Nairaland Forum

okeyxyz:

##Before I answer, I need to make you aware of "A Wisdom" here. First, you need to understand that there were two versions of Jesus when he walked the earth. The first version was the jesus who preached and kept The Law, because his mission was to come to "fulfill" the law. So until he fulfills it, he could not speak against this law. Then there was the jesus who spoke against the law, but because the law was still legally subsisting, He would speak in parables(hidden), thus not breaking the law that he came to "fulfill". So Jesus has since fulfilled this law by becoming the personification of the law and dying, and by dying, he has put the law to death, and this is the era of grace.

so to answer your questions:

##(1A) According to the law: Means what it says literaly

According to grace, Confess your sins means: renounce the law as your standard of righteousness, for the law itself is the sin.

##(2A) According to the law means what it says literally

According to grace Sin no more means: submit yourself to grace, not to sin(The law)


But christians today are still stuck-up to that "good" jesus who kept the law literally, but they fail to decode the revelations of his parables which was the real mission and true gospel. Thus Paul wrote that we no longer recognize that jesus of human morales:
Therefore from now on we recognize no one according to the flesh; even though we have known Christ according to the flesh, yet now we know Him in this way no longer(2 Corinthians 5:16 ).

Remember when a certain ruler addressed Jesus as Good Teacher? What was jesus answer to him?
And Jesus said to him, “Why do you call Me good? No one is good except God alone(Luke 18:19 ).

This would give you the idea that our morale standards of right is actually wrong in the eyes of god.

Hmmm..........ok just to be clear that we are on the same page, I'll give a parable to illustrate what I know grace to be.

The Redemption of The Niger-Delta Militants

Once upon a time in Nigeria, a group of people rebelled against the Federal Government they were called the Niger-Delta militants. By taking to arms, they became enemies of the state.(Colosians 1:21)

During the time when they were enemies of the state, certain laws such as curfews and restriction of movement were made to keep them in check with the penalty of arrest or even death in some cases. (Galatians 3:23)

After a while, the Government granted amnesty to the militants and reconciled them to the Federal republic of Nigeria.(Romans 5:10)

The militants accepted this amnesty by renouncing their crimes, surrendering their arms and turning away from their rebellion.(Acts 3:19)

The restrictions that were placed upon them were promptly lifted. They were therefore freed from the bondage that comes with rebellion and walked into the freedom that comes with amnesty (Romans 6:14)

Having renounced their militancy, they became law abiding citizens of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (Romans 6:18)

Now that they had been forgiven by the Government, does it mean that militancy that used to be sin is no longer sin? Does amnesty mean that they are still free to take up arms if they choose to? Absolutely not. (Romans 6:15)



I hope the above serves for us as a good illustration of what it means to not be under Grace and not the Law.

I have prayerfully thought of how best to pass this message across and this is what God laid in my heart. There is a world of difference between freedom and anarchy.

If anyone doesn't quite understand what I laid out above or doesn't quite agree with it, please feel free to point out the parts where you find it troublesome.


I'll conclude with this;

For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. What fruit did you have then in the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death. But now having been set free from sin, and having become slaves of God, you have your fruit to holiness, and the end, everlasting life. For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Romans 6:20-23


The Message bible renders verse 23 beautifully

Work hard for sin your whole life and your pension is death. But God's gift is real life, eternal life, delivered by Jesus, our Master.


For further research, please take out time to prayerfully study Romans 6.

chukwudi44: @Reginus

You claimed you do believe in the apostles and nicene creeds yet you question the propriety of saying the rosary.

What do you really understand by these stanza of the creeds.

"I believe in the holy catholic church.....the COMMUNION OF SAINTS.....

Do you believe in the communion of saints? Yes or No

What has the communion of the saints got to do with praying the rosary?

Besides it is a dubious method of questioning to ask someone to explain what he really understands and then restrict him to giving you a "yes or no" answer.
Are you really interested in him to telling you what he unerstands or are you just hunting for a monosyllabic soundbite to latch on to?

babaearly:

how did you know God didnt talk to any of the pope or priest to start creating idols? it must be written down in the bible for you to believe?

Lololol......seriously?!!

chukwudi44:

Don't mind him.He seems to reason through his bombom.His arguments are so illogical that you begin to wonder if you are chatting with a ten year old kid.

Even more Loooool........Are you guys really serious??!

mazaje:
I base my counter based on empirical evidence, and science has provided some. . .The creation story written in the bible just does not fit or agree with observable evidence. . .Even christian apologist have now discarded it as an allegory when it was not originally written as an allegory. . .

ok

Nope, it is not one design, it is a very complex design, firstly many people that conclude that the universe was designed came to such a conclusion based on the fact that we as humans design complex things. . . .Most of the complex things we design as humans are always the work of many designers. . .So it follows that since the universe is very complex, its designers should be complex as well, since we judge the universe based on the way we expect our own human society to function. . .

Spot the contradiction in the bolded.

Wrong analogy, when I see a complex structure like a an Air bus A380, I will not just conclude that it is a product of one designer, the possibility of it being is a product of many designers is also very high. . .The universe is very complex as such, since we base our conclusions based on how the human society function, it also follows that it is very possible that it has many designers, actually many people already believe that their many gods came together and created the universe. . .

