not something I shall ever be involved in!
This seems to be an argument, sort of:
What message would this be? That it is possible for EVENTS to occur FOR NO REASON – WITHOUT A PREEXISTING CAUSE? If that is the message, then NO INTELLIGENT PERSON could EVER accept it as it is contrary to logic and sanity!
This is the best I can find where Zaki actually gives minimal effort to constructing an argument, yet mostly he is only insulting Sagan because what is obvious to Zaki is not obvious to Sagan (since Zaki is clearly smarter than Sagan),
Zaki claims to have read Kant, but I think he needs to go back and re-read Kant (and Hume), From what I gather, and I shall have to make assumptions because Zaki only gives a dearth of logical reasoning, we are logically compelled to postulate an ultimate cause to the universe because of the law of causality, every event in the universe must have a cause so the universe itself must have been caused. Unfortunately, this is a violation of the whole/part fallacy, Just because every event in the universe has a cause does not entail that the universe as a whole has a cause (all the atoms of my body are invisible, but my body is not invisible.) Moreover, if we accept the big bang theory, then time came into existence with the universe itself. It’s difficult to then say what “caused” the universe because all causes we understand are within time itself. Since Zaki believes in evidence perhaps he can transcend space and time and tell the rest of us how a being outside of time created the universe. Zaki demands evidence, and we have evidence the big bang happened, but before that we simply do not know. So we are back to Sagan’s premise that we really can’t speculate about what happened before the big bang (or even if the question makes any sense at all).
Zaki also fails to understand that his “law of cause and effect” (which may
be inconsistent with quantum mechanics) that every event has a cause violates his concept of free will.If every event has a cause then there are no uncaused events, All events are preordained back to the start of the universe. the universe is an unbroken chain of cause and effects and whatever “choices” Zaki makes are just the result of the initial conditions of the universe. Zaki ends up with as little control over his actions (and thoughts) as the atheists he so lovingly derides as mindless.
Again Zaki tends to just make assertions and not state his premises clearly, while deriding others who do see what is obvious to him, so it’s difficult to reconstruct his reasoning. perhaps now that he is being asked to be clear, he can prove to us that his conception of god is based on sound and rational premises.
With regard to Kant, why should I adjust my thinking to someone else? I’ve read him but disagree with MUCH of what he has to say!
Actually, quantum mechanics is evidence FOR Free Will – NOT the opposite! You clearly have NO UNDERSTANDING of the principles of quantum mechancis.
And the idea that effects can occur without a cause is antithetical to logic itself! It is a mental descent into total chaos! Effects brought about by Free Will – which is immaterial have NOT occurred for no reason simply because materialistic observers cannot see Free Will. They have occurred BY REASON OF FREE WILL!
You speak of my choices being an unbroken chain of cause of effect beginning with initial conditions at the Big Bang. HOW DID THOSE INITIAL CONDITIONS come about – or are the eternal? If eternal, why is the physical universe of finite age? You really haven’t thought about this properly, have you?
Sagan was a pot head that had NO CLUE what he was talking about: There MUST be an Ultimate Reality from Which ALL ELSE emerges. If such an Thing did not Exist – UNCONDITIONALLY – NOTHING ELSE could have come to be. The POSSIBILITY of other existence would not exist. And, It MUST possess Freedom of Action with Whiich It was able to create the special conditions to allow things like the physical universe – which CANNOT exist UNCONDITIONALLY to come into being.
Your reasoning with regard to the Universe is simply NONSSENSICAL! For the following reasons:
1. The physical universe is NOT a singular item but a COLLECTION of things. In fact, the comprehensive COLLECTION of PHYSICALl things.
2. ALL of these things require special conditions to be brought about FIRST and maintained before they can exist. Take away the special conditions in which they exist and they too cease to exist.
3. As we go back in time, fewer and fewer of components of the physical universe can be found existing – until eventually we find NO MATTER AT ALL existing – just radiation. And further back, we do not even find radiation – just the space-time continuum. Furhter back still, we do not find the space-time continuum, just the singularity from which the “Big Bang” event erupted.
4. The eruption itself was SPECIALLY brought about and was NOT inevitable – otherwise it would not have occurred in finite time. When it is said that began with the Big Bang, what is meant is that th PASSAGE of time – i.e. CHANGE began in the physical universe with the Big Bang that produced it. It DOES NOT MEAN THAT NO STATE OF TIME EXISTED prior to the Big Bang! A time INTERVAL is NOT the same thing as an INSTANT of time.
So you see, your ENTIRE argument above is just NONSENSE from start to finish! It is sloppy and sophomoric! And you really should have thought twice before publishing it here.
Another thread that runs through the Zaki attacks is the notion that atheists are just mindless, meat puppets. This is just vindictiveness that Zaki like hurls at people he doesn’t like. We all may be meat puppets and just because Zaki doesn’t like this fact, doesn’t make it untrue. I don’t like the fact that humans are mortal (so what? My discomfort with this fact doesn’t make it untrue.)
What does evidence show us? Neurobiology shows us that the brain functions largely compartmentally and when one section of the brain is damaged, specific functions of the “mind” are lost. Human can lose specific skills such as facial recognition or long term memory. Damage to the brain can even lead to the alteration of one’s personality or one’s sense of identify. So what is the mind or soul? The discoveries from the brain science seems to point to the notion that mind is just a function (or set of functions) of the brain and not a transcended entity that exists apart from a brain.
It could be that we really do have this transcendent mind hovering over a bodies or within our brains, but it would then be hard to say how this spiritual entity interacts with the body if its how outside of the physical universe (Perhaps Zaki has had experience that no one else has had and can show us how a spiritual entity can interact with a physical body). All we have learned from Neuroscience is how our brain functions, and no data has been able to reveal anything like a transcendent soul or mind.
I don’t know about Zaki’s brain, but my brain is extremely complex with billions of neurons and trillions of synaptic connections. If this is “mindless”, it is still amazing.
Another thread in the Zaki’s files is the claim that without God there could be no morality. But why should this be the case? Why does the existence of ethical norms entail a God? Just stating it does not constitute an argument. Zaki fails to recognize the Euthyphro dilemma.
Are certain actions moral because the gods command them, or are these action commanded by the Gods because they are moral actions?
If Zaki chooses the first, he is basically saying that morality comes down to the caprice of the gods; and then there is no real morality to speak of. If he chooses the second, he is admitting the independent nature of moral maxims apart from any concept of a deity.
A final thread that runs through the Zaki files is the notion that blind random process can not give rise to order. Again, this is just an assertion. Here are some counterexamples of blind forces of nature giving rise to complexity: crystals, fractals, snow flakes, wind blown sand dunes forming incredible patterns, and space dust giving rise to solar systems. When Laplace show how this latter processed occurred, Napoleon wanted to know how God figured into this process; Laplace famously declared that he had no need of that hypothesis. Zaki seems to rely on outdate principles when perhaps he should actually rely on evidence and scientific data.
Again no one really knows what Zaki’s arguments are because he hides his thoughts between daring assertions (rarely backed by premises) or childish insults that only can detract from his claims. Perhaps Zaki can now really teach us his truths once they are divorced from such bitter rhetoric and are backed by sound arguments.
Hahahahahahahah! If you have NO FREE WILL, what else are you but a MEAT PUPPET – as you acknowledge with your username? And why do you call it “vindictive” for me to refer to you as one if that is how you see yourself anyway.
Inviting me to share your fate as a meat puppet to make you feel happier is ALWAYS going to meet with a resounding rebuff from me. I HAVE FREE WILL and accept the RESPONSIBILITY that goes with that. You want to exercise Free Will but PRETEND that you don’t have it so you can escape the responsibility for the consequences of your own actions. That is the difference between us. It shows you up as infantile and cowardly – and indeed of growing up and manning up!
By the way, crystallization is IMPOSSIBLE without SEEDING! Winds CANNOT arise without SEEDING either. EVERYWHERE, you will find that the directions of processes are DETERMINED by INITIAL CONDITIONS – which were generted, NOT BY FICTITIOUS RANDOM FORCES but by FREE WILL! There is NO SUCH THING as RANDOMNESS which is not the work of FREE WILL! Indeed OUTWARDLY, Free Will CANNOT be distinguished from Randomness. However, Randomness based on Matter is ABSURD since the essence of Matter is INERTIA! And therefore Randomeness could NEVER arise from out of it!
