₦airaland Forum

benodic: The atheist challenge to religious doctrines and believes is a very welcome development which any right thinking theists will welcome with open arms.
the opportunity to re-examine one's believes with particular emphasis on how it affects the next person who does not share that believe is of paramount importance. for me i have learnt a lot from atheists and i have a lot of respect for them for it is not easy in our present society to stand on the other side of the fence and look squarely at people who are ready to kill you for what you stand for and tell them that you do not believe in their Doctrine.

Uyi Iredia: The foolishness comes from those who merely rephrase a belief as an unbelief and pretend theirs isn't a belief, ideology or philosophy. Christianity was once deemed such. I had a desperate soul who claimed that atheism wasn't the belief that God doesn't exist_do you agree to that ?

examiner.com:
Atheist: Lack of belief in a deity. This is derived from the prefix “a” meaning “lack of” or “no” and the word “theist” meaning belief in a deity.

- Agnostic: Lack of knowledge in a deity. Again, this is derived from the prefix “a” meaning “lack of” or “no” and the word “gnostic” meaning “knowledge.” The context provided the deity aspect but it is certainly possible to be agnostic about the weather or any number of other things.

There seems to be some question about the terms “atheism” and “agnostism” so it is time to discuss it. The definitions are listed above, but they are not mutually exclusive terms as many people (particularly Christians), seem to think. Atheism concerns belief while being agnostic is a claim about knowledge.

This may get a little complicated, but let me try to explain it. I don’t know if there is a purple house on Oak Street, so I might lack the belief that there is. That doesn’t mean that I disbelieve that there is a purple house on Oak Street necessarily, but it could mean that too. However, if someone showed me a picture of a purple house on Oak Street, then I would have knowledge of the purple house and would almost certainly believe that there is in fact a purple house on Oak Street. By that same reasoning, if I said that I don’t have any reason to believe that there is a purple house on Oak Street, that doesn’t mean that I believe that there is no purple house on Oak Street. It also doesn’t mean that I believe there must be a blue house on Oak. In other words, atheism is a lack of belief in a deity, but it is not a disbelief in a deity necessarily and it is not necessarily a belief in something else either. It can be, but that is not a requirement of the set of people who lack the belief.

There are atheist religions such as Secular Humanists, The Brights, Buddhism, Taoism, Confucianism, etc. Believe it or not, I have even met an atheist Christian (I don’t understand it either so don’t ask) and there are also a number atheist Jews that I have met. I might even be considered one of them. But that has to do in part with the Hebrew heritage and traditions and less to do with the Jewish religion. But when someone claims to be an atheist, they are not talking about a belief that they hold, but rather a belief that they don’t hold. Unless it is modified or married to some other belief, the term “atheist” is not about the person’s beliefs but rather the person’s lack of belief in a particular being or beings.

If someone were to tell me that there was a man named David living in Israel, I could say that I lack the knowledge of such a person, but I still believe it to be true. David after all is a pretty common Jewish name and it is pretty likely that there is a man named David living in a country full of Jews. This is an example of belief without knowledge. And if I were at a magic show and the Magician sawed a girl in half right in front of me, I could say that I have knowledge (in that I saw it happen right in front of my eyes) but I still don’t believe that it happened. One could argue that I know it was a trick and that is additional knowledge but I can’t really say that I “know” it as much as I can say that I don’t believe it was real based on other factors.

My point here is that knowledge and belief are two separate things and so it is entirely logical to be both an agnostic and an atheist at the same time. I also want to again clarify that atheist does not necessarily mean an active disbelief in a god just a rejection of a belief in a god. Personally, I will make the claim that particular Gods do not exist. I am reasonably certain that Thor, Zeus, and Yahweh are made up fictional characters. But that isn’t to say that I am not open to the idea of some vague higher power entity. But currently, I see no knowledge to suggest that such a vague higher power entity exists, so I lack that belief. Show me evidence for the purple house on Oak Street and I would probably believe it, but I am reasonably certain that there isn’t an Igloo on Oak Street (especially not during these summer months if we are both talking about the same Oak Street in Pennsylvania). I have no knowledge of that Igloo and I also have no belief in that Igloo.

