Davidtalo1:
Like mine started as middle, going back to pray whenever there's a problem but one day i wanted to go back to the religion stuff and discovered I've totally lost my belief in it, was a super interesting experience

I'm curious. How did your belief fade over time?

Was religion a thing you'd only turn to in times of trouble?

Ever8090:
Only a very big, extremely big fool that will say in his heart that there is no God.

If you want clarification, ask me...

Someone seems pained.

Come on... Tell me... Who hurt you?

You too Dtruthspeaker. You've been crying a lot about atheism recently.

Did an atheist perhaps break your heart or something

Dtruthspeaker:


I guess you just woke up to not see that that your brother started his attack on Christians, yesterday.

Atheists In The House, What Made You Stop Believing In Religion? by Davidtalo1: 7:29pm On Nov 19

How exactly is that an attack on Christians? He opened a thread asking other atheists about their experiences and their journey away from religion.

That would be like you opening a thread titled "Christians, what strengthened your faith in Christ?".

But here you are, throwing a fit over something that didn't even involve you or your religion in general

Dtruthspeaker:
Have you not noticed that evil things always sneak to attack?

So I'm guessing you just woke up this morning and decided atheism would be your problem for today

JASONjnr:
It's always their hatred for Christianity....

I've always wanted to dare an atheist...A true one..To go to the North, near a mosque and proclaim his disbelieve openly there....Tell the people that there's no God or Allah...

Just try it....I'd love to see something...

Seun, I dare you particularly...

This is by far the least smartest thing I've seen on nairaland in a while.

So you want atheists to undergo a sort of test by deliberately putting themselves in a situation where death is pretty much guaranteed?

Like... What purpose exactly would that serve?

If a geographical region silences opposing voices, it doesn't invalidate the voice in any way. So your challenge falls flat here.

My deconversion story is a really long one...

But to sum it up, it all started with one question, which led to another question, which led to a plethora of questions.

And it also wasn't a sudden or overnight thing. I first went from being a fundamentalist Christian, to a more liberal kind, and then to a Christian deist, before finally becoming “agnostic"

This has gone on for far too long.

Janosky:

1.
Most medical personnel are atheists.
Oga,kiss the truth.

Proof?

2. Does the evidence acknowledged by medical sciences PROVEN there are fatalities arising from the form of treatment you support?
Yes !

Fatalities arise from almost every medical procedure that tries to save a life. Even surgeries don't have a hundred percent efficiency rate.

However, the fatalities involved in this particular process is significantly less than you tried to portray as I've shown.

You're the one who did terrible math to support your false claim. And when i corrected you, you went on to shift the goalpost.

3.
No, your claim were debunked.
Does this screenshot PROVEN that you were wrong to project your bias over the choices I make as far as medical treatment is concerned?
Yes !

Somehow I'm supposed to take a screenshot from quora as proof? Since when did Quora become a credible scientific source?

The one scientific source you tried to use ended up proving you wrong. And now you're pulling unscientific sources to prove your point.

I'm sorry man. I'm not the reason for your disagreement with reality.

4.
Oga, you have zero input over the choices I & my fellow brothers make with a clear conscience,(which medical sciences has PROVEN it's validity) and professionally accepted with PROVEN results.

I've told you before. I couldn't care less if you go with bloodless transfusions. Just don't twist figures to paint a picture that does not exist

[/quote] Shalom. [/quote]

Like i said, this has gone on for far too long. Consider this my last response to this thread.

Adios.

OLAADEGBU:


Since your mind is already made up, why should we confuse you with facts? You believe 2 + 2 can be anything else but 4. Ignorance is bliss.

You've offered no rebuttal. No counterargument. Nothing.

All you've done is to make a baseless assumption about something completely unrelated to the discussion.

Despite me addressing your “chance" and "accident" analogies, you still go on to parrot them throughout the rest of the thread. And you accuse me of being ignorant?

In addition to that, you continue to attack a position not even being held by evolutionists. That's strawman at its finest.

But all that aside, I want to address the issue of the snail shell. I actually looked it up.. and if you did too, you would've probably seen where you went wrong.

Here's some useful piece of information that clearly shows the reasons for the discrepancy

https://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CD/CD011_3.html

You're welcome

P.S... Lordreed already showed you this, but you went on to accuse him of selective reading, meanwhile, you're the one who seems to be selectively picking what to accept.

You're doing the very thing you accuse us of.

HisSplendor:


I think you have a closed mind. You love to be sealed away from obvious facts.