As for how the spiritual interacts with the material that is EASILY explained! The material is merely a PRECIPITATION from out of the spiritual. It is CONGEALED spiritual substance. That’s all. This is clearly demonstrated in the experiments of quantum mechanics which shows that “observables” – i.e. physical phenomena come into being ONLY following the collapse of the wave-function into one definite state – PRECIPITATION! It’s NOT a difficult concept to grasp – unless of course for those committed to their atheistic dogma – which does not permit them to allow themselves to think of themselves as Intelligent beings – but only Meat Puppets!
All you have is a jumbled collection of bad philosophy, bad science and bad language! Hardly a recipe from which knowledge – never mind wisdom – can arise.
And why you find a LARGE number of biological switches (neurons) firing off at random “amazing” is only something you alone can fathom! I’d rather not guess – since I could only suggest hard drugs to be the cause. Machinery is useful ONLY to the extent that is usfel as a TOOL. It is NOT life itself. Life CANNOT be separated from the concept of Freedom of Action! Life DOES NOT EXIST where there is no Freedom of Action! And this Freedom of Action from Which ALL ELSE arose and Which exists UNCONDITIONALLY is NOT non-existent simply because it does not show Itself in RIGID material guise which atheitst can examine and dissect. In fact, it is the very OPPOSITE of what is rigid and highly specified – like Matter.
You fellows are pathetic!
There once was a guy named Zaki
Who liked to drink his Sake
He argued about the deity
That he understood with clarity
But no one took him seriously
So then screamed so furiously
That his head exploded in a bang
And then all the atheists sang
We miss our departed friend
Who cursed us to the bitter end
I think the jokes at Zaki’s expense have gone far enough. He is a very sincere young man who just needs to learn a little tolerance. Mocking him is not going to prove anything to him.
Don’t be silly! They’re just making ass-clowns of themselves! Why should I mind that? I like the fact that they purge themselves of what irks their minds so that it comes to light and can be dealt with appropriately – as has now happenedl!
What a load of UTTER CRAP!
Don’t be silly! They’re just making ass-clowns of themselves! Why should I mind that? I like the fact that they purge themselves of what irks their minds so that it comes to light and can be dealt with appropriately – as has now happenedl!
It clearly bothers you!
“First, your claim that vermin and pests are not beautiful is just a persoanl expression of aesthetic taste. What do you mean when you claim these entities are just distortions? This is an unsupported claim.
Do you have any evidence to dack this strange and seemingly unintelligible claim? Perhaps from a rat’s point of you, you are failrly….”
You have to start with an understanding of what “beauty” is. It is NOT in the eyes of the beholder – but rather is HARMONY! Pests and Vermin DO NOT bring about harmony – but rather the opposite. Atheists whose ENTIRE exists has a corrosive effect on ALL of their surroundings are NOT conducive to harmony but undermine it! Faggots who wish to anally penetrate their fellow males are NOT doing something harmonious from the point of view of Nature which has NOT created anuses for penetration but rather for the expulsion of shit! Are you beginning to understand me?
Perhaps it is best to begin from the beginning in order to give you atheists a chance of being able to grasp ANYTHING of what I say since ALL your thinkin is UTTERLY corrupted to the core. Let us present things in the form of an orderly list with simple ideas in each portion of the list – which should within the grasp of all but cretins. Those who are incapable of grasping such simple things can be accounted IRREVOCABLY LOST!
1. In the Beginning of ALL EXISTENCE – NO EVENTS had yet come into being. That of course does not mean that NOTHING existed. Just that ONLY what exists UNCONDITIONALLY could exist at the Beginning of Existence.
2. This UNCONDITIONALLY EXISTING Primordiall State preexists the Space-Time Continum and so SEPARATION CANNOT exist within It! It is ONE! UTTERLY INDIVISIBLE!
4. The POSSIBILITY for ALL ELSE to exist MUST ALREADY EXIST in this Eternal Primordial State – otherwise they could NEVER come to be – being IMPOSSIBLE!
5. There is NO CONSTRAINT WHATSOEVER on this Primordial State save that of non-contradiction. In other words, It possesses COMPLETE FREEDOM OF ACTION – But CANNOT CONTRADICT ITSELF! Hence It is Omniscient!
6. As the Original State of Being, It is also the grounding of ALL MEANING and therefore of ALL Consciousness – and is Itself Omniscient!
7. The Space-Time Continuum only arises with the production of OTHER things by from out of this Eternal Primordial State – God! Only with this do SEPARATION – called “Space” by man – and CHANGE – called “Time” by man – come into being.
In actuality, Space and Time BOTH existed prior to the Space-Time CONTINUUM – but just not in a form that has commonly recognised by mankind on earth today. Space is the Field of ALL POSSIBILE MANIFESTATIONS – whereas is the Field of ALL POSSIBLE TRANSITIONS! The Space-Time CONTINUUM is the more less limited MANIFESTATIONS of ACTUAL Space-Time Which is Eternal and Exists with the Primordial State. The Supreme or Ultimate Reality from Which ALL ELSE comes to be.
Hopefully now, it will be possible to conduct a properly ordered discussions on these matters – and I shall no longer be confronted with absurd nonsense as has been the case here from ALMOST EVERY QUARTER!
will be possible to conduct a properly ordered discussions on these matters – and I shall no longer be confronted with absurd nonsense as has been the case here from ALMOST EVERY QUARTER!
How is this possible when you say the following:
Vermin DO NOT bring about harmony – but rather the opposite. Atheists whose ENTIRE exists has a corrosive effect on ALL of their surroundings are NOT conducive to harmony but undermine it! Faggots who wish to anally penetrate their fellow males are NOT doing something harmonious from the point of view of Nature which has NOT created anuses for penetration but rather for the expulsion of shit! Are you beginning to understand me?
Yes I understand you. You just wish to insults others. You demand evidence but you present arbitrary terms, such as harmony. Why is you definition correct? Just because YOU assert this?
Perhaps you can point out what is ILLOGICAL or untruthful about ANYTHING I’ve said. I’m NOT INTERESTED in an emotionall response. I understand that you’re propbably a FAGGOT and have been hurt by what I’ve said. I DON’T CARE! If you can point out the FALSEHOOD or ILLOGIC in ANYTHING I’ve said, I’ll be happy to withdraw it and apologise. Otherwise, why not just shut up?
And the very idea that harmony is “ARBITRARY” shows what is so wrong with you atheists – and faggotds! Even in physics it has a VERY PRECISE DEFINITION – which can also be found in ANY good dictionary.
Essentially, atheists are distorted people who are too lazy to work on correcting their distortions and returning themselves to a wholesome state. They are like hypochondriacs – addicted to illness; because it is the only way in which they can command ANY attention – being otherwise inwardly WORTHLESS!
When I saw your response I was excited, but not I see that you are really just a joker.
Every single one of your premises is highly questionable.
1. In the Beginning of ALL EXISTENCE – NO EVENTS had yet come into being. That of course does not mean that NOTHING existed. Just that ONLY what exists UNCONDITIONALLY could exist at the Beginning of Existence.
How do you know this? Were you there? You need evidence to presnet this?
2. This UNCONDITIONALLY EXISTING Primordiall State preexists the Space-Time Continum and so SEPARATION CANNOT exist within It! It is ONE! UTTERLY INDIVISIBLE!
More unverifiable terms (unconditionally primordial state), nor are your terms self-evident or logical constructions. The one term that has sense (space-time continum) is a scientific term that has no meaning in the way you are using. Your assertion arepurely arbitrary. These are really just meaningless words.
4. The POSSIBILITY for ALL ELSE to exist MUST ALREADY EXIST in this Eternal Primordial State – otherwise they could NEVER come to be – being IMPOSSIBLE!
You have demonstrated this nowhere.