Actually, most complex structures are designed by one designer. I am an architect by profession and I have worked in design teams and the procedure is usually one designer and many helpers. In fact I have never come across a situation where the concept is not the brainchild of one man. What usually happens in a design team is that all the other members of the team criticize the design and then gradually tweak it as they move along. As for the design itself, it is usually born from the mind of one person.

I can still show you. . .I will hit the modify button, delete the first comment I typed and rewrite it again. . .So that you will see, that I wrote it. . .It can be done and you know that. . . .

Lol and how will that prove that it was not your cat that typed it the first time?

Because it is a very complex design and if we are to go by what we know and what we see around us, complex designed often require a lot of designers. . .

Not necessarily.

Logicboy03:
Yawn.....you seem to have a knack of running away from me.


Goodbye.

Lol.....How ironic that you should say this while running away.

Anyway, it appears to me that you are now beginning to see just how poor a lot of your arguments actually are. I think that is a step in the right direction.

thehomer:
They owe it to themselves in order to be clear that they have nothing to hide. It is generally how honest people act in such a situation. What reason is more important than them here demonstrating their honesty? Dawkins isn't really in a position to make demands of them.

That is merely your opinion of what "they owe to themselves"

What do you think it shows? I ask because that is the point where the question actually posed was dishonestly edited.

All I saw was a question asked and a question answered.

Hey that's what the evidence shows.

What evidence exactly?

That isn't their narrative. Their claim is that Dawkins thought that intelligent design by aliens was a serious contender. I haven't introduced anything that Stein himself wasn't attributing to Dawkins. Once again, I have to ask you if you think that when someone says something is possible, do you think they mean that it is a really a serious consideration?

The bold is what you think their claim was and not what it is. If I recall correctly, the phrase Stein used was "legitimate pursuit" Not "serious contender". You a loading their claim to make it sound like something else.

If a person says that something is possible he doesn't necessarily mean that such a thing is a 'serious contender' compared to another theory, but yes he definitely means that such a thing can be legitimately explored.

Here's a transcript typed from Dawkins' "rebuttal video" posted on this thread.

BEN STEIN: What do you think is the possibility that Intelligent Design might turn out to be the answer to some issues in genetics or in Darwinian evolution?

DAWKINS: Well, it could come about in the following way. It could be that at some earlier time, somewhere in the universe, a civilization evolved, probably by some kind of Darwinian means, probably to a very high level of technology, and designed a form of life that they seeded onto perhaps this planet. Um, now that is a possibility, and an intriguing possibility. And I suppose it’s possible that you might find evidence for that if you look at the details of biochemistry, molecular biology, you might find a signature of some sort of designer.

. . .BEN STEIN (Voice-over): Wait a second, Richard Dawkins thought intelligent design might be a legitimate pursuit?

....DAWKINS: And that Designer could well be a higher intelligence from elsewhere in the universe. But that higher intelligence would itself have had to have come about by some explicable, or ultimately explicable process. It couldn't have just jumped into existence spontaneously. That's the point.

BEN STEIN (Voice-over): So Richard Dawkins was not against intelligent Design just certain types of designers such as God

.....

BEN STEIN: So you don't believe in any god anywhere?

DAWKINS: Any god anywhere will be completely incompatible with anything I've just said.

Now please read the above exchange carefully.

1. At no time did Ben Stein say that Dawkins believed in Intelligent Design. His voice-overs to me are an accurate representation of what Dawkins had just said.

2. At no time in the "rebuttal video" did Dawkins say that the clip was edited to change the questions asked to him. He posts the same questions and the same responses as they were in the video.

3. All Dawkins is claiming is that they took his statements to mean something else other than what he intended. But then again, no one has said that Dawkins believed in ID. That's Richard Dawkins strawman.

4. To me I think Richard is only upset because the video was not championing Darwinian evolution propaganda. As for his comments on the video, they are there for all to see.

Here is an exchange between Dawkins and Mark Mathis the producer of "Expelled" at the screening of the movie.

Richard Dawkins [RD]: Why were you dishonest about the film you were going to make?! We were lead to believe that you were going to present a fair account of evolution.

Mark Mathis [MM]: Mr. Dawkins, that’s precisely what we have done. We’ve presented a fair account of the academic persecution that goes on across America and indeed the world when a scientist dares to disagree with the Darwinian view.


RD: You were not forthcoming with me that you were making a film that involved people who claim they have been persecuted!

MM: Professor Dawkins, I contacted you by e-mail prior to our interview. You quizzed me on all of the questions in your backyard for a half hour before we sat down with the cameras. After the interview you signed our release and accepted a generous payment for your time. I think we were very fair with you.

By the way Mr. Dawkins, I want to tell you that what you said on Atheist Radio not long ago was completely untrue. You tried to take credit for setting up our second interview location at the British Museum of Natural History. I set up that location and it involved a tremendous amount of time and effort and a very large check.

You also claimed on Atheist radio that you expected me to be doing the interview and not Mr. Stein, that you were duped again. I have a long e-mail record of my communication with you, explaining that following the success of The God Delusion Mr. Stein wanted to interview you himself. I sent you a list of Mr. Stein’s broad range of accomplishments. I can accept this situation as perhaps a lapse of memory, but what you said was not true.

RD: Those are minor points.