All atheists quickly look for their own framed excuses to disprove anything related to God.

The truth is that Atheists aren't concerned or care to know whether God exists or not. That isn't the problem. The problem is that they hate God and would do everything to deny His existence.

Judging from what I've reading from atheists on this thread, atheists would still hold on to godlessness even if Darwin was to return from the grave to disprove his own evolution theory.

I think there's a demon of destruction directly and deliberately working in the minds of some people to seal their fate in eternal damnation. This same demon propels them to blaspheme even against the rules of their own conscience.

So many things wrong here. First of all, we don't hate "God". God is a title. That would be like saying we hate “king" or “father"

Secondly, hating something and denying its existence is self contradictory. You can't hate something you don't believe exists.

But the main thing I wanted to point out here was the commonly peddled idea, that somehow, disproving evolution gives credibility to your bible story.

To make it clear, it absolutely does NOT. Not even close.

Even if you were to disprove evolution (which of course I'd be happy to see), it would only mean that what we thought was once correct, wasn't correct.

It would not prove the biblical creation story any more than it would prove the Islamic, Hindu, greek or Norse story.

If you want to make a case for a specific deity, like Yahweh creating the world as shown in the biblical account, then you need to show proof for that. Testable, verifiable proof.

Disproving one thing doesn't automatically prove the other, because there's no dichotomy here.

And i believe this response applies to OLAADEGBU as well.

The last thing I'd like to address is the highly misguided idea that evolution says life arose by “chance", or “accident"

That isn't, and has never been the view of evolution, so it's a bit disappointing when you guys try so hard to debunk a position that's not even held by the party you're trying to debunk.

Dtruthspeaker:


Atheists and lies, same synonym. His argument has been standing and none has been able to successfully bring it down. All you people are doing is simply attack it but it has not fallen down.

However, he chooses to describe it, is his right so it is either you give a valid objection or you have nothing to say

You are confusing the exercise of your right and power to believe any thing whether real or imagined with real eyeity and Truth.

You have a right to believe in one million gods, it is no one's business, but when you speak up, then you must speak The Truth.

And right now, no one asks you whether you believe in many gods or none at all, so your comment here is invalid.

Nothing you've written here makes the slightest bit of sense in relation to the topic, or to my response to the OP.

And I'm not getting into an argument with you over “rights" because it has nothing to do with the topic.

If you have an argument or rebuttal, then bring it forward.. if not, then

HisSplendor:


You talked about the probability of the Christian God being the true God. Have you wondered why there's a multiplicity of gods and religions in the first place?

It's because man lost God, and in devising many ways to find Him, Satan deceitfully led him into many errors. Man is seeking that which he lost.

This argument really doesn't favor you as much as you think. If anything, it does the exact opposite. Especially when you look not only at the number of previous religions, but the nature of them.

The idea that "Man" lost "God" is a concept that exists within your religion, and a (pretty inaccurate) way for you to try to describe the past based on your highly subjective worldview.

As an example, I could believe in a religion that has multiple gods, and then claim that the existence of multiple religions is proof that the many gods are fighting for superiority or control over humans. It is an empty claim.

Before you can go ahead to say man lost "God", you need to first clearly define what this God is, and then show evidence for that particular God. So far, I'm yet to see a theist do that.

It's the responsibility of every man to prepare for his or her own eternity. Your argument is too logically weak to say the least.

I find it a tad bit ironic, that you'd accuse someone else of weak logic, when you literally created a thread to glorify one of the weakest arguments for a specific God, which is Pascal's wager.

Dtruthspeaker:


I did not ask you to show things that were not persons I asked

"present a valid alternative and contestant to God being the Person Who created our House called earth, if you can"

And you have been dodging since.

Once again changing the narrative from “a person" to "the person"

I have no desire to derail this thread so I'll stop with any meaningless back and forth that doesn't relate to the OP's topic.

Adios

Dtruthspeaker:
Is it not you people who have put your trust in men and giving them power to make laws over and against you which you called legal?

So legal has done its work.

The persecution of unbelievers is something that stems from the alleged instructions of certain Gods in the Bible/Quran.

The Abrahamic God is the one who allegedly made these laws

Dtruthspeaker:


we have seen them make claims eg wilgrea7 claimed that "this world is created by something other than a Person" but till tomorrow when called upon to give evidence and proof, he dodged and dodged and lied as he tried to avoid giving proof of his claim.