Just saying something doesn’t make it true. Where did you come up with this notion? It seems clear to you, but I don’t know why you say
And how would you know this?
5. There is NO CONSTRAINT WHATSOEVER on this Primordial State save that of non-contradiction. In other words, It possesses COMPLETE FREEDOM OF ACTION – But CANNOT CONTRADICT ITSELF! Hence It is Omniscient!
6. As the Original State of Being, It is also the grounding of ALL MEANING and therefore of ALL Consciousness – and is Itself Omniscient!
This is not an obvious premise at all. You can’t build an argument on questionable statements.Why should anyone believe this other than you say it is true. You are not the arbiter of truth!
7. The Space-Time Continuum only arises with the production of OTHER things by from out of this Eternal Primordial State – God! Only with this do SEPARATION – called “Space” by man – and CHANGE – called “Time” by man – come into being.
This follows from nothing you have said before and it is not an obvious truth.
In actuality, Space and Time BOTH existed prior to the Space-Time CONTINUUM – but just not in a form that has commonly recognised by mankind on earth today. Space is the Field of ALL POSSIBILE MANIFESTATIONS – whereas is the Field of ALL POSSIBLE TRANSITIONS! The Space-Time CONTINUUM is the more less limited MANIFESTATIONS of ACTUAL Space-Time Which is Eternal and Exists with the Primordial State. The Supreme or Ultimate Reality from Which ALL ELSE comes to be.
Hopefully now, it will be possible to conduct a properly ordered discussions
No one can arguem with this because it is not a serious argument. It is a list of highly questionable assetions and unclear definitions. I am absolutely done with you because you are not a serious thinker. When you have something to say that is logical, rational, and backed by empirical evidence (It’s obvious to me-does not count) then people can seriously engage in an argument with you. Go back to insulting people and being intolerant. You are better at that than trying to construct a serious argument.
1. Bonehead, how can events occur BEFORE any time has passed? And event implies a CHANGE from one state to another. Gordon Bennett! How stupid are some of you fellows?
2. The BEGINNING of ALL THINGS has to exist UNCONDITIONALLY! It CANNOT have any precursors – otherwise it would not be the BEGINNING of ALL THINGS, would it? Sheeeeeesh!
4. Hoow is it POSSIBLE for something to exist without being PRECEDED by the POSSIBILITY of its existence? Man, you’re such an IMBECILE!
6. It may not be obvious to someone like you who thinks Consciousness is an illusion but the fact. remains that ALL MEANING has to have some Ultimate Grounding. And that is CONSCIOUSNESS!
7. Even a cursory acquaintance with advanced mathematics will teach you that an INSTANT of Time and an INTERVAL of Time are two VERY DIFFERENT things. There is only so much one can do with lamebrains like you. I see no reason why I should waste time trying to teach a chimpanzee – or one who believes he is one – advanced calculus. However, the record is here for those who wish to learn something and come to higher recognitions than atheistic absurdity which wants to assert that Consciousness is an illusion and ANYTHING can JUST HAPPEN – FOR NO REASON/WITHOUT CAUSE – if you wait long enough.
Amid all your meaningless metaphysical verbiage and wordy assertion of intellectual superiority, you actually have a clear argument here. I didn’t know you were capable of this. Good Job, seriously I wished you always reasoned this clearly.
The physical universe is NOT a singular item but a COLLECTION of things. In fact, the comprehensive COLLECTION of PHYSICAL things.
This is a good point, but earlier it seemed you were talking of the universe as a whole.
2. ALL of these things require special conditions to be brought about FIRST and maintained before they can exist. Take away the special conditions in which they exist and they too cease to exist.
3. As we go back in time, fewer and fewer of components of the physical universe can be found existing – until eventually we find NO MATTER AT ALL existing – just radiation. And further back, we do not even find radiation – just the space-time continuum. Further back still, we do not find the space-time continuum, just the singularity from which the “Big Bang” event erupted.
4. The eruption itself was SPECIALLY brought about and was NOT inevitable – otherwise it would not have occurred in finite time. When it is said that began with the Big Bang, what is meant is that the PASSAGE of time – i.e. CHANGE began in the physical universe with the Big Bang that produced it. It DOES NOT MEAN THAT NO STATE OF TIME EXISTED prior to the Big Bang! A time INTERVAL is NOT the same thing as an INSTANT of time.
Your first three premises are well reasoned and true, and the part/whole fallacy does not apply to the argument as you present here in these three premises (though you were committing this fallacy earlier).
But then you assert the following.
The eruption itself was SPECIALLY brought about and was NOT inevitable.
However, this is an unsupported premise. “Brought about” is the very thing that is in question. You cannot merely assume it without further elaboration. Again you fall into confusion because you assume what you are trying to prove.
But you also assume that this “brought about” was the God as you conceive him. Even if you could show that the universe “had to be brought about” you cannot assume this is a sort of God who is Just, hates sin, and cares about humanity. At best all you could show was the first cause existed. If this could be shown, everything about the universe seems to indicate that you and I are utterly unimportant in the vast expanse of space and time to this first entity. That this being is personal entity concerned with the human race seems to be contradicted by the sheer amount of suffering in our universe. That this entity had a plan or design that included your life and mine, seem to be very narcissistic, given our infinitesimal place and brief time in the universe. The logical progression from a first cause (which I am only accepting for the sake of argument) to the conclusion that your specific God exists, is not something that can be assumed, but must be demonstrated. For most atheists (and skeptics) the universe does not seemed to be designed by a rational mind that cares for human beings. This is whole other debate, but it at least indicates the complexity of attempting to derive a personal God (who is concerned about humanity) by an appeal to metaphysical speculation. (I am assuming from this digression that you are not a deist)
Moreover,
When it is said that began with the Big Bang, what is meant is that the PASSAGE of time – i.e. CHANGE began in the physical universe with the Big Bang that produced it. It DOES NOT MEAN THAT NO STATE OF TIME EXISTED prior to the Big Bang! A time INTERVAL is NOT the same thing as an INSTANT of time.
Again you are assuming what you are trying to prove: It DOES NOT MEAN THAT NO STATE OF TIME EXISTED. Scientists do not talk about what happened before the big bang because it is beyond our comprehension. I get your point about the distinction between time as an interval and time at an instant. But you have not proved that time in either sense had existed before the universe. Saki, you are the one making the claims; if I doubt your claim, it does not mean I have to give an alternative explanation. Sometimes the best answer is I don’t know, but I you have not provided a convincing demonstration of your position.
CHANGE began in the physical universe with the Big Bang.
If you hold this premise, which sounds logical, then you have to explain how a first cause (i.e. God) brought about a universe that wasn’t there. Can God bring about a universe without change? This seems to be what you are saying? This starts to make one’s head spin.
On a larger point: The skeptical position is not claiming to have knowledge about what happened before the big bang, they are claiming that no one (including) you knows.
The problem with all metaphysical speculation is that generally goes nowhere. One side says one thing; the other side makes a counter claim; but there is no empirical way to decide the matter. When scientists disagree, they have empirical data to look at and can do experiments. Metaphysical speculation is a sort of fun word game to see who can make the best argument. But really, in the end, you only prove what you start off to prove. You can continue to make these long and tedious arguments, but after awhile they become tiresome if your objective is really convince anyone of your point of view.
P. S. You miss the point about possible universes. It doesn’t matter whether they exist or not; there mere possibility shows that it is not a logical truism that all that exists must have a unique cause. Therefore, it is a point that would have to be demonstrated empirically. But no one can transcend the space-time continuum and go before (either in fact or in thought) the universe came into being.
You are clearly a very intelligent person (when you want to be), but your arguments just are not convincing (because they largely assume as what they are trying to prove without any demonstration of their truth) to someone who does not share your point of view. If you really want people to believe in your God, you would be more convincing by acting morally and treating others with respect.
I said I wasn’t going to respond to you anymore because I have limited time. I know you have a response to everything I have said (which sort of proves my point about metaphysical speculation), but I really have to stop these lovely discussion because I have a very busy work schedule.
I hope there are no hard feelings between us. I do hope that someday you understand that different points of view on different topics are possible. And it’s best to listen and to respond rationally, without the entire name calling. Otherwise, you are no different from Dawkins.