Reyginus: More like an atheist bible

FrostyZonn: https://www.animationplayhouse.com/rasp1.gif

italo: Who has the burden of proof. I know God is. How am I obliged to prove it to you?

italo: It is you who stupidly claims that things that aren't scientifically proven are non-existent while not being able to prove your own claims scientifically.

italo: Wrong. Why should I take YOU seriously when you cannot prove many of your claims scientifically yet insist other must do so to validate their claims?

italo: For the upteenth time on this thread, it doesn't matter to me whether you care or not. Yes, my belief has both empirical and logical backing but why should I bother offering to you when you are not honest enough to admit that: that you haven't perceived something, that people misunderstand it...and that you haven't seen the kind of evidence you want doesn't mean that thing is non-existent?

italo: I think you are the deluded one. If you can evolve from fish, how is it impossible for animals to talk?

italo: If your speech is as a result of a chemical or physical reaction that started the universe, who's to set the limits for that reaction.

italo: I think you're worse than just deluded. You're also daft and arrogant about your folly. A lethal mix.

examiner: Does it take more faith to be an atheist?

I hear it all the time, “it takes more faith to be an atheist than it does to believe in God.” This popular Christian argument claims that in order for atheists to reject the claim that god exists, we must first know everything that there is to know. What those who use this argument are basically saying is that atheists must know the entire set of facts about the universe before we can look and that set as a whole and see that their God is not included in that set of facts. Of course this argument is just absurd.

First it claims that atheists are claiming to know with faith-based, dogmatic, absolute certainty that God does not exist. While some atheists might claim that, this is really just a false caricature or “strawman” of what most atheists think. Most atheists simply see no evidence and thus no valid reason to believe.

Second, this argument assumes that we have to know what is in order to know what isn’t. I’m not a computer expert and so if someone asked me how computers work, I really couldn’t tell them. But if someone told me that there is a gerbil inside running on a wheel which powers the computer, I would be more that just a bit skeptical of such a claim. In truth, I would call such a claim ridiculous and so would you. Even though I don’t personally know how computers work, I am reasonably certain that gerbils are not involved. I would need to see some pretty solid evidence to convince me otherwise. I don’t need to know everything about computers to know that gerbils running in a wheel inside my computer are not in that set of facts. Common sense informs me that gerbils do not power the computer. So the claim that one must know everything that is, in order to know one thing that isn’t, is just absurd.

Third, this argument focuses on the Christian God, but we could really switch that focus to anything or even any god for that matter. What about the God Zeus? Christians would have to admit that if their argument is true and that in order to reject belief in something, we would need to know everything, than they would have to admit that they should also believe in the God Zeus because to not believe would mean that they know everything about the universe and see that Zeus is not in that set of knowledge. It is just such an absurdly ridiculous argument and yet Christians seem to use it all the time. They seem to forget that their particular god isn’t the only god ever imagined. The fact is that it still takes more faith to believe in imagined deities than it does to simply not believe in such absurdities.

skepticink.com:
Atheism Proven Wrong?

I got a hilarious comment from a Christian recently. He claimed that atheism has been proven to be wrong. I didn’t know whether my gut was going to explode from laughter or my head was going to explode from his ignorance and stupidity.

For starters, atheism isn’t a belief system. All atheism is, is a lack of belief in deities. So the only way to prove atheism wrong is to prove that theism is true. I have yet to see any valid evidence in support of theism let alone solid iron-clad proof that any gods exist.

That’s really all it would take; all a theist really has to do is present some sort of valid, testable, evidence for their deity of choice. Instead, all we get are poorly thought out philosophical arguments, word games, threats of eternal torture, bribes of eternal rewards, and a whole lot of mere assertions. Religious believers seem to be a little light in the actual testable evidence department.

On the other side, many religious claims have been demonstrated to be flat out false. The list is nearly endless. Starting from Genesis and straight on through to the Book of Revelation, claim after claim has been refuted. Why would anyone take anything the Bible says seriously after so many of the claims made in the book series has been exposed to be false – not to mention completely ridiculous.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think there is any testable evidence that disproves God – although there are some pretty good arguments that disprove God. I do think that the track record of the Bible isn’t that great and that alone should raise some doubts about some of the more ridiculous concepts – like a deity.