Wilgrea7(m): 7:20am On Nov 08


Your "There is absolutely no evidence that the earth was created by “a person" already falls because,

1. You have confessed and admitted the Truth that a non living thing cannot create.

2. And a Person is a living thing, therefore, He is very much in the game o
"Who" created the earth and you have eliminated the "whats".

Thus, I'll wait for you to supply a valid contender, if you can, which I know you cannot, while letting you look at Arthur Conan Doyle

"Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbe-able, must be the truth."
--------------------------
And till today, we have not seen him.

Meanwhile don't bunch all atheists into that boat, not all of us say there is no god.

See complaint! But, you never make such distinctions when you people attack Christians, you are all one then.

So, you can not deny your children.

If you're going to mention me, at least, for once, have the decency not to lie, and not to quote me out of context.

I have never said that I know there is no God. I only said there's no reason to believe that if a God exists, it would be “a person"

I even went on to show possibilities of things that were not persons, but were still very much “alive" as we know them.

Don't try to twist my words. Any intellectually honest person can see the deceptive game you've been playing, and are trying to play here.

Grow up.

Dtruthspeaker:


The entirety is there and everyone can see i took only that which relates to the issue and cut off the off points and out of points.

But because you can not and are not able to give a Truthful answer to the question

"present a valid alternative and contestant to God being the Person Who created our House called earth, if you can"

You have been dodging and dodging since yesterday and today even resorted to lying just to avoid the Truth.

Sure thing pal. If that helps you sleep better at night, then by all means keep saying it. At least our posts are there for independent third parties to see and judge for themselves.

Adios

Dtruthspeaker:


Now you have dodged and dodged such that you have resorted to Lying because The Truth has tied your mouth and there is no alternative.

The record here shows where and when the question was put against you as you started evading and dodging it until now you have chosen to lie.

Wilgrea7(m): 7:20am On Nov 08

This is becoming a joke. Now you've resorted to false accusations. You couldn't even quote what i said in it's entirety, because you know it exposes your lie.

All my replies have been about God being “a person" because that was the question i was asked.

Dtruthspeaker:


Still not satisfactory. You have only clearly admitted that a non living thing cannot create. So that one is no longer in contention.

But you have not directly admitted that "the earth is created by a Person" for the other time I accepted your implied answer and you went on to deny your implied answer. So this time, you are going to have to be as clear as daylight without any doubt or controversy.

When i objected to the idea of “a person", you began to change the narrative to “the person".

Dtruthspeaker:


Change of Post! We all know what A Person is and there is no confusion or dispute that animals are not persons

So, back to you supplying a valid contender and alternative to God being the Person Who created our House called earth, if you can.

I've said it before... You're not slick.

See yourself now! Yet you wanted me to proceed even when you would not be following.

Your "There is absolutely no evidence that the earth was created by “a person" already falls because,

1. You have confessed and admitted the Truth that a non living thing cannot create.

2. And a Person is a living thing, therefore, He is very much in the game o
"Who" created the earth and you have eliminated the "whats".

Thus, I'll wait for you to supply a valid contender, if you can, which I know you cannot, while letting you look at Arthur Conan Doyle

"Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbe-able, must be the truth."
----------------------

So keep on dodging and lying and running, the record shows that you never answered the question of presenting a valid alternative and contestant to God being the Person Who created our House called earth, if you can".

Your 2 premises don't follow. I have accepted that a no n-living thing could not have created the earth. I never said that all living things are persons.

I've presented my definition of personhood multiple times, and have asked you to present yours, to ensure we're on the same page. You've refused to do so. Instead you resort to selective quoting.

I'm not the one who's dodging here.

But for the sake of the discussion, I will let this one slide. For the sake of this discussion to continue, I will assume that whatever created the world is “a person" (even though you've failed to show evidence of such)

Once again, for the umpteenth time, the ball is in your court. I will tell you the same thing i told you ever since

Bridge the gap between “a creator", and “your personal creator" which is the specific deity you believe in.

Dtruthspeaker:


You said

"The definition of persons is tied to humans. And there is no reason to believe that a God has to be a person, that is, human-like" and other variables of it.

And that is not the question put against you.

The question is and still remains

"present a valid alternative and contestant to God being the Person Who created our House called earth, if you can"

We are waiting as you look at

"Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbe-able, must be the truth." A.C.D

You're shifting the goalpost and you know it. The question was not whether God was THE person, it was whether God was A person. And in that regard, I gave examples of highly conscious and supremely intelligent beings that were NOT persons.