Peace out
Atheism NEEDS the scaffolding of ABSURDITY as a basis for its existence and develoment. Remove this scaffolding and Atheism withers away. It is very like poisonous molds which grow well in darkness but dry up and persih in bright sunlight. Evil hides in dark places.
This is why I have set about removing EVERY hiding place tthat is used by the undead philosophy that is Atheism. ONLY where people show reverence – wittingly or unwittingly – for the absurdities it leans on can it find an foothold and flourish. I intend to eliminate EVERY ONE of those supports here – MERCILESSLY!
Of course, as I proceed with my task with UNSTOPPABLE FORCE the clamour for me to be stifled – BANNED – will rise to an ear-splitting din. It will be the whimpering of those intellectually perishing under the weight of their collapsing atheistic paradigm. Listen for the cries. They shall soon rise piteously to the heavens! But I shall neither have nor show pity., The time of forbearance is AT AN END!
1. Bonehead, how can events occur BEFORE any time has passed? And event implies a CHANGE from one state to another.
No one would deny this. (If there are no events before time and time came into being with the universe, it makes no sense to talk about what happened before the universe or time itself. So why are we talking about this. Congratulations, you have just refuted yourself!
2. The BEGINNING of ALL THINGS has to exist UNCONDITIONALLY! It CANNOT have any precursors – otherwise it would not be the BEGINNING of ALL THINGS, would it? Sheeeeeesh!
The problem is that when say unconditionally, are you making a logical point or you make an empirical point? It cannot be a logical point.
For example, our universe may have a beginning, but there may be other universes (parallel) that have different beginnings. It is not obvious that there has to be one unique beginning to all that is. Even if there are no such things as other universes, the point shows that this “truism” cannot be logical.
So is the truth an empirical truth that we have discovered through our experience?
Since no one can experience what happened before the universe and time came into being, than no one can really say much about this beginning.
So unless you have special powers (you can exist before time).., you can justifiably assert that the “Beginning of All has to exist Unconditionally”
But my real problem with this statement is this term unconditionally in no way clear. And as I have shown, you are making neither a logical nor an empirical point.
3. Hoow is it POSSIBLE for something to exist without being PRECEDED by the POSSIBILITY of its existence?
This is just a meaningless truism that adds nothing to your point. But you are also unclear. Again, do you mean logical possibility or empirical possibility? It is not logically possible for a square circle to exist, but it is logically possible for a flying pine tree to exist (though this would violate our current understanding of evolution). Since you are using possibility in an ambiguous siense, you have no real point.
6. It may not be obvious to someone like you who thinks Consciousness is an illusion but the fact. remains that ALL MEANING has to have some Ultimate Grounding. And that is CONSCIOUSNESS!
ALL MEANING has to have some Ultimate Grounding. And that is CONSCIOUSNESS!
This is high questionable. Just saying something is true, doesn’t make it true. The universe would still exists (and all its laws) if even there were no conscious creatures to perceive it We know this because there is ample evidence that the universe existed before conscious creature came into being. The universe existed long before any conscious creature came onto the scene. I know that you have a high opinion of yourself, but the universe can exist without you or your consciousness.
7. Even a cursory acquaintance with advanced mathematics will teach you that an INSTANT of Time and an INTERVAL of Time are two VERY DIFFERENT things.
Great, you know some mathematics. So what. Your point (or interval) is? Or are you just bragging that you know some calculus.
There is only so much one can do with lamebrains like you. I see no reason why I should waste time trying to teach a chimpanzee – or one who believes he is one – advanced calculus.
The main problem with your argument is this. You assume that the universe must have a cause. But this is the whole point in question. Until you prove why this is the case, you are just begging the question. You are violating the whole/part fallacy. You seem to assume that because all events in the universe have a cause, the universe itself must have a cause.
However, the record is here for those who wish to learn something and come to higher recognitions than atheistic absurdity which wants to assert that Consciousness is an illusion and ANYTHING can JUST HAPPEN – FOR NO REASON/WITHOUT CAUSE – if you wait long enough.
The main problem with your argument is this. You assume that the universe must have a cause. But this is the whole point in question. Until you prove why this is the case, you are just begging the question. You are also violating the whole/part fallacy. You seem to assume that because all events in the universe have a cause, the universe itself must have a cause. But a good argument does not assume what it is trying to prove. BOOM!
Also, you like to argue against straw men. Very few people actually claim that consciousness is just an illusion. I personally think science can do a better job at approaching consciousness than metaphysics. Science is based on data, mathematics, and research while metaphysics largely rest on a priori speculation and non-empirical terminology.
Your arguments really prove nothing but that you like to string together unclear terms and highly questionable premises that have an intuitive appeal to you, but are not ultimately convincing.
Yes, you like to insult others. Why not do away with the name calling and try to construct better arguments?
The strongest argument against any God you could conceive (and not against God himself)is your highly insulting behavior and vulgar language. If God does exists, I am quite certain that he is nothing like the arrogant blowhard God you think exists.
This is why I no longer wish to talk to you. All your arguments are based dogmatic assertion and empty speculation and you discredit belief in a moral God by acting so God-awful.
P. S.
I would rather be a chimpanzee than you because you are rude and lack manners. I know that you are going to continue playing this language game, but I work for a living and I don’t have time to continue this game or words and language. Maybe God exists after all (not the intolerant speculative bully God you propose), but hopefully you will develop a sense of humor, tolerance for others, respect, and learn not to hate. I know that you hate gay people and atheists, but this hatred just makes the God you conceive of seem highly doubtful. And anybody who attempts to argue with you about this monstrous being you have conceived is just as foolish as someone who argues with a person who believes the moon is made of green cheese
1. I presume from your agreement here that you think that the absence of EVENTS is the same as the absence of ALL THINGS! States of Existence are NOT the same things as EVENTS which latter are merely TRANSITIONS from one state to another. So you have NOT understood the argument I made AT ALL! EVENTS can ONLY occur when there is a TRANSITION from an EXISTING sttate to a NEW state! They can NEVER emerge out of NOTHINGNESS – which I suppose is what you think they do. That is absurd, patent NONSENSE!
2. Here you try again to introduce absurdity into the discussion. You have NO EVIDENCE of ANY OTHER Universe but this one. But in any case, my argument covers EVERYTHING that BEGINS TO EXIST. So not just the so-called “our universe”. The BEGINNING of ALL THINGS – regardless of what they might be CANNOT Itself have a beginning – otherwise it would be absurd to call it the BEGINNING OF ALL THINGS! Is that not a self-evident – even tautological statement? Why can’t you get it into your head?.
3. How do you suppose that something can be a TRUISM and also MEANINGLESS? Are you quite INSANE? It is a TRUISM that YOU EXIST. Does that mean YOU ARE MEANINGLESS? Or is it MEANINGLESS to note that YOU EXIST? Which is it? Do you think AT ALL before shooting off your mouth?
For avoidance of doubt: What I have said is that it is IMPOSSIBLE for ANYTHING to come to exist unless the POSSIBILITY of its existence exists FIRST! This applies regardless of what type of possibility you’re talking about: logical, empirical or whatever. Clearly, you don’t even understand the distinctions between these. But more of that later.
6. So, for instance, if you could NEVER perceive YOURSELF, in what sense would YOU exist? A body might exist – but if there is ABSOLUTELY NO SENSE OF SELF associated with that body -i.e. NO CONSCIOUSNESS – what makes it YOU? You don’t think much, do you?
What else is PERCEPTION other than the harbouring or absorption of the STATE OF BEING of what is PERCEIVED? And how is that distinguishable from CONSCIOUSNESS? THEY ARE IDENTICAL!
EVERY STATE OF BEING IS AWARE OF ITSELF! Save when its Self is RIGIDITY! For then all it can perceive is OBLIVION – and so it UNCONSCIIOUS! This is the case with Matter. And is also the reason why those who worship Matter simply CANNOT fathom Consciousness or Free Will. – for they limit their thinking only to the conditions associated with Matter – which are alien to Conscious Wil.