MM: Not to me. You called me a liar on the radio.

RD: If that is the case then I offer you an apology.

MM: I accept.

I've seen it and that is one of the points where the dishonest editing took place. What do you think it shows?

My friend I see no dishonest editing anywhere. Perhaps you should show me what it is that you are seeing because I simply can't see it.

dorox:
You are not wrong my friend, guilty as charged. I have seen enough hoax in my short stint as a fire breathing pentecostal to be skeptical by default when presented with unverifiable stories.

Good. Then you know you are being irrational since you can't have it both ways. You can't demand for a miracle with one side of your mouth while preparing to reject it with the other side of your mouth should it occur.

‘We played flute music for you,
but you did not dance;
we sang a funeral song,
but you did not mourn.’

- Jesus Christ (Matt 11:16-19)

dorox:
Wouldn't it have been nice if she was healed? Unfortunately miracles like that don't seem to happen to real people in the real world.

interestingly, people like you will call it a hoax if she does get healed

Logicboy03:

I am not a christian apologist nor a christian. You are a christian. Please make an argument for God. You have been doing this for over a year on NL, havent you?

So, why dont you put a good argument for god forward?

"If God exist........" <<<< complete the premise and conclusion


Rise up to the challenge, I have made my claims clear- once you start with god's existence as a solid premise, you will run into a messy argument that makes belief in god look silly.

I can prove it but I know you would claim that i put forward a faulty argument to strengthen my claim. This exercise is to prove to you on your won terms why my claims are true.

Lol, you are a funny chap. You have just told me that the syayement "if God exists..." is always followed by something illogical. I have asked you how this is so, instead of explaining why, you ask me to make a statement with it. Why should I? So you can just tell me it is illogical? You haven't still told us why and how an "if" statement can be illogical. This you must do before we begin to proceed to any examples.

Fail. Fail. Epic fail.

yawn..

"God" is not really ambiguous as regards to atheism. It is drawn down to a religious or creator god when talking about atheism. Whether it is Allah or Oodumare etc....it is very clear.

Spirituality is an ambiguous word in every case.


I did not bait and switch. I told you that you would fail in a formal debate if you made the statement that "atheists do not believe in the spiritual".

And I argued that you don't prove or disprove the very definition of a thing and by spiritual I was referring to the supernatural aspect of being.
You promptly switched the meaning of spiritual to a synonym that referred to emotion such as the feeling of respect (which by the way has little or nothing to do with the atheism definitive context).

You foolishly went ahead to still repeat the claim as true. Now, you are caught in a web of hard debunkery and are trying to escape

Yes definitely bait and switch. I took your bait and you promptly switched the meaning. Funny how you call it "debunkery"

Congratulations - Yet another reason why I say you are irrational and your thinking ability is so poor that you cannot recognize it.

jayriginal:
The matter seems clear to me.
Maybe you should have paused a little longer.
Also seems clear to me.
Now considering the bolded so far, is it really true that he "proposed"?

For your information, almost every scientific theory there is that has not yet been proven is described as possibility. It doesn't mean it is not a proposed theory. You are just being petty over words here.

One one hand you say he "accepts the possibility" of an intelligent designer and on the other hand, you say he is right for "deducing an intelligent designer". Am I missing something ?
Before todays game I accepted the possibility that we would beat the Ivory Coast. I certainly did not deduce it. Since when have the terms become interchangeable ?

E.g.
1. "I accepted the possibility that Ivory Coast would beat us."
2. "I deduced from the superior quality of Ivory Coast's squad that they would beat us".
Notice that they are two different statements pointing to the same thing but not used interchangeably. Again you are being petty over words.

You arrived at that conclusion from one atheist ? One who you and others have thoroughly misconstrued. I shouldnt be surprised though. If one says "that isnt the default atheist position", another will find an opportunity to use it as an argument. It is quite common. There is no one position on atheism. It is the theists particularly that see Dawkins as the atheist figurehead/role model/leader or whatever.

I think I know why. Its not so much what he says or writes as the title he gave his book "The God Delusion".

Ouch!!

That must have hurt and he sold lots of copies. In that DeepSight is right. Controversy sells or at the least creates awareness (which is easily translated to sales). In any case, I'm sure that is what angers most.

Pebbles; mostly.

I cited one atheist as a case study but that doesn't mean I arrived at the conclusion based solely on Mr Dawkins. By the way it is interesting how you say that "there is no one position in atheism". I thought atheism itself is the position that there is no God.

EDIT:
I have to say here that I didnt watch the video. I simply relied on your post which I have quoted here.

Edit: You really should have watched the video

mazaje:

Firstly the creation story in the bible(since we are talking about the bible god) does NOT agree with what we see around. . .It has no scientific backing. . .Even reputable christians and christian apologist like William Craig claim it is just an allegory. . .But i was not written ORIGINALY as an allegory. . .Example, the earth(with water in it) according to the myth was created before all the stars and the sun. . .

Good so are you basing your counter on science?

Why not designers?. . .

Why designers? Why propose a more complex explanation when a much simpler one would suffice? Why assume multiple designers for one design when it could just as easily be one designer.