Now you're trying to shift the narrative to make it seem like a discussion about different persons, and God being one of them. Once again, your intellectual dishonesty is showing.

Dtruthspeaker:


Same as True dichotomy.

So present a valid alternative and contestant to God being the Person Who created our House called earth.



We know what you said and we have it on record, where I immediately told you to present a valid alternative and contestant to God being the Person Who created our House called earth, before you started trying to dodge the question.

And now, this is day 2 of your Dodging the question.

So, present a valid alternative and contestant to God being the Person Who created our House called earth

"Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbe-able, must be the truth." A.C Doyle

You keep leaving out and removing the part where I've clearly answered your question, so you can spout the same narrative again.

You sir, are the definition of intellectual dishonesty.

Jackanda1:
If you're an athiest reading this, you might feel you are intelligent, rational and knowledgeable about the universe.

I've not met a single honest atheist that claims they are “intelligent" or “knowledgeable" about the universe. So i don't know where you're getting this idea from.

You might honestly reject the ideas of God and spirituality as foolish and irrational, but it's just the devil covering your eyes (with your consent) until the D-day.

If you reject the idea of Allah, and Mohamed as his prophet, then jin is covering your eyes. If yoi reject the idea of Horus, or Krishna, then their respective “demonic" entities are covering your eyes.

Jackanda1:
In 2014 my internet adventure and quest for knowledge exposed me to athiest ideas on nairaland. My consistency in digesting this ideas led me to resist God and his word.

Before then, i was born again and had experienced the spiritual, but some how, i started intepreting all of those as allucination and mental chemistry.

In my arogance, i took sides with man and the devil and rejected the giver of life. I can remember telling my Mum that God doesn't exist and she almost collapsed, that was how hard i fell.

Few years later, have had several spiritual attacks and demonic manifestation (that i would not discuss here) that has convinced me about the existence of the spiritual.

The point is that, i regret my actions and i wish to get back with God, but it seems difficult. My sin consciousness is death, the bible no longer makes sense, i have prayed and cried, but on the inside it feels dead and i know i have not been accepted.

I Know the Holy Spirit left me when i started resisting God. Is there hope?

I have no qualms with your conversion to Christianity. But if you're going to present a story like this, then expect it to be scrutinized.

I don't mean to pull a no true Scotsman fallacy here, but I'm really beginning to doubt your claims of being “an atheist"

You claimed to have engaged with atheistic ideas here on nairaland, which led you to resist "God and his word". And then you went on to tell your mom that God doesn't exist.

So let me start from there.

a) You've failed to define atheism correctly right off the bat. Atheism lacks belief in a God. It doesn't assert that God, whatever it is, does not exist. That has never been the default view in atheism.

Saying you don't believe in something, and saying something doesn't exist are 2 different things. Some atheists may say the latter, but that isn't based on anything atheism itself is supposed to be.

b) Now, you've successfully denied God as you claim. And you had “spiritual attacks"... What in the spiritual attack gave you the impression that the Christian God, rather than the muslim or Hindu one was the real God?

You hinge your conversion story on things you deem spiritual, like demonic manifestation, and attacks, and yet you refuse to shed more light on them.

What gave you the impression that the “spiritual" is evidence of the Christian God, rather than one of the other several thousand Gods in existence?

And finally, what “arguments" did you engage with that led you to the idea that God, whatever it is, does not exist?

Dtruthspeaker:


False dichotomy means untrue dichotomy! And this is a True dichotomy, nothing untrue in it,

A false dichotomy is something that tries to present 2 options as the only possible options, when in reality there are more than 2 options.

and you participated in setting it up. And in your set up, you represented that God, The Person may not be the only Source of Creating a thing where which I have been asking you to provide the second or third valid alternative, and we see you coughing and choking and dodging, instead of providing the alternative you said is there.

I never referred to a God/Gods as persons. I repeatedly said I'm trying to be careful with what words i choose.

This is not a case of alternatives. This is a case of you providing proof for your claims. If i tell you that the invisible dragon in my room is wearing a hat, and not a turban, then i have to provide proof for the claim.

Asking you to present other alternatives to what the invisible dragon could be wearing makes no sense. The person who makes the claim has to prove it.

So, since you said that there is another alternative apart from The Person whom we call God, present it.

We know all know Persons, so stop evading and dodging, present a valid alternative and contestant to God being the Person Who created our House called earth.

Repeating myself is getting tiring. The definition of persons is tied to humans. And there is no reason to believe that a God has to be a person, that is, human-like.