7. First of all, do you accept that a time INTERVAL is different from an INSTANT of time? if so, do you admit you committed an error earlier by making assertion directly CONTRARY to this?
To say that the statement that physical universe has a BEGINNING is an “assumption” is as IMBECILIC as saying that YOUR OWN EXISTENCE is an assumption. The existence of the universe is a self-evident fact. And its finite lifetime has been demonstrated BEYOND DOUBT – even by physics. Supposing the existence of “other universes” is just BASELESS NONSENSE! There is neither supporting evidence for this nor is it even logically coherent. “Universe” here implies ALL that has come to be. Or, if you like ALL that can be observed to be. Pick which one you mean. But you can’t change the meaning of it from one sentence to another. You have to stay with ONE meaning! Either way, my arguments are UNANSWERABLE!
PS. As I said earlier, I’m NOT INTERESTED IN EMOTIONAL NONSENSE – AND SHALL NOT BE INFLUENCED BY IT IN DEVELOPING MY ARGUMENTS! Only the STARK TRUTH can awaken even a small proportion of ALL who are living on earth now to what is rushing towards them – with all the fury of the deadliest storms! It is NOT LOVE to hide this fact from others and let them continue in coomplacent comfort to perdition! But why would want love anyway – given they do not regard it as having ANY OBJECTIVE MEANING? Why would they miss it if it is denied them?
All I do here is throw out safety belts to those who do not wish to drown under the weight of absurdities which have been assiduosly heaped upon them by those who ostensibly “care for them” – such as yourself. The same people who tell them that they have NO FREE WILL – that their Consciousness is an ILLUSION – and that THEIR VERY SENSE OF SELF is just a random collection of mindlessly jiggling atoms. This is the “care” and “love” such as you administer to your “beloved” fellow atheists and faggots! You offer them stones for bread – and scorpions and serpents when they ask for fish! You dig their graves and bury them even alive ever deeper into the mire of your absurdities! A heavy judgement shall fall upon you!
“It clearly bothers you!”
And why would that be the case? Has it not dawned on you yet that opinions are of absolutely NO VALUE to me. I’m ONLY interested in FACTS and LOGIC! That is all I respect. Personal opinions are things that carry ZERO weight with me! They are UTTERLY WORTHLESS! Which is why I have NO INTEREST in having – never mind expressing – ANY myself!
As a wise man put it: Opinions are like rear orifices: Every one has one – but few can bear close examination.
Because you are gay. This is why you throughout this page you keep saying that you hate “faggots.” You are obviously homphobic because you are gay.
Don’t be silly!
Don’t be silly!
You really are gay. You’ll be happier when you are honest with yourself.
This one is totally loco! You simply can’t believe that a man can find the idea of anally penetrating another man with his male member DISGUSTING, can you? Perhaps you’re a DYKE, eh?
Zaki,
Amid all your meaningless metaphysical verbiage and wordy assertion of intellectual superiority, you actually have a clear argument here. I didn’t know you were capable of this. Good Job, seriously I wished you always reasoned this clearly.
The physical universe is NOT a singular item but a COLLECTION of things. In fact, the comprehensive COLLECTION of PHYSICAL things.
This is a good point, but earlier it seemed you were talking of the universe as a whole.
2. ALL of these things require special conditions to be brought about FIRST and maintained before they can exist. Take away the special conditions in which they exist and they too cease to exist.
3. As we go back in time, fewer and fewer of components of the physical universe can be found existing – until eventually we find NO MATTER AT ALL existing – just radiation. And further back, we do not even find radiation – just the space-time continuum. Further back still, we do not find the space-time continuum, just the singularity from which the “Big Bang” event erupted.
4. The eruption itself was SPECIALLY brought about and was NOT inevitable – otherwise it would not have occurred in finite time. When it is said that began with the Big Bang, what is meant is that the PASSAGE of time – i.e. CHANGE began in the physical universe with the Big Bang that produced it. It DOES NOT MEAN THAT NO STATE OF TIME EXISTED prior to the Big Bang! A time INTERVAL is NOT the same thing as an INSTANT of time.
Your first three premises are well reasoned and true, and the part/whole fallacy does not apply to the argument as you present here in these three premises (though you were committing this fallacy earlier).
But then you assert the following.
The eruption itself was SPECIALLY brought about and was NOT inevitable.
However, this is an unsupported premise. “Brought about” is the very thing that is in question. You cannot merely assume it without further elaboration. Again you fall into confusion because you assume what you are trying to prove.
But you also assume that this “brought about” was the God as you conceive him. Even if you could show that the universe “had to be brought about” you cannot assume this is a sort of God who is Just, hates sin, and cares about humanity. At best all you could show was the first cause existed. If this could be shown, everything about the universe seems to indicate that you and I are utterly unimportant in the vast expanse of space and time to this first entity. That this being is personal entity concerned with the human race seems to be contradicted by the sheer amount of suffering in our universe. That this entity had a plan or design that included your life and mine, seem to be very narcissistic, given our infinitesimal place and brief time in the universe. The logical progression from a first cause (which I am only accepting for the sake of argument) to the conclusion that your specific God exists, is not something that can be assumed, but must be demonstrated. For most atheists (and skeptics) the universe does not seemed to be designed by a rational mind that cares for human beings. This is whole other debate, but it at least indicates the complexity of attempting to derive a personal God (who is concerned about humanity) by an appeal to metaphysical speculation. (I am assuming from this digression that you are not a deist)
Moreover,
When it is said that began with the Big Bang, what is meant is that the PASSAGE of time – i.e. CHANGE began in the physical universe with the Big Bang that produced it. It DOES NOT MEAN THAT NO STATE OF TIME EXISTED prior to the Big Bang! A time INTERVAL is NOT the same thing as an INSTANT of time.
Again you are assuming what you are trying to prove: It DOES NOT MEAN THAT NO STATE OF TIME EXISTED. Scientists do not talk about what happened before the big bang because it is beyond our comprehension. I get your point about the distinction between time as an interval and time at an instant. But you have not proved that time in either sense had existed before the universe. Saki, you are the one making the claims; if I doubt your claim, it does not mean I have to give an alternative explanation. Sometimes the best answer is I don’t know, but I you have not provided a convincing demonstration of your position.
CHANGE began in the physical universe with the Big Bang.
If you hold this premise, which sounds logical, then you have to explain how a first cause (i.e. God) brought about a universe that wasn’t there. Can God bring about a universe without change? This seems to be what you are saying? This starts to make one’s head spin.
On a larger point: The skeptical position is not claiming to have knowledge about what happened before the big bang, they are claiming that no one (including) you knows.
The problem with all metaphysical speculation is that generally goes nowhere. One side says one thing; the other side makes a counter claim; but there is no empirical way to decide the matter. When scientists disagree, they have empirical data to look at and can do experiments. Metaphysical speculation is a sort of fun word game to see who can make the best argument. But really, in the end, you only prove what you start off to prove. You can continue to make these long and tedious arguments, but after awhile they become tiresome if your objective is really convince anyone of your point of view.
P. S. You miss the point about possible universes. It doesn’t matter whether they exist or not; there mere possibility shows that it is not a logical truism that all that exists must have a unique cause. Therefore, it is a point that would have to be demonstrated empirically. But no one can transcend the space-time continuum and go before (either in fact or in thought) the universe came into being.
You are clearly a very intelligent person (when you want to be), but your arguments just are not convincing (because they largely assume as what they are trying to prove without any demonstration of their truth) to someone who does not share your point of view. If you really want people to believe in your God, you would be more convincing by acting morally and treating others with respect.
I said I wasn’t going to respond to you anymore because I have limited time. I know you have a response to everything I have said (which sort of proves my point about metaphysical speculation), but I really have to stop these lovely discussion because I have a very busy work schedule.
I hope there are no hard feelings between us. I do hope that someday you understand that different points of view on different topics are possible. And it’s best to listen and to respond rationally, without the entire name calling. Otherwise, you are no different from Dawkins.
Take care
“Your first three premises are well reasoned and true, and the part/whole fallacy does not apply to the argument as you present here in these three premises (though you were committing this fallacy earlier).