Kinda like coming upon a person who has been been killed by one stab wound to the heart and your first impression is that there are many killers instead of one. While it is very possible that many killers all held the knife together and delivered the blow, it is far less plausible than one killer. And it certainly is a weak counter argument to the person who starts by hypothesizing a single killer unless you are less interested in actually finding the killer an more interested in countering arguments.

I can provide you such evidence. . .I can add you up on skype and show you via webcam as I login into NL, type my post and hit enter. . .It is something that I can do at this very moment if I want to, you will see me talk to you, log in and reply to your post in real time. You will be able to tell that it is not a robot or a cat. . .So my request is not irrational at all. . .You are making an extra ordinary claim and extra ordinary claims require extra ordinary evidence. . .

I hope you know that the evidence I was asking for is the comment you have already typed not the one you will type later.

Ok, I agree. . .But why must it be ONLY a designer?. . .Why not designers. . .My computer is a very complex gadget and it was designed by many designers, so why must the universe have only a single designer and not many designers?. . .

The same question I asked you above: Why start an investigation by assuming multiple designers for a singular design when a singular designer is a much simpler place to start from?

Logicboy03:
If the toothfairy exists........

You wouldnt listen to anything following the above premise. Same for God. There is no evidence for both.

Let me give you a practical example- try making any argument for religion by sayin "if god exists" first.

Lol, why don't you start by making such an argument and then giving us a reason why a condition suddenly becomes irrelevant just because it is a condition. You really need to learn logic.

Furthermore, you are a liar. How can one say that there are no atheist buddhists? What kind of statement is that?

There are many definitions of "spiritual". Very ambiguous word. To make the claim that atheists cant be spiritual would be to carry the problem of narrowly defining "spiritual". Spiritual for a buddhist is different from a christian spiritual.

Yawn....as I said what you did there was an exercise in bait and switch and now you are pressing for a tangential argument (peppered with baseless ad hominen as usual).

For instance I could bait you with the statement that "some atheists believe in gods" and when you say that they don't, I switch to "god is an ambiguous word, some football-loving atheists call Lionel Messi a god".

That's basically what your argument was. Bait and Switch is a very poor way to argue my friend.

thehomer:
Maybe he has, maybe he hasn't but the thing is that if they were trying to be honest, they would release it without waiting for him to request for it. It is like someone accusing another of being dishonest. If the accuser wished to show that they were honest, what they do is to present evidence nullifying the accusation especially if they hold all the cards.

Not necessarily. They are under no obligation to provide raw footage to the public. There are many reasons why might want to retain the footage. The second part about your opinion of what an honest filmmaker ought to do goes both ways i.e. if Dawkins really had nothing to hide, he would have demanded the full clip be made public. Speculating over reasons lead us nowhere.

I've watched the video and I'm pointing out to you that the part where he was asked if there was any other possible option out there was edited out. Maybe you should watch it and read his own response about the clip.

See 3:12

And I've told you that intelligent design is a form of creationism. The evidence also agrees with me.

Lol.....a form of creationism...yeah right.

So Dawkins' answers already fits their narrative? Really? So why did it come as a surprise to him that he was being portrayed as saying that he believed intelligent design was a serious consideration? When people are talking about hypotheticals and they say something is plausible, you say that it doesn't mean they believe it yet you say that his statements already fit their narrative. I think that is inconsistent.

But their narrative was NOT that he believed in intelligent design. Their narrative was that he thought it possible only he was against certain kinds of designers i.e God. You have given them a strawman narrative just to back up your bais.

thehomer:
Of course that is what he was talking about. The question is what was the context in which he was saying it?

Good

Through which video? You see the problem is that you're refusing to accept that context matters. Since the recording of Ben Stein posing the question to him on any conceivable type of intelligent design wasn't in the clip you posted, it makes that clip and the voice overs dishonest. So he wasn't backing away from the statements, he was providing the context for his statement.

Please watch the video again. See 3:12

Logicboy03:
Logical has more than one meaning. I dont mean the use of logic equations in philosophy. Garbage in garbage out. A premise can follow conclusions but faulty premises are normally put forward by your ilk.


So when your premise is "if God exist". I can dismiss whatever agrument that follows. There is no evidence for God

Lol....to claim that a premise is faulty, you must show what makes it faulty.

"If God exists" is actually a perfectly sound statement irrespective of whether there is actual evidence for God or not. To dismiss it prematurely shows irrationality on your part.

Atheism has only to do with God. Fail


Atheists can be spiritual. Depends on your spiritual. My gf that is a buddhist doesnt believe in god but she is spiritual because she beleives that it is respectful to pay your last respects every year at parents graves.

Nice bait and switch attempt there. Redefining spiritual now are we? Besides I think we've thrashed the issue of Buddhism is not atheist before so I won't waste my time going over it again.

Logicboy03:
Anonyism..............

Logicboyism

Lol, how do you read?

Logicboy03:
Wrong. I can oppose an idea if there is no proof or logical evidence for it.

True. . .but then logical evidence demands that each succeeding premise must follow from the previous and thereby providing the basis for the eventual proof.

For instance, you can't proceed to prove that Logiboy built a house if your opponent will not even grant that the existence of a house itself is evidence of a builder especially without stating a definite reason how else a house can come about so that we can weigh them side by side.

It is equally irrational to grant that a house was built by a person without granting that the house is evidence of a builder.

In a formal debate, if you claim that atheists do not believe in the spiritual and I tell you to prove it, you have to prove it or you have lost points.