If this isn't the definition of personhood you ascribe to, then present your own so we understand each other properly. Shouting “we all know what persons are" is a silly way to avoid establishing a common ground on the meaning of the words we use.

You've used this petty tactic before where at the end of the day you'll claim you meant something else. You ain't slick.

Also, I gave you several alternative examples of what a “God" could be. You editited that part out of the response so you can come here and repeat the same narrative.

Wilgrea7:


For example, what stops the creator from being a highly intelligent and conscious rat, or cat, rather than a “person". Or what stops it from being something which is not a person, but still intelligent and conscious?

Your personhood analogy fails here, because nothing suggests that consciousness, or intelligence, is limited to only persons (as far as our understanding of the word goes)

And lastly, pulling a random quote from some guy does nothing to save or strengthen your argument.

So feel free to quote sir Arthur Conan Doyle as much as you'd like. It won't help your argument in any way.

AuthenticKing:

It's one of the huge effects of dogma, I have attacked that which he believes so strongly to be true so his best way to respond is to start by insulting me. He's just like the 'lawyer' we're currently discussing with; heavily dogmatic folks.


He has already responded by comparing Adam and Eve's actions to a disease, a disease that has been passed to the rest of humanity. Lol!
It's very hard trying to reason with someone deeply immersed in dogma! Chai!

It genuinely baffles me tbh. It's like talking to another version of Maxinthehouse.

I've also noticed his “you don't know anything" response when his points have been debunked. Like that helps his argument in any way.

You're really trying engaging with these guys.

Dtruthspeaker:


You are still evading and attempting to raise up a new issue which is a Deviation from Post.

I'm not evading anything. You're the one trying to subject me to a false dichotomy.

We all know what a Person is. This is beyond controversy or dispute.

So, it is either you present a valid alternative and contestant to God being the Person Who created our House called earth or we all know that you live in self deceits and delusion

Like i said earlier, we have to be careful with words. Personhood as we know it, is something used to define humans.

If you're trying to say that the creator is human-like, that is something you need to prove. Because i see absolutely no reason why the creator/creators, if they exist, have to be human-like.

Except of course you're using the word as a way to describe the degree of consciousness, of which you would also need to prove, because if consciousness is a scale, there's no reason to believe the creator/creators would have similar levels of consciousness.

As I've said a thousand times. The ball is in your court.

It is not a false dichotomy but a true dichotomy in which the quote is still respecting your right (which false dichotomy does not respect) to freely and bring any valid alternative.

Tempting, but I'm not about to start arguing with you about what a false or true dichotomy means in relation to “rights"

Thus, the burden is on you to bring a valid alternative, if you can.

Therefore, keep looking at Arthur Conan Doyle as you decide whether you would keep living in the deceit of yourself or accept the Truth for we all know that there is no alternative Only The Person Whom we call God. But, we'll await your decision whether self deceit or Acceptance of the only Standing Truth.

"Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbe-able, must be the truth."

Here's the problem with this quote you're trying to misuse. It only makes sense when all parameters, or information about a situation are known.

Without full knowledge on the possibilities a creator can follow, any sort of “elimination process" will be based on ignorance, rather than truth.

For example, what stops the creator from being a highly intelligent and conscious rat, or cat, rather than a “person". Or what stops it from being something which is not a person, but still intelligent and conscious?

Your personhood analogy fails here, because nothing suggests that consciousness, or intelligence, is limited to only persons (as far as our understanding of the word goes)

Dtruthspeaker:


Change of Post! We all know what A Person is and there is no confusion or dispute that animals are not persons

So, back to you supplying a valid contender and alternative to God being the Person Who created our House called earth, if you can.

Thus, I'll wait for you while letting you look at Arthur Conan Doyle

"Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbe-able, must be the truth."

Thank you for clarifying. It's good to make sure we're on the same page.

So in that case, what gives you the impression that the creator must be a person? As far as we know, personhood is something we ascribe to humans.

What evidence do you have that the creator/creators are persons.

Also, your quote doesn't really help you much here, because you're trying to push a false dichotomy.

Dtruthspeaker:


See yourself now! Yet you wanted me to proceed even when you would not be following.

Your "There is absolutely no evidence that the earth was created by “a person" is already falls because,

1. You have confessed and admitted the Truth that a non living thing cannot create.

2. And a Person is a living thing, therefore, He is very much in the game o
"Who" created the earth and you have eliminated the "whats".

Like i said, I'm trying to be careful with words here, because of our current understanding of what it means to be a person.