In the absence of evidence for the existence of a deity, it is only logical to be skeptical about the existence of such a deity – especially given the ridiculousness of the concept and the ridiculously poor track record of the Bible and other “holy” books. Plus, like I said, there are some pretty good arguments against the concept of a deity ad science has shown time and again that it can build a probable model of the universe without the need for a deity in that model. While this is not “proof” or testable evidence, it is a valid reason to reject the claim in the absence of supporting evidence for the claim. So there!

examiner.com:
Until recently, the number of organized atheists has been pretty small and so religious believers have more experience proselytizing to people of other religious or even those who are barely religious but still consider themselves believers. This may be why they have such a hard time understanding that atheism is not a worldview.

Atheism is the radical position that theists haven’t provided adequate evidence for their claims. There are no atheist holy books nor are there any popes of atheism. If you lack a belief in deities, then you are an atheist.

However, many vocal atheists do seem to share some similar points of view. This is not because they are atheists, but rather it is that their point of view has a tendency to lead toward atheism. For example, most vocal atheists tend to value science, skepticism, critical thinking, logic, and reason. While not everyone who values these things are atheists, those that do value those things are more likely to either be atheists or to become atheists. The arc of human understand of reality bends toward atheism.

What we also find is that many vocal atheists tend to share humanistic values. This is because religious dogma tends to be one of the few things that stands opposed to humanism. When people become atheists, their thinking is no longer tainted by that religious dogma and the logical conclusion tends to be humanism. For example, without a belief that homosexuality is a sin, there really is no reason to oppose same-gender marriage. As a result, most vocal atheists are supportive of gay rights. The same is true with women’s rights and the rights of others.

This said there are many atheists who are not active within the greater community of reason. Some of those atheists don’t value science and humanism the way the majority of modern atheists do. They simply lack a belief in deities. That’s fine because atheism isn’t a religion. It isn’t a worldview. There are no atheist holy books.

It is perfectly logical that there will be atheists who will hold some really horrible points of view and who will do some really terrible things. This isn’t a reflection on atheism because there is no doctrine of atheism. On the other hand, religious believers do have doctrines and so when particular believers act on their very understandable interpretations of those doctrines, their actions do reflect on their religion and their worldview.

When Muslims demand that women cover themselves up, they do this because of their interpretation of their holy book. When Christians oppose the science of evolution, they do so because of their interpretation of their holy book. In both cases, those interpretations are very understandable in that a reasonable person can interpret the text in that fashion. It isn’t like reading The Lorax and concluding that the book supports de-foresting and unfettered industrialization. That would be an unreasonable interpretation.

As an atheist, I don’t have to worry about the proper interpretation of holy books. All I really have to do is lack a belief in a deity. That is not my worldview; that is simply a lack of believing in any of the religious worldviews. I do have a worldview and it can’t be described by a single label. Humanism is certainly a large part of my worldview, so if I had to give a simple answer that might be it. Atheism, however is not a worldview in and of itself.

FearGodAndLive: Texa, long time :*

Yes o... My troll account

italo: God is spirit and I perceive him Spiritually. So I am under no obligation to prove his existence scientifically. If you assert that I am lying about this spirit then YOU prove that I perceive no such spirit.

If you think that people who make non-physical assertions must prove them scientifically, then prove to me that you love your mum, prove that you are an Atheist, prove that you are thinking before posting...that your posts are not a result of a random chemical reaction etc, tell me what is love, thought etc..Let's see if you practise what you preach.

If you cant prove these things, you have no right to assert them to me...or expect me to prove anything to you.

BIGOT AUTHORITARIANS: holding an unsanctioned rally

VANILLA BIGOTS: Pastafarianism is a blasphemous smear against Christianity

FrostyZonn: That's rich, coming from someone who lied about his faith on his passports just because he's too chicken hearted to face the music. It's all good and proper being an internet champion, but exercising your right in public is not politically correct, right?

If that doesn't make you the biggest doofus yet, I don't know what else will.

googlod: doo·fus
/ˈdo͞ofəs/

Noun
A stu.pid person.

FrostyZonn: On the subject of homosexualism, last time I checked it's against the law. If I'm a bigot for hating on them, then so be it. You are more than welcome to take that to the president. But I know I will never attack one on the street for no reason. Christianity abhorrs violence.

Atheism is quite different and the last time I checked not banned in Nigeria.

You are the one that linked atheism with homosexualism not me. You are the one that compared your plight with that of an homosexual, not moi.

So do yourself a solid and stop with the victim role already, it only makes you and your kind look more pathetic.