Actually this example is a poor one because you are asking for proof of the very definition of something.

Atheists by definition cannot hold that the spiritual exists and at the same time deny a spiritual being i.e. God. I don't need to provide proof for something that is part of the definition of a thing. Kinda like asking proof that a democrat(not the american political party) believes in voting

"what can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence"

True...Same for conclusions without basic premises

thehomer:
They are if they wish to claim that there was no dishonesty on their part. Dawkins himself has made documentaries. In fact, when McGrath claimed that the best arguments for theism were cut out what happened? The full unedited interview was posted online for all to see.

They aren't and as far as I know, Dawkins has not requested it either.

Sure I can. When you consider Dawkins work and the methodology that Stein used for this film, it isn't a stretch.

From you and Ben Stein. This was what you said.

He wasn't proposing a theory, he was simply considering a hypothetical that was explicitly asked of from him. But the part where the question was being posed was edited to make it look as if he was spontaneously proposing it. If you think that Dawkins actually holds that view, then why does his extensive writing not support that it is actually his view?

Actually no my friend that is inaccurate. The question was not edited out. Please watch the video. Again you are clutching on a strawman, I haven't claimed that that's what Dawkin's believes; I have made it clear however that he thinks intelligent design plausible. His only grouse is with the nature of the designer. That much is obvious

And there are points against it too. Besides, do intelligent design creationists argue for panspermia?

I have told you before that intelligent design is not the same as creationism.

What? Do you think that was the entire uncut interview? What sort of evidence are you asking for? And who do you think should have it?

No I obviously don't think it is an uncut video however I am contesting your suggestion that it was edited with the intent of undermining Dawkins that is what you have no evidence for. Dawkins answers to me already fits their "narrative" without much need for disingenious editing.

Enigma: Thanks Mr Anony; that is a matter of simlpe straight logic and we will see if his disciles will now come to his defence.

From a post made in December 2011, I take the second video since the first duplicated is the same as in the OP. Watch Dawkins deny that he was himself putting forward that 'speculation' or 'hypothesis' but that he was in fact presenting the "best argument" that a creationist or believer in intelligent design might put forward.

From here http://www.nairaland.com/811383/big-lie/1#9813061


His disingenuous attempt at 'self-rebuttal' here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6XpP5jsg5kM





Oh by the way that video is just one evidence that Dawkins was indeed talking about directed panspermia in the OP video.

Lol...at least one thing is clear Dawkins himself has said he was indeed talking about directed panspermia. (for the benefit of logicboy)

2. Dawkins is here desperately trying to back away from his statements because it is obvious through the video that Dawkins has no problem with intelligent design just certain kinds of designers. He even makes a point of stressing what the designer cannot be.

3. Did you notice the "We Are The Light" song at the end?

mazaje:
I do not know what the right explanation is but I can tell when I see a wrong explanation: I might not know what 23355433333 X 23443245557654 is but I know it is not 10. . . . .

True... but in other to know that it is not 10, you must know how multiplication works and know what a likely answer would look like. You didn't provide us even a vague idea of what the right answer might look like. It is irrational to oppose a position in a vacuum. In order to oppose a position properly, you must define a counter position based upon which you oppose it.

mazaje:
Nope; you are question begging. . .How do you know that the the force responsible for the universe assuming it exist is only one single entity?. . .The environment is evidence for the environment and NOT evidence for any god. . .There is so much that we do not know about the universe; the creators of the universe if there is any could have died, it could be a force or some forces that created and ran away, it could be some alien life that created our own planet and life that is found in it that. . .The universe might have created it self, it could have been created by many forces, it could be that all the life forms on earth were created by some other intelligent life forms living some where in the universe who could be living or dead. It could be anything.

If you don't agree that precision and improbable complex order that characterizes our universe is evidence for a designer, then you must tell us what you think is most plausible upon which you base your disagreement. As I said earlier, you can't oppose a position in a vacuum

But let me agree with you that there is a single god that created the universe. Pls what evidence do you have to show that your god alone created the universe and not a combination of many other gods or some other single god or some any kind of vague force? I am talking of objective evidence that can stand alone not some philosophical ramblings that provide no evidence at all. . .

Inasmuch as it appears that you agree here, you also give no basis for your agreement and from your comment you are also not prepared to accept a series of preceding arguments so I really can't help you. Your request (especially how it is phrased) is irrational.

It is like me asking you to prove that the first comment you presumably typed on this thread was actually created by you (presumably a human person) and not something else ranging from humans to robots to cats walking along a keyboard to atoms randomly forming mass and depressing keys on a keyboard. . . .and no I will only accept "objective evidence" and not "philosophical ramblings".

Perhaps you have noticed how irrational the request I made above is. Perhaps you have also noticed that I haven't really defined anything upon which I based my above request.

In the same way you cannot disagree in a vacuum, you also can't agree in a vacuum. There must be a basis for every claim or counter-claim.

So once again, I ask: Do you agree that the precision and improbable complex order of the cosmos is evidence that it has an intelligent designer? If yes we continue and move past your atheism. If no, Why? specifically

Logicboy03:

Typical lying christian.