But then you assert the following.
The eruption itself was SPECIALLY brought about and was NOT inevitable.
However, this is an unsupported premise. “Brought about” is the very thing that is in question. You cannot merely assume it without further elaboration. Again you fall into confusion because you assume what you are trying to prove….”
If the physical universe existed unconditionally, it would have to be of INFINITE AGE! It is NOT – and NEVER SHALL BE! Therefore it was BROUGHT ABOUT – SPECIALLY! The reasoning here is not that difficult! Besides physics has confirmed that the physical universe is of FINITE AGE! So are you going to go with the scientific evidence or just your atheistic dogma?
“But you also assume that this “brought about” was the God as you conceive him. Even if you could show that the universe “had to be brought about” you cannot assume this is a sort of God who is Just, hates sin, and cares about humanity. At best all you could show was the first cause existed. If this could be shown, everything about the universe seems to indicate that you and I are utterly unimportant in the vast expanse of space and time to this first entity.That this being is personal entity concerned with the human race seems to be contradicted by the sheer amount of suffering in our universe….”
Don’t be silly! God is the SUSTENANCE of the Universe! In that single fact is embraced both Divine Love and Justice through Which God Upholds and Rules the Universe.
In your childish, petty, human way, you think of God as some sort of larger-sized earthly sovereign in the sky. But Divine Activity is FAR SIMPLER and INFINITELY GREATER than that! There is NO QUESTION of a limitless probing into the individual affairs of insignificant creatures. It is simply a case of the Divine Will poured out on It’s Creation like most glorious sunlight! In this Outpouring of the Divine Will lies ALL FULFILMENTS of Divine Promises. Lies Love and Justice for all creatures – down to the finest detail! A somewhat similar, though MUCH COARSER, process can be seen with the way the sun rules the cycles of growth and decay here on earth. It does not require that the sun has an individual relationship with each living organism here on earth. A basic understanding of Cybernetics – or Information Science would make clear what I’m saying here. But, frankly, that is not even necessary. This is something a child which has not yet been mentally poisoned with atheistic nonsense could easily grasp!
“…The logical progression from a first cause (which I am only accepting for the sake of argument) to the conclusion that your specific God exists, is not something that can be assumed, but must be demonstrated. For most atheists (and skeptics) the universe does not seemed to be designed by a rational mind that cares for human beings. This is whole other debate, but it at least indicates the complexity of attempting to derive a personal God (who is concerned about humanity) by an appeal to metaphysical speculation. (I am assuming from this digression that you are not a deist)….”
ONLY atheists in the distortion and ungratefulness towards their Maker think like this – as the multitude of religions seeking a closer relationship with God from time immemrial attest! Humans NATURALLY see the Will of God in Creation. ONLY a few depraved fellows who even think themselves wise in their depravity deny this and try with all their strength to suppress it – because they simply wish to live their lives irresponsibly – without having to give an account of it to anyone. They deny the Existence of their Maker Who they sense clearly because they do not wish to be subject to His Authority and even want to usurp this Authority and assert that it is up to them to ARBITRARILY declare what things mean.
They will soon find where such rebellion and ingratitude leads! Then all lamentation and pleading with be of no avail! Already ALL atheists are suffering the consequences of this on earth, whilst in the flesh – in the fact that ALL of them suffer from more or less continuous bouts of DEEPEST DEPRESSION. But soon they will know that this pain is NOTHING compared to what is coming to them!
“….Again you are assuming what you are trying to prove: It DOES NOT MEAN THAT NO STATE OF TIME EXISTED. Scientists do not talk about what happened before the big bang because it is beyond our comprehension. I get your point about the distinction between time as an interval and time at an instant. But you have not proved that time in either sense had existed before the universe. Saki, you are the one making the claims; if I doubt your claim, it does not mean I have to give an alternative explanation. Sometimes the best answer is I don’t know, but I you have not provided a convincing demonstration of your position…..”
Don’t be silly! Just admit that you DON’T KNOW what scientists are saying. Besides, I’m NOT talking about what HAPPENED before the Big Bang. I’m Italking about the STATE THAT EXISTED before the Big Bang! Can’t you tell the difference between the two? Sheeeeesh! You atheistic fellows are so dull-witted and stubborn that one distinctly has the sensation of tunnelling through the hardest granite when seeking to communicate even the simplest ideas to you.
NOTHING WAS HAPPENING OR HAPPENED before the Big Bang – but a STATE DID EXIST. The STATE Which held the possibility of the cooming-into-being of the Big Bang! Sheeeeeesh!
“…CHANGE began in the physical universe with the Big Bang.
If you hold this premise, which sounds logical, then you have to explain how a first cause (i.e. God) brought about a universe that wasn’t there. Can God bring about a universe without change? This seems to be what you are saying? This starts to make one’s head spin
On a larger point: The skeptical position is not claiming to have knowledge about what happened before the big bang, they are claiming that no one (including) you knows……”
Oh brother! God is the STATE Which Existed BEFORE the Big Bang and held within It the POSSIBILITY of the Big Bang happening. Gordon Bennett!
“….On a larger point: The skeptical position is not claiming to have knowledge about what happened before the big bang, they are claiming that no one (including) you knows….”
If they’re pleading IGNORANCE, they’re hardly in a position to know what EVERYONE ELSE knows, are they? Far from taking a humble and honest position, they are simply claiming that NO ONE could possibly know ANYTHING they don’t know! NOTHING could be more vain and arrogant that that! And anyway, on what is based their claim that NO ONE ELSE could possibly know what THEY don’t know?
“…The problem with all metaphysical speculation is that generally goes nowhere. One side says one thing; the other side makes a counter claim; but there is no empirical way to decide the matter. When scientists disagree, they have empirical data to look at and can do experiments. Metaphysical speculation is a sort of fun word game to see who can make the best argument. But really, in the end, you only prove what you start off to prove. You can continue to make these long and tedious arguments, but after awhile they become tiresome if your objective is really convince anyone of your point of view…..”
No. The problem is with you MATERIALISTS who become IMMEDIATELY once things rise above the level of Matter – because you have enslaved your minds to it. The truth is that the MOST PROFOUND Realities of Existence – such as Self, Free Will and Consciousness are NOT MATERIAL AT ALL – and so are incomprehensible to atheists/materialists/darwinists!
Nevertheless they are CLEARLY EXPERIENCED BY ALL EVERYWHERE! And one is confronted with the unedifying farce of atheists trying to convince themselves that their Consciousness is an illusion – as if they could experience even illusions without Consciousness! Or do they wish to deny too that the experience? That wouldn’t surprise me. Their enslavement to Matter is TOTAL!
jnl
“P. S. You miss the point about possible universes. It doesn’t matter whether they exist or not; there mere possibility shows that it is not a logical truism that all that exists must have a unique cause. Therefore, it is a point that would have to be demonstrated empirically. But no one can transcend the space-time continuum and go before (either in fact or in thought) the universe came into being.
You are clearly a very intelligent person (when you want to be), but your arguments just are not convincing (because they largely assume as what they are trying to prove without any demonstration of their truth) to someone who does not share your point of view. If you really want people to believe in your God, you would be more convincing by acting morally and treating others with respect.
I said I wasn’t going to respond…..”
The idea of “other universes” is an absurd one! The physical universe CANNOT be a SUBSET of another physical universe – or so-called “multiverse” – otherwise it would not be the “universe” but only a PART of the true “universe” which is called “multiverse”. A “universe” CAN NEVER be a SUBSET of ANYTHING within the meaning of its definition. So to talk about “other universes” is to take unwarranted liberties with the language.
What existed before the Space-Time Continuum can be EASILY inferred from the evidence! Only your atheistic dogma insists that NO ONE should try to think beyond that. It is not advice that physics, philosophy or mere common sense accept.
The claim that I assume that there is Existence, for instance, is true. Do YOU doubt that there is Existence? Furthermore, do you doubt that YOU EXIST? Do you doubt that YOU KNOW you exist – and therefore have Consciousness? Do you doubt that you are capable of querying whether YOU EXIST and therefore have Free Will? These are TRUISMS which make the best premises for LOGICAL argument, do they not?