FrostyZonn: So atheism can now be likened to homosexualism, heh? Interesting. I never know your kind see yourselfs as such...but wait, both shares closet things both in Nigeria and diaspora...

Hmn...it's starting to make sense.

JMAN05: In the book EVOLUTION, using Dr. Karl Popper as an authority, the book states "a hypothesis that is not subject, at least in principle, to the possibility of emperical falsification does not belong in the realm of science
". Dr Propper applied this criterion to evolution. He says " I have come to thr conclusion that Darwinism is not a testable scientific theory, but a metaphysical research program".

KARL POPPER: Origin and evolution of life

The creation–evolution controversy in the United States raises the issue of whether creationistic ideas may be legitimately called science and whether evolution itself may be legitimately called science. In the debate, both sides and even courts in their decisions have frequently invoked Popper's criterion of falsifiability. In this context, passages written by Popper are frequently quoted in which he speaks about such issues himself. For example, he famously stated "Darwinism is not a testable scientific theory, but a metaphysical research program—a possible framework for testable scientific theories." He continued:

[b]"And yet, the theory is invaluable. I do not see how, without it, our knowledge could have grown as it has done since Darwin. In trying to explain experiments with bacteria which become adapted to, say, penicillin, it is quite clear that we are greatly helped by the theory of natural selection. Although it is metaphysical, it sheds much light upon very concrete and very practical researches. It allows us to study adaptation to a new environment (such as a penicillin-infested environment) in a rational way: it suggests the existence of a mechanism of adaptation, and it allows us even to study in detail the mechanism at work.[36]"

He also noted that theism, presented as explaining adaptation, "was worse than an open admission of failure, for it created the impression that an ultimate explanation had been reached".[37]

Popper later said:

When speaking here of Darwinism, I shall speak always of today's theory—that is Darwin's own theory of natural selection supported by the Mendelian theory of heredity, by the theory of the mutation and recombination of genes in a gene pool, and by the decoded genetic code. This is an immensely impressive and powerful theory. The claim that it completely explains evolution is of course a bold claim, and very far from being established. All scientific theories are conjectures, even those that have successfully passed many severe and varied tests. The Mendelian underpinning of modern Darwinism has been well tested, and so has the theory of evolution which says that all terrestrial life has evolved from a few primitive unicellular organisms, possibly even from one single organism.[37][/b]

He explained that the difficulty of testing had led some people to describe natural selection as a tautology, and that he too had in the past described the theory as 'almost tautological', and had tried to explain how the theory could be untestable (as is a tautology) and yet of great scientific interest:

My solution was that the doctrine of natural selection is a most successful metaphysical research programme. It raises detailed problems in many fields, and it tells us what we would expect of an acceptable solution of these problems. I still believe that natural selection works in this way as a research programme. Nevertheless, I have changed my mind about the testability and logical status of the theory of natural selection; and I am glad to have an opportunity to make a recantation.[37]

Popper summarized his new view as follows:

The theory of natural selection may be so formulated that it is far from tautological. In this case it is not only testable, but it turns out to be not strictly universally true. There seem to be exceptions, as with so many biological theories; and considering the random character of the variations on which natural selection operates, the occurrence of exceptions is not surprising. Thus not all phenomena of evolution are explained by natural selection alone. Yet in every particular case it is a challenging research program to show how far natural selection can possibly be held responsible for the evolution of a particular organ or behavioral program.[38]

These frequently quoted passages are only a very small part of what Popper wrote on the issue of evolution, however, and give the wrong impression that he mainly discussed questions of its falsifiability. Popper never invented this criterion to give justifiable use of words like science. In fact, Popper says at the beginning of Logic of Scientific Discovery that it is not his aim to define science, and that science can in fact be defined quite arbitrarily.

Popper had his own sophisticated views on evolution that go much beyond what the frequently-quoted passages say.[39] In effect, Popper agreed with some of the points of both creationists and naturalists, but also disagreed with both views on crucial aspects. Popper understood the universe as a creative entity that invents new things, including life, but without the necessity of something like a god, especially not one who is pulling strings from behind the curtain. He said that evolution must, as the creationists say, work in a goal-directed way[40] but disagreed with their view that it must necessarily be the hand of god that imposes these goals onto the stage of life.