Note what the argument was about;

CreativeX claimed that Dawkins was talking about panspermia. Which I disagreed up with. Realising this mistake, Enigma then corrected it to "directed panspermia" and then lied that Dawkins claimed in the video that he was talking about directed panspermia.

If you recall, I once told that you lack the ability to reason properly and your reasoning is so poor that you cannot recognize your deficiency such that it becomes futile to attempt reasoning with you because even after you have been shown your irrationality, you irrationally proceed to fanatically defend it anyway. This is one of such moments where you exhibit such profoundly irrational behaviour.

Would you mind looking up the meaning of directed panspermia like I asked you to and then compare it to Dawkins statements if your "rational mind" can manage that. Thank you

Logicboy03:




There is nothing to argue. The moment that I saw this video, I knew that you were a lying christian. Why?

You are late to the christian urban legend from over 4 years ago that claims that Ben Stein exposed Richard Dawkins as someone that supports intelligent design just like a christian would.

Since 2008, this video has surfaced on many conservative christian websites;
http://www.conservapedia.com/Ben_Stein_Interview_with_Richard_Dawkins
http://www.godlikeproductions.com/forum1/message1793395/pg1
http://townhall.com/columnists/dineshdsouza/2008/04/21/ben_stein_exposes_richard_dawkins/page/full/



Note that;
1) Dawkins was speculating and clearly said that it is a possibilty that some civilization seeded the earth with life
2) Dawkins clearly said that if there were an intelligent designer that such a designer would himself come from a physical process as well.

Did you even read what you responded to at all. Or did you just spit out a thoughtless reply spiced up with ad hominen as usual?

Enigma: {Please forgive my little wayo of first hiding my main question which now follows}

If it was Dawkins who subsequently claimed that he was not putting forward that speculation/hypothesis at all but that he was simply putting forward an argument that a creationist or believer in intelligent design might make . . . . . would we say that Dawkins would be lying in that event?

Lol, I see where you are going now. Yes! Dawkins would definitely be lying.

thehomer:

Actually, the evidence lies in the fact that they've been unable to release the unedited clips, they conducted the interviews by misleading the interviewees and that it is actually possible to dishonestly edit something to make it look as if someone holds a view they actually don't. We know Dawkins doesn't hold that view, he's written several books on this already. Which do you think is more likely that in this single edited clip he chucked out his written work or that someone with an ulterior motive who opposes his views tries to make him say something he doesn't actually believe?

Lol, actually, they are under no obligation to release unedited clips and to the best of my knowledge, Dawkins has not asked that unedited clips be released. And also contrary to your claim, the video doesn't try to make it look like Dawkins believes in aliens. Anyone who watches the video will see clearly that Dawkins proposes aliens as a possibility and not as a belief. Your argument for dishonesty really has no basis.

His point with panspermia is that it is still more plausible than his God and it actually is more plausible than the Christian God. Dawkins wasn't proposing a theory, he was simply considering a hypothetical. It is something that scientists, philosophers and others do.

Good so you could tell this much from the 'edited' video? Where then did you get the idea that the video was edited to make it seem that Dawkins was declaring a belief instead of a hypothesis?

The fact that panspermia can be thought of as being a plausible origin of life doesn't somehow make intelligent design creationism more reasonable. It still has lots of problems with it. The fact that something can be considered by someone as being plausible doesn't mean that it is what the person actually believes happened.

Actually, directed panspermia is a form of intelligent design for life on earth.

Again, the evidence lies in the fact that the interview had to have been edited in multiple places at multiple times in order to get it to fit with their narrative.

You have provided no evidence for this

Enigma:

Indeed, some would argue that Dawkins did indeed lie or at least try to 'spin' things. I will leave that for later.

For now, let me say that there are a number of things I find fascinating about this thread and to hint at one of them as follows.

As far as I can see so far, the posters on this thread are agreed that in that video Dawkins was himself putting forward a "speculation" or "hypothesis" of how life came about on earth.This speculation/hypothesis (which we do not have to name for now ) is to the effect that life might have originated on earth as a result of the actions of some other forms of intelligent entities/beings or 'aliens'. OK so far?

Again, my observation is that on this thread both atheists and theists are agreed that Dawkins himself was making this speculation/hypothesis. In fact some atheists are still defending Dawkins' suggestion as a worthwhile hypothesis.

Now supposing someone else comes along and says that in that video Dawkins was not himself putting forward the speculation/hypothesis at all but was simply putting forward an argument that a creationist or believer in intelligent design might make.

Would we say that such a person is lying?.

YES. Such a person would be lying.

Dawkins makes a point of insisting that such a higher intelligence must have come to be through an "ultimately explicable process" such as perhaps some sort of Darwinian means. This tells us that it is clearly Dawkins himself speculating. and NOT his impression of what a creationist/intelligent design believer might say.

Hmm, I might be wrong but I am still seeing a HUGE amount of error here all in the name of "grace" and "spiritual maturity". Some of what I am seeing on this thread is really disturbing. If Jesus tarries, I will be back to comment later but for now make I go church first I dey come.

mazaje: Most theist here seem to be confused about atheism, they some how think atheist hate their god(no atheist hates any god). You can not hate what does not exist. . . .Dawkins was not talking in absolute terms, since he does not have evidence to support his ideas. The atheist position can be sumarized by a post that was dropped on nairaland some years ago by someone here

1) If there is a God(creator(s) of the universe), he/she/they cannot be known, to know God is to be God.