But you are in great error if you think I’m here trying to convince anyone to accept my viewpoint! All I’m doing is throwing out lifebelts to those who do not wish to be suffocated under the great weight of the absurdities they have accepted without question into their minds. It is for them to struggle WITH ALL THEIR MIGHT to try and cling to these lifebelts if they do not wish to be overwhelmed and have to go under – into a permanent state of OBLIVION which awaits ALL slaves of materialism. Far be it from me to try to persuade ANYONE to believe me. It is for them to gratefully accept what is offered and strive with all their strength to try and make use of it – before all is lost and they have to perish! Why should I have to particularly exercise myself for the sake of ingrates to whom it has never occurred to give thanks for all they have received from their Maker? What makes you think such creatures are worthy of such an effort?
And, as for morality, it makes one wish to burst out laughing when an atheist demands it from others. What do atheists even know of morality – which they themselves have previously ALWAYS claimed to mere make-believe?
“….I hope there are no hard feelings between us. I do hope that someday you understand that different points of view on different topics are possible. And it’s best to listen and to respond rationally, without the entire name calling. Otherwise, you are no different from Dawkins.
Take care”
Whenever it comes to a choice between Truth and good manners, I shall ALWAYS choose Truth!
“You are just wrong here. No other way to put it. Air and gravity are concepts that play an explanatory role in science. The concept of instincts is a meanignful concept within the framework of an scientific explantary theory called biolgoical evolution. In fact, instinct are encoded in DNA (so I guess you could look at an instinct in a petry dish, or maybe at least a microscope). “Life forces” and “free-will” are not party of scientific explantory framework. No free will or life force encoded in the DNA that has ever been found. Scientifically speaking they are meaningless terms that have no empirical fondation or explanatory significance within a scientific framework. Scientists at one time did appeal to “life-forces” but when chromosmes and DNA were discovered, scientist had no need for “life-forces” to explain biological life. I am afraid that you are just explaining the explainable by appeals to mysterious forces. If you feel an emotional need to do this ((even though you hate appeals to emotions) feel free. Just don’t demand that others have to believe this empty terminology. As far as your explanation of how a “mind” interacts with a body, you are just playing with words and making no sense at all.”
All you’re doing here is re-stating atheistic DOGMA – ad nauseam. You’re not actually presenting ANY LOGICAL argument.
What you “know” about science is NOT WORTH KNOWING! You’re clearly a rank ignoramus when it comes to science – and probably much further afield than that! I really have NO TIME to waste on idiots like you who have NOTHING positive to contribute here. Beyond repeating the mantra you have learned off by heart from websites such as those of Richard Dawkins you have NOTHING further to say. You merely ride on the words of others – when you can even correctly remember them; but have NONE that issue from your own thoughts – because you’re clearly hardly capable of INDEPENDENT thought now. In ALL you have written, can you point to ONE THING that is the product of an INDEPENDENT effort of mind by you? It is ALL just MINDLESS REPETITIONS of the thoughts and words of others – and NOTHING MORE! Why should I waste ANY time in an exchange with a mere marionette? I will debate with those who pull your strings – NOT YOU! I always only deal with the organ grinder – NEVER his monkeys!
“Zaki is in complete error on just about everything. He places a lot of stock in the condensation theory of consciousness. This is a highly controversial theory not widely accepted by scientists for it lacks any empirical foundation and it is doubtful if statistical randomness found at the subatomic level could have any causal role in the mechanism of the large scale structures of the brain. Let me be clear, just because most physicists and neuro-scientists doubt the plausibility of this theory does not make the theory in and of itself….”
I see: I’m in error because the gossip between you and your friends concludes this, eh? Sheeeeesh! And, I don’t know where you get the idea that I’m talking about your “condensation theory of consciousness” Why not try arguing against the points I’ve actually made rather than the ones you fantasize I have made, eh?
“…Zaki claims that quantum mechanics supports free will, but all quantum mechanics reveals are that statistical probabilities guide events at the subatomic level. This works much like the rolling of dice in which over time an equal amount of 1s, 2s, 3s, etc will turn up, but at each individual role no prediction can be made on what side will come up. However, this is only an analogy because strict causality underlies the dice, many physicist argue that at the quantum level of subatomic particles, there is no strict causality determing each individual outcome. The questions arises that if consciousness states are guided by random statistical processes, the human mind and the….”
Bonehead, the ONLY reason why ANYTHING is GENUINELY probabilistic is because of the presence of a GENUINELY UNPREDICTABLE – i.e. GENUINELY SELF-DRIVING AND SELF-GUIDING AGENCY! That ALONE is the source of GENUINE UNPREDICTABILITY; i.e. UNPREDICTABILITY IN PRINCIPLE! Quantum Mechanics reveals that Nature is at core UNPREDICTABLE IN PRINCIPLE! That is INDISITINGUISHABLE from Free Will at the core of Nature! THEY ARE IDENTICAL THINGS!
And I have no idea what you’re waffling on about Consciousness states being guided by ANYTHING. You don’t think they are moving about do you, dolt? Consciousness states are like FIXED locations in a gravity field that can be occupied by a Mind. What sort of guidance do you think those require? Sheeeesh!
“…Zaki ignores how consciousness is demonstrably connected to the neural system and the brain. Neuroscience has clearly shown that brain states affect states on consciousness. Philosophically speaking, consciousness is a great mystery, but no state of consciousness has ever been discovered apart from a neural system. Zaki makes the bold claim the whole universe is full consciousness. Arguing with Zaki is like arguing with people who believe in ghosts and spirits possess trees and rocks and streams. This is a view called animism. But Zaki wants to be taken as a serious thinker. If Zaki has a certain mystical view of the universe, no one can or should fault him for that. But the presumption he shows in delivering his highly speculative ideas is incredible. Most mystics choose to be silent about such things because they experience…”
The fact that two things are CONNECTED does not make the SAME thing. Sure, Consciousness is connected to the nervous system – just as I’m connected to my computer and the internet. But, hey, we’re NOT the same you know! Bonehead? Are you following or what?
“….Zaki also claims that his aesthetic view of nature is objectively true. He keeps referring to concepts like harmony. He claims that rats and vermin are deviations. But this is highly conjectural. Humans cause more damage to the environment than rats; perhaps human are equally deviations from harmony. Zaki would claim that humans are guided by free-will and that’s why they deviate from God’s plan. But rats and humans are both part of nature; why does Zaki chose things he doesn’t like to claim they are deviation. Rats carry piousness bacteria viruses (and this is not their fault unless Zaki believes the rats chose the bacteria); that is why they may cause disease. Many rats are harmless and contain highly complex biological structures. They also make great pets are used in lab experiments that benefit mankin….”
Oh brother! Now despite everything this one thinks I’m an atheist! These fellows HAVE TO BE on drugs!
By the way, vermin, such as rats, only become vermin when they are put in a situation by man that forces to act destructively rather than constructively. In their proper place, where they are intended to be by God, they would not be vermin. But, of course your atheistic mind is too inflexible to conceive that.
When I speak of getting rid of vermin, I DO NOT imply a slaughter of creatures – but a removal of the conditions that forces them to act as vermin. If people, for instance, are ghetoised and not given an opportunity to earn a fair living for themselves by society, do you think they’ll just lie down and die – or resort to crime – from society’s point of view – in order to survive? If machines even are not operated with the proper advice from their manufacturers, do you think they will give good service – or actually cause damage wherever they are used? Boy! You boneheads are so incredibly DENSE!
“…Zaki also is very confused about his cosmological argument. It is at best a speculative proposition. It in no way every be confirmed empirically because it is in principal beyond scientific investigation. He blames scientist for not wanting to talk about the cause of the big bang, but Zaki sees humility as a flaw. Zaki continues to talk about the universe being brought about, being caused, etc. but what cause the big bang is beyond our knowledge. It is doubtful if the question makes any sense. The cosmological argument is in many ways similar to….,”
Hahahahahahahah! Just because you’re IGNORANT about something, it does not follow EVERYONE ELSE must share your pathetic state of IGNORANCE! The Big Bang proceeded from an ALREADY EXISTING STATE – otherwise what exactly “banged”? How can NOTHINGNESS “bang”? Clearly, there was a State that Existed PRIOR to the Big Bang – from Which ALL OTHER STATES arose! Your so-called “humility” is jjust rank hypocrisy! You’re trying to impose your atheistic view on others by demanding they not think beyond the purely materials. That’s all.. It WON’T WORK!