Instead, he formulated the spearhead model of evolution, a version of genetic pluralism. According to this model, living organisms themselves have goals, and act according to these goals, each guided by a central control. In its most sophisticated form, this is the brain of humans, but controls also exist in much less sophisticated ways for species of lower complexity, such as the amoeba. This control organ plays a special role in evolution—it is the "spearhead of evolution". The goals bring the purpose into the world. Mutations in the genes that determine the structure of the control may then cause drastic changes in behaviour, preferences and goals, without having an impact on the organism's phenotype. Popper postulates that such purely behavioural changes are less likely to be lethal for the organism compared to drastic changes of the phenotype.[41]

Popper contrasts his views with the notion of the "hopeful monster" that has large phenotype mutations and calls it the "hopeful behavioural monster". After behaviour has changed radically, small but quick changes of the phenotype follow to make the organism fitter to its changed goals. This way it looks as if the phenotype were changing guided by some invisible hand, while it is merely natural selection working in combination with the new behaviour. For example, according to this hypothesis, the eating habits of the giraffe must have changed before its elongated neck evolved. Popper contrasted this view as evolution from within or active Darwinism (the organism actively trying to discover new ways of life and being on a quest for conquering new ecological niches),[42][43] with the naturalistic evolution from without (which has the picture of a hostile environment only trying to kill the mostly passive organism, or perhaps segregate some of its groups).

Popper was a key figure encouraging patent lawyer Günter Wächtershäuser to publish his Iron–sulfur world theory on abiogenesis and his criticism of "soup" theory.

About the creation-evolution controversy itself, Popper wrote that he considered it "a somewhat sensational clash between a brilliant scientific hypothesis concerning the history of the various species of animals and plants on earth, and an older metaphysical theory which, incidentally, happened to be part of an established religious belief" with a footnote to the effect that "[he] agree[s] with Professor C.E. Raven when, in his Science, Religion, and the Future, 1943, he calls this conflict 'a storm in a Victorian tea-cup'; though the force of this remark is perhaps a little impaired by the attention he pays to the vapours still emerging from the cup--to the Great Systems of Evolutionist Philosophy, produced by Bergson, Whitehead, Smuts, and others."[44]

plaetton: Yeahhhh.

Obviously you will need your brain to understand the gospel of the FSM.

JMAN05: I dont know how to make use of those quote tags.

JMAN05: But evolution starts from "know to do not know".

JMAN05: Sun can be seen and proven, but life from water cant.

JMAN05: The truth pains bro. Pls endure it.

JMAN05: explore ESP.

JMAN05: - Why didnt you quote my reply above before this response? I ve vividly explain that "day" stuff. Let your reply be in accordance with my reply above.

JMAN05: - you need to ask catholic why they believe so.

JMAN05: My brother evolution cannot be tested in a lab just like creation cannot be tested. I should educate you on that. As such it is not scientific.

You said no fossil has been found to contradict it? Please what happened during the Cambrian Period?

JMAN05: Where did you get this lies from?

GOD??!! via HOLY BIBLE??!!:
Now the whole world had one language and a common speech. 2 As people moved eastward,[a] they found a plain in Shinar[b] and settled there.

3 They said to each other, “Come, let’s make bricks and bake them thoroughly.” They used brick instead of stone, and tar for mortar. 4 Then they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves; otherwise we will be scattered over the face of the whole earth.”

5 But the Lord came down to see the city and the tower the people were building. 6 The Lord said, “If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them. 7 Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other.”

8 So the Lord scattered them from there over all the earth, and they stopped building the city. 9 That is why it was called Babel[c]—because there the Lord confused the language of the whole world. From there the Lord scattered them over the face of the whole earth.

JMAN05: what did Aristotle teach in the 4th century BCE concerning where the earth was hanging?

JMAN05: We do not FOLLOW BLINDLY AGAINST THE BIBLE, that is what i said. Stop cut and conclude method. I am trying to tell you that we do not twist the divine record to suit science when the statements in the bible is very clear and its in tune with the truth.

JMAN05: Have the bible ever been following science? When Aristotle propounded the theory about where earth hangs, did we go and twist it and then retwist it later? Please face the fact and stop this blind statements. If this is done by other religion, the bibke stands still on its teachings. Science will know later just like they often do.

JMAN05: Do you have scientific evidence to prove that life can come from water?

JMAN05: Respond to my comment on the "day" and stop this noise.

JMAN05: You can ask Josephus about Jesus.

JMAN05: bible is not science, but agrees with true science.