2) Religions are all terribly flawed and all are born out of man’s imagination. All the god that men worship are a creation of men as such every society or culture created its own god. . . .

3) The universe is made up of laws the wise explore its loop holes and use it to their advantage.The unwise sit down and keep making things up about the universe purely based on their mythical construct or imaginations. . .What ever man want's to do must be done by man himself. . .

4) Religious faith is mostly irrational, but it is a good psychological coping mechanism.

5) Any phenomena that cannot be replicated and verified independently by others should be classified as fiction or pseudo-science at most. The supernatural claims all falls into this category. the supernatural has never been shown or demonstrated to exist any where. . .Even the supernatural claims that people bandy about all require natural explanations when it matters. . .All supernatural claims do NOT stand on their own when scrutinized.

6) Science does not have all the answers, but those it has are genuine and can be replicated. It remains the best tool at man's disposal to better understand the world and the universe around him. It remains the best tool at his disposal that is universally acceptable for the betterment of his life and environment.

7) The big banng theory is as lousy as the creationist theory; yet they both agree on one thing, that is, “NOTHING existed before existence”. Maybe God is NOTHING. They are both theories and should be taken as just that, nothing more, nothing less till they can be proved and replicated. Until any of them is substantiated, but remain the invention of men trying to find possible explanations for what they see. . .

8.)The God’s of religion are anthropomorphic, they usually take the nature of their host community and the human nature of its founder e.g. Angry God, blood thirsty God, loving God, vengeful God, Randy God etc. Humans created all these gods and as such they reflect the culture that created them. All gods have to evolve over time, example the christian and muslim gods are evolving before our very eyes because the people that believe in them are also evolving in their thoughts and belief systems. . .The muslim god is very slowly evolving but will still evolve over time. . .

9) Fear and Violence are the historical and present driving forces of most religion, it’s about control and power to lord the ignorant masses.

10) Blind faith is sheer stupidity and an avid mockery of the human intellect, it is spite to the maker of the human mind; be it deity(s) or evolutionary forces of chance.

11) One man’s God is another man’s Demon/Devil; the God of the victor is worshipped while the God of the vanquished is classified as a demon. History shows that today’s God might become tomorrow’s demon. Our local deities in Africa are presently referred to as demons, but they were once revered and worshipped as very mighty Gods.

12) To base ones believes on eternal damnation or pleasure is just an extended gratification of our human pleasures, greed and fear. E.g why give me gold in the afterlife, why give me many women when I die, why must the afterlife be made up of images of this present life?
1
3) If a God is real and powerful, he should fight his own battles and leave humans out of it. If god exist then humans have no business trying to convince other humans about its existence. Such god/gods should do that themselves. If any god/gods can create the universe then revealing themselves to humans should not be a problem, after all in story books written by religious people we were told that such gods once lived with men or appeared to men when they were primitive and without much knowledge. Why is it that as men gained more knowledge and were able to understand and control their environment all the god's disappeared and ran away?. . .

Lol............All you've done here is state that All explanations presented are wrong without vaguely suggesting what a correct explanation might look like. This is irrational skepticism that closely resembles a weird mix of Relativist and Dadaist philosophy. Anyway moving on..........

Please respond to my previous post and let's see if perhaps we can wrest something vaguely rational out of all this.

@Mazaje:

Let us go on the tangent you have been clamouring for and deal with your questions.

First, I'll take it that you agree that the precision and improbable complex order of the cosmos is evidence that it has an intelligent designer (codename: GOD). Your challenge to us is to prove to you that the God I worship is true as opposed to a myraid of different theories of God.

I would like you to note at this point that we have left atheism far behind because once you agree that there is a God evidenced by His creation, the question is no longer "Does God exist?" rather it is "Who is God?"

Do you agree up to this point?

My replies to individuals on this thread:

@Logicboy:- Please type in "directed panspermia" in the search box of your beloved wikipedia and stop disgracing yourself.

@thehomer, you think the video was edited to make Dawkins look bad? I don't think so. First of all you have no evidence for this other than Mr Dawkins word. Unfortunately Mr Dawkins is under no obligation to tell the truth neither is there an incentive for him not to lie.

Secondly, It was Dawkins himself proposing the theory that life on earth could have been a result of directed panspermia. At least he doesn't deny that he did this even if we allow (without proof) that he was tricked into into it by a cunning question. It doesn't change the fact that he considers 'alien reproduction' to be a plausible origin of life.

My friend, your contention here holds no water.

@advocate666: Your response was quite interesting to me. The purpose of this thread for me was to see what conclusions people will draw from watching the same video. I was really looking at how our preconceived biases shape how we look at evidence. It is interesting how what the rest of us saw saw as legitimate questions, you saw as "straw questions"

@mazaje: I know you think Dawkins and everyone else deluded but then the thread is about the video and not tangential arguments of which "God-theory" is right. However, I will oblige you all the same as long as your skepticism is rational.

@davidlyan, enigma and creatixity: Thanks, I am happy you saw what I was hoping you'll see. And thanks enigma especially for the links. Very educative.

Deep Sight:
I found this brilliant post made by someone on the physics forum i highlighted above -

I would argue that we are some misguided by thinking that uncaused effects exist, although some quantum mechanical events, look like it.