What “banged” to produce the Big Bang is clearly beyond YOUR knowledge as a pathetic materialist. It is not beyond the knowledge of others. It is GOD – the Source of ALL! Who,, as the Creator also of Matter, is clearly NO PART OF MATTER!
“…problem, but it may have a more reasonable chance of actually being answered some day. If it is ever answered, it will be by a scientists, not by someone who spins volumes of meaningless jargon out of highly fanciful imagination. We could also discuss Zaki’s ethical views, but Zaki is so discredited by this point that one needs to go one. So why does Zaki created these endless screeds of confused understanding of popular readings of quantum mechanics, 19th century biology (pre-chromosome days) and 18th century biology (pre- Darwin days). The answer becomes clear. Zaki continues to reference homosexuals. Of all the worlds sins (and I am not admitting this is a sin)Zaki chooses to condemn homosexuality. He could condemn mass-murders or rapists, but he puts his fingers on gays (I am not implying anything about Zaki’s behavior). Why? After spending hours obsessing over homosexuality, he must feel a need to then cleanse his mind by writing screeds that will cover his own dirty thoughts. Of Course Zaki will respond to this. He will insult me and provide some extreme rationalizations for his bizarre theories. All of this will be further confirmation of what he is trying to hide. God have mercy on Zaki’s soul. Hopefully Zaki will realize that what he is hiding from himself is not a sin, but a propensity that is beaitful ”
You’re perfect PROOF of the fact that having the title “Dr.” before one’s name is no guarantee that one is even of up to mediocre intelligence! You have NOWHERE engaged with my actual arguments – beyond claiming they are not in accordance with what you regard to be the orthodoxy. As if that necessarily makes something wrong. Independent thought seems to quite beyond your ability – as indeed it is since you’re nothing but a mere marionette whose strings are pulled by tthe numerous books filled with nonsense that you read – and, clearly, don’t even properly understand.
Just as an example of how idiotic you are: Do you believe Consciousness is an illusion or not – as if currently believed to be the case by many, if not most, neuroscientists and psychologists today? Surely, if you’re as clever as you claim you can say here very clearly – even with a simple “yes” or “no”. answer.
However, I prophesy that, if there is a response at all from you, it will be in the vein of idiotic verbiage again; perhaps copiously quoting the vviews of OTHERS – and omitting to give YOUR OWN, which has been asked for; because, in fact, you have NONE! You’re UTTERLY INCAPABLE of holding an INDEPENDENT view – beyond an arbitrary opinion – because that is all vacuous people like you are capable of doing.
I would love to see you prove me wrong here and give an intelligent, well-considered from YOUR OWN effort of mind – and I would then be happy to apologize to you for regarding you a cretin. But I’m not holding my breath!
“Above I stated that seedlings were a quaint notion. I am obviously not referring to seedlings as a biological concept (or as it may be used in science), but to Zaki’s bizarre notion of spiritual seedling are found throught the world in order to bring about ordered phenomena we find in nature. At least this seems to be (it’s often hard to know exactly what he means) what he is referring to in one of his comments.”
Maybe you need to change you glasses. I NEVER spoke of “seedlingls” – only of SEEDING! Sheeeeesh! ONLY via SEEDING do crystals begin to grow – all else being equal. This applies not only in chemical and physical processes but also in society. People require a leader to act as a SEED around which they can coagulate and organise themselves. Without leaders, all you have in society is a rabble and its attendant chaos! Chemically the same effect is seen in such things as catalysis. etc. etc. This is because this is a UNIVERSAL principle!
You’re really out of your depth here, aren’t you? Next time try to challenge someone at your low level of intellect if you don’t wish to be humiliated again! Hahahahahahahahahah!
Abigail commented:
in response to Dr. Maria:
“St Mary, Here is further elaboration of some of the claims you have made. Clearly consciousness is a hard problem. This is not my term; this is how experts in the field describe it. Amazingly Zaki has “solved” this hard problem. Maybe he should get a Nobel Prize. If Zaki wants to condemn anyone who denies that consciousness is real; I’m on board. If he wants to pretend his pseudo-explanations are as good as established scientific theory, one can only laugh at his arrogance. We do know that consciousness and human experience is tied to the brain. Neuroscientists have studied the brain in great detail, and neuroscientists have discovered much about how the electrochemical process of the brain causes various states of consciousness. How “phenomenal” first-person states of consciousness arise from neural-chemical processes in the brain, however, is a great mystery. But to suggest that a mind is pulling the lever of subatomic quantum processes in order to create free choice is a great a leap of faith and to go way beyond humility and modern scientific evidence. Again, not every scientist is convinced that quantum mechanics is promising for solved the “free-will problem. One problem is that quantum mechanics….”
Hahahahahahahaha! You really do have to make up your mind: Are Consciousness and Free Will mysteries to you or do you know how they arise from brain chemistry? If in fact you do know, why not explain here how this happens? It really isn’t enough to just say that “established science” has sorted it all out you know.
I asked a simple question: If Consciousness is not real, with what do you experience ANYTHING – INCLUDING illusions? Do you have an answer to this or not? To just say: “Oh it happens somehow in the black box of the brain,” is hardly an explanation now, is it?
Or perhaps you’d like to explain how ANY EVENT ever came to occur if there was no agency capable of INITIATING events – and how such an agency could differ from Free Will.
These are VERY simple questions to one who understands the subject, as you claim you do. So, let’s have your answers – if you have any! But YOU DON’T HAVE ANY, do you? Hahahahahahahahahahahah!
Abigail,
There is no point whatsoever in going into the rest of your verbose nonsense unless you’re able to deal with the two questions I’ve raised above – since EVERYTHING hinges upon them. Once again:
1. How is it possible to EXPERIENCE without REAL Consciousness?
2. How is it possible to ACT – i.e. INITIATE anything without REAL Free Will?
And perhaps you can say how it might be possible for the sources of either of these things must be Matter. And, if so, what was it then that brought Matter about – since “established science” has made it clear that Matter is NOT eternal?
Perhaps you’re able to offer something of the nature of LOGICAL argument – rather than just panicky invective, eh? Hahahahahahahahahahaha!
“correction for Abigail: I inadvertentl switched the results of the two slit experiment. I should have writt_en that the observser’s causing of the wave function to collapse causes a non-interference pattern to result; whereas non-observation results in a wave interference pattern. Above I wrote the opposite. However, the point still stands the observer is not willfully and intentionally causing the result even if the observer is a necessary part of the process. Thus one needs to go way beyond. q. m. to arrive at free will.”
Hahahahahahahahahah! Abigail, why not stick to pinning butterflies on a board or whatever it is you do? You’re clearly, UTTERLY IGNORANT with regard to physics or philosophy!
1. How have you ascertained what the observer is “willfully and intentionally” doing?
2. What makes you think that it is possible to do ANYTHING without it being “willfully and intentionally”? Your action may indeed have OTHER unintended consequences, but what makes you think that YOUR ACTUAL ACTION can EVER not be “willfully and intentionally”? How can it be called “YOUR ACTION” if YOU didn’t will or intend it – but are merely a meat puppet that SOMETHING or SOMEONE ELSE uses to “willfully and intentionally” produce actions?
Hitchens, Dawkins, Harris…. they all can think circles around the sophomoric drivel you self=congratulatory idiots produce here.
But you atheists don’t even believe you have consciousness, do you? So how is it possible for you to think at all?
You’d sound a lot more convincing if you could produce a single LOGICAL counter-argument in support of you claims. But you CAN’T, can you? Hahahahahahahahahahahahaha!
Dawkins is an example of what happens when you let biologists out of the lab.