JMAN05: It is also irrelevant whether you agree with the existence of a creator.

JMAN05: In the book EVOLUTION, using Dr. Karl Popper as an authority, the book states "a hypothesis that is not subject, at least in principle, to the possibility of emperical falsification does not belong in the realm of science
". Dr Propper applied this criterion to evolution. He says " I have come to thr conclusion that Darwinism is not a testable scientific theory, but a metaphysical research program".

JMAN05: there was a supernatural force behind it.[quote author=JMAN05]Heheheheh...

[quote author=JMAN05]Is that a scientific prove of life coming from water?

JMAN05: See Popper above.

It is a supernatural power. Explore ESP.

JMAN05: He has no beginning. Are you cleared? Keep running from the question.

F00028: darwin's responsible for a lotta stuff. for starters he gave a scientific rationale for racial prejudice.

his deceptive theory is the bedrock of the materialist philosophy that allowed for colonialism, racism, the slavery that you atheists pretend to abhor, and blind individualism as a consequence of the principle of natural selection.

frosbel: Why should an atheist want to moderate a religious section

wiki: The scientific method is a body of techniques for investigating phenomena, acquiring new knowledge, or correcting and integrating previous knowledge.[1] To be termed scientific, a method of inquiry must be based on empirical and measurable evidence subject to specific principles of reasoning.[2] The Oxford English Dictionary defines the scientific method as: "a method or procedure that has characterized natural science since the 17th century, consisting in systematic observation, measurement, and experiment, and the formulation, testing, and modification of hypotheses."[3]

The chief characteristic which distinguishes the scientific method from other methods of acquiring knowledge is that scientists seek to let reality speak for itself,[discuss] supporting a theory when a theory's predictions are confirmed and challenging a theory when its predictions prove false. Although procedures vary from one field of inquiry to another, identifiable features distinguish scientific inquiry from other methods of obtaining knowledge. Scientific researchers propose hypotheses as explanations of phenomena, and design experimental studies to test these hypotheses via predictions which can be derived from them. These steps must be repeatable, to guard against mistake or confusion in any particular experimenter. Theories that encompass wider domains of inquiry may bind many independently derived hypotheses together in a coherent, supportive structure. Theories, in turn, may help form new hypotheses or place groups of hypotheses into context.

Scientific inquiry is generally intended to be as objective as possible in order to reduce biased interpretations of results. Another basic expectation is to document, archive and share all data and methodology so they are available for careful scrutiny by other scientists, giving them the opportunity to verify results by attempting to reproduce them. This practice, called full disclosure, also allows statistical measures of the reliability of these data to be established (when data is sampled or compared to chance).

op: Do these findings—or their potential future refinements

JMAN05: It meas that you cant understand some divine utterances by having a carnal outlook. Some words have spiritual meaning.

JMAN05: a) I dont think there is any hit and miss claim there. The bible is clear on that subject.
b) is evolution testable? I hope it is still nonesense.

JMAN05: a) God is immaterial and had always been so even before your space research. Just tell me when the space research started, let me tell you christians position prior to that.

c) when did we believe that God was in trees?

JMAN05: Never do we follow blindly against the bible. For example science has not discovered that the Noah's flood took place, have we changed our belief?

JMAN05: Skeptics has labelled the bible as mythology, have we agreed with you guys? Skeptucs doubted bible's authenticity because of some names it mentioned that no evidence were found then, yet some years after those claims, archaeologists many times proof the bible as being historical.

JMAN05: Are you guys not the ones shifting theories of evolution to suit new discoveries? Do you all now agree on the Darwinian theory of evolution?

JMAN05: Is it only the christians that work on faith, do not evolutionist work on the same thing? For eg evolution cannot be tested in a lab, your believing in it even requires more faith than christianity.

JMAN05: That is the same babble filled in evolution. YES THE BIBLE IS NEVER WRONG.

JMAN05: Life emerging from water is not possible according to scientific facts, is it not faith that you still believe in it?

JMAN05: At least the sane will also be skeptical about a theory which lacks wholistic scientific backing.