The argument is as follows: if uncaused effects could exist, then there would neither be any causes for them to not exist. If we would at some place, and at some time, and under some conditions see effects without causes, we would need to see them also at different place, time and under different conditions, because (as we defined) there is nothing that determines an uncaused effect to occur at any place, any time and any condition.
If however there is a tendency for effects (which we described as "uncaused" ) to occur at this place, but not that place, or this moment, but not that moment, or under this condition, but not that condition, then it seems that the "uncaused" effect is determined by something, which is contradictionary, since uncaused effects can not be determined by anything.

But if that were the case, we might ask how it could be that caused effects could exist, because uncaused effects would occur all the time, at all places and under all circumstances, UNLESS this IS determined by something. However BY DEFINITION uncaused effects are not determined by anything.

This means that either there exists caused effects and all effects are causal, or everything is uncausal. That would however mean that everything is undeterminable, it would be a world which we could not have knowledge about.

This reasoning does not forbid there to be quantum fluctuations I guess, since this is a very limited effect, for example a small life time for particle/anti-article pair, there is appearantly a limited amount (determined by the Heizenberg uncertainty relationship) of "free" energy, which on average is zero.

Uncaused effects, if they could exist, would have much weirder properties, for example uncaused particles (without the accompanying anti-particle) and massive violations of energy/mass conservation and quantum number.

So I guess, there are determinations for those effects, therefore they are not uncaused.

This has to be one of the most brilliant posts I have read on Nairaland so far!

Perhaps it is time to say what I think of the video:

Dawkins was asked what he thinks of the possibility that life was intelligently designed. He answered by citing the possibility that an alien intelligent life form could have seeded life on earth. He even suggests that we might see a signature for this designer in the complex mechanisms of molecular biology.....


...Now pause for a minute and let that sink in...


Actually, I can't fault Dawkins there because it simply follows that where we see complex order, we deduce that there is an intelligence behind it. That's a pretty straightforward argument. Interestingly, it is also one of the most basic evidence provided for God i.e. creation has a creator. Essentially what Dawkins has done there is to admit there possibility of a creator.


....But the interview continues and this is where it gets interesting....


Dawkins makes it clear that a creator could exist but it would have most likely evolved in a Darwinian manner i.e. it must have a naturalistic explanation (notice how Richard paints everything with his Darwinian evolution brush).
Ben Stein notices this and points out that Dawkins doesn't really have a problem with a creator. He only insists that the creator must be naturalistic/material.

Ben goes on to press him on the question about the belief in any gods whatsoever to which he replies that such an assertion would contradict everything he has been saying (he completely forgot that he had just proposed physical gods from another planet)



Now to the problems with Dawkins' logic.

1. Dawkins accepts the possibility of an intelligent creator, he only insists that such a creator would have evolved as well as us. This doesn't help us at all because all it does is introduce an infinite regress of design and evolution. At some point you must end at a first intelligent life that did not evolve (The very kind of intelligent life Richard dawkins rejects). Puzzling isn't it?

2. Dawkins is right in deducing an intelligent designer as responsible for a complex life, but then there is no reason to insist that this intelligent life must have evolved. The only reason why Dawkins would think this is because of his bias emanating from a Darwinian/materialist worldview.


Conclusion:
Watching that video showed me something very important: It is not that the there is no evidence for God as the atheist would like to believe, It is just that the atheist is fanatically committed to a naturalistic worldview (which by the way, he has no justification for as it cannot explain all the aspects of his reality) and for that reason, even when he sees evidence for God staring him in the face, he refuses to acknowledge him.

The conclusion of that video was very telling: When Dawkins is asked what he will say to God after his death, Dawkins says he'll ask why God took so much pains to hide Himself.
Dawkins forgot that he had just suggested that "the details of molecular biology might hold the signature of a designer". Clearly the evidence of God lies before Dawkins. Pity he would rather it was aliens.


But God's angry displeasure erupts as acts of human mistrust and wrongdoing and lying accumulate, as people try to put a shroud over truth.
But the basic reality of God is plain enough. Open your eyes and there it is! By taking a long and thoughtful look at what God has created, people have always been able to see what their eyes as such can't see: eternal power, for instance, and the mystery of his divine being. So nobody has a good excuse.
What happened was this: People knew God perfectly well, but when they didn't treat him like God, refusing to worship him, they trivialized themselves into silliness and confusion so that there was neither sense nor direction left in their lives. They pretended to know it all, but were illiterate regarding life. They traded the glory of God who holds the whole world in his hands for cheap figurines you can buy at any roadside stand. Romans 1:18-23(MSG)

advocate666: Christians now clutching at 1% uncertainty from an atheist. Who should be questioning their faith here?

Have you watched the video?

If you haven't, please do and share your thoughts.

Enigma: Ah, we had a little fun with this video in the past --- Olaadegbu will remember.

Indeed talking about evangelical atheists' Daddy G.O. Dawkins' acceptance of a possible designer/creator for the earth he went even so far as to insinuate the possibility of "directed panspermia" --- though later, perhaps because of deserved ridicule, he made another video to say he wasn't per se supporting "directed panspermia".

"directed panspermia". Wow, I keep learning from you every time. Thanks for widening my knowledge.