JMAN05: Can something come from nothing? Yet you expect someone with his sanity to believe that

italo: And the sane would know that the Bible is not a science textbook.

wiegraf: a book featuring; cockatrices; talking snakes, donkeys and fires; virgi.n births and zombies;

wiki: A dragon is a legendary creature, typically with serpentine or reptilian traits, that features in the myths of many cultures. There are two distinct cultural traditions of dragons: the European dragon, derived from European folk traditions and ultimately related to Greek and Middle Eastern mythologies, and the Chinese dragon, with counterparts in Japan, Korea and other East Asian countries.[1]

The two traditions may have evolved separately, but have influenced each other to a certain extent, particularly with the cross-cultural contact of recent centuries. The English word "dragon" derives from Greek δράκων (drákōn), "dragon, serpent of huge size, water-snake".[2]

wiki: Although dragons occur in many legends around the world, different cultures have varying stories about monsters that have been grouped together under the dragon label. Some dragons are said to breathe fire or to be poisonous, such as in the Old English poem Beowulf.[4] They are commonly portrayed as serpentine or reptilian, hatching from eggs and possessing typically scaly or feathered bodies. They are sometimes portrayed as hoarding treasure. Some myths portray them with a row of dorsal spines. European dragons are more often winged, while Chinese dragons resemble large snakes. Dragons can have a variable number of legs: none, two, four, or more when it comes to early European literature.

Dragons are often held to have major spiritual significance in various religions and cultures around the world. In many Asian cultures dragons were, and in some cultures still are, revered as representative of the primal forces of nature, religion and the universe. They are associated with wisdom—often said to be wiser than humans—and longevity. They are commonly said to possess some form of magic or other supernatural power, and are often associated with wells, rain, and rivers. In some cultures, they are also said to be capable of human speech. In some traditions dragons are said to have taught humans to talk.


Narratives about dragons often involve them being killed by a hero. This topos can be traced to the Chaoskampf of the mythology of the Ancient Near East (e.g. Hadad vs. Yam, Marduk vs. Tiamat, Teshub vs. Illuyanka, etc.; the Biblical Leviathan presumably reflects a corresponding opponent of an early version of Yahweh). The motif is continued in Greek Apollo, and the early Christian narratives about Archangel Michael and Saint George. The slaying of Vrtra by Indra in the Rigveda also belongs in this category. The theme survives into medieval legend and folklore, with dragon slayers such as Beowulf, Sigurd, Tristan, Margaret the Virgin, Heinrich von Winkelried, Dobrynya Nikitich, Skuba Dratewka/Krakus. In Biblical myth, the archetype is alluded to in the descendants of Adam crushing the head of the Serpent, and in Christian mythology, this was interpreted as corresponding to Christ as the "New Adam" crushing the Devil.

The blood of a slain dragon is depicted as either beneficent or as poisonous in medieval legend and literary fiction. In German legend, dragon blood has the power to render invincible skin or armor bathed in it, as is the case with Siegfried's skin or Ortnit's armor. In the Slavic myth, the Earth refuses it as it is so vile that Mother Earth wishes not to have it within her womb, and it remains above ground for all eternity. The blood of the dragon in Beowulf has acidic qualities, allowing it to seep through iron. Heinrich von Winkelried dies after the blood of the dragon slain by him accidentally drips on him.

wiki: In the book An Instinct for Dragons[31] anthropologist David E. Jones suggests a hypothesis that humans just like monkeys have inherited instinctive reactions to snakes, large cats and birds of prey. Dragons have features that are combinations of these three. An instinctive fear for these three would explain why dragons with similar features occur in stories from independent cultures on all continents.

greatgenius: lol on the surface you made a somewhat good point/analogy till you messed it up with @bolded.. using your analogy can one say due to ignorance it will be more accurate to describe babies as democrats...

greatgenius: agnostic/atheism and even theism are beliefs taking a position on something -God( these of which babies do not have a position on).

greatgenius: im glad you said "as far as we're concerned" because all "beings" have consciousness.. And No i would not because that is on the same level of absurdity as the statement " all babies are born atheist".. theism/atheism are all human belief systems and unfortunately i am not in a position yet to tell you the kind of "beliefs" or "thinking" that goes on in a dogs consciouness

JMAN05: I dont see how your question which portray human reasoning can fit the bible account.

it is not just a story but a historic story of what happened in the past.

Mr Troll: God created man and sent him consciousness through TELEKINESIS

Logicboy03: This made front page
https://www.nairaland.com/1401773/ways-get-god-answer-prayers

mencken: No one in this world, so far as I know-and I have searched the record for years, and employed agents to help me-has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the great masses of the plain people.