So let me ask you this. Is every living thing a person? Is a dog, or a cat, or a dolphin a person?

Dtruthspeaker:


Everything and every act done or not done is under Law. You are here speaking coherently and reasonably because of The Law of good and decent conversation.

Everything is under Law and where there is dispute, they all end in Court.

As I told wilgrea7, "Each group (a party accused) have a right to defend themselves on their own force and merit.

And Wilgrea7 has told you, that a party's right to defend itself here is irrelevant, because this is clearly not about that.

The reason i told you that other religions could use this same logic to defend their books, was to show you how terrible the logic was, at arriving at any sort of tangible truth.

If other religions choose to use the faulty logic, then that's on them. It still doesn't prove anything. It doesn't prove your case, or theirs, because it's highly flawed.

MaxInDHouse:


So whatever you say simply means you own PERSONAL opinion hence each and everyone else has a right to their own, therefore if some choose to have the same line of thought about how life came about they are not obligated to your quest regarding the origin of life!

There's a big difference between personal opinion and fact. It is not my opinion that the earth revolves around the sun, or there are other planets in our solar system. That is fact.

What differentiates a claim, from a fact, is the availability of evidence. I've said this countless times here and it's honestly tiring to keep repeating it.

Dtruthspeaker:


Still not satisfactory. You have only clearly admitted that a non living thing cannot create. So that one is no longer in contention.

But you have not directly admitted that "the earth is created by a Person" for the other time I accepted your implied answer and you went on to deny your implied answer. So this time, you are going to have to be as clear as daylight without any doubt or controversy.

There is absolutely no evidence that the earth was created by “a person". I'm trying to be careful with words here because of our understanding of what it means to be a person.

There's a big leap from “a conscious cause" to “a person".. a big leap that requires evidence of similar magnitude.

If you believe the latter, then you're shifting the burden of proof to you. Once again, the ball is in your court

Aemmyjah:


I think you're like a spoilt child disciplined by his parents but chose to complain of how wicked they are.

What kind of a person starts a rebuttal with an insult?

Have you not met parents that passed bad things like genetic disorder to their own children? The law of genetics says that acquired traits are passes from parents to offspring from one generation to another. Our parents acquired sin and imperfections and handed it over to us and we thank them for the unkind inheritance.

Traits and actions are 2 completely different things. A trait is something like blue eyes, dark hair, and so on. Even the disorders, like albinism, are clearly not actions.

The actions you take today are yours and yours alone. No one goes around arresting the children of thieves for what their parents did.

Adam and eve's sin was an action. Not a genetic defect. The consequences of their actions are theirs to face. If you're trying to make a case that "sin" is somehow different, and is somehow genetic, then you better have some good scientific proof for that

How do you expect to take clean water from an unclean vessel

This analogy doesn't apply here.

Aemmyjah:


Whether a maker or several makers, at least a limousine won't make itself. Intelligence is required in making it so does the cell, the universe, your brain except you'll tell me your brain is not a design but made by accident

If you're trying to imply that atheists believe the world came about by chance, then you're pulling an obvious strawman.

I've called you out on this your false dichotomy before, and here you are pushing it again.

If a particular atheist says things came about by chance, that's his own view. Atheism is not a religion with a set of beliefs. I've never for once on this platform claimed the universe was created by chance. So your strawman here fails.

What course could that be? An intelligent designer or by accident?

Refer to point above.

Your point here is pointless. I was alluding to humans laws like the ones that guide traffic and natural laws that guide nature like laws of gravity. You failed to mention which physical laws you are referring to

The specific laws I'm referring to doesn't matter here. I was referring to all the laws of nature. Things like strength of the nuclear force, gravity, the strong and weak force, and so on.

Again, your point is pointless. Humans are far different from animals as they have morals rather than animals that act based on instincts. Humans tend to find a meaning in life too. God did not make us all the same. The Bible says he made man in his image to reflect his qualities like love, compassion, wisdom and justice and in need of true guidance to wellbeing. Animals too were created for a purpose. I can invent varieties of things anyway I wish. I still remain the Maker

This is clearly besides the point and you know it. You made the claim that our reasoning faculties should be trusted by virtue of being made by a creator.

All i did was to show you that being made by a creator, in and of itself, is not the reason we trust our thinking faculties, for which I gave animals as an example, since they fit the criteria you gave earlier.

And secondly, you're still trying to push the false dichotomy of “your specific creator" vs “chance" here.

Can you then explain why man has intelligence if it could not have come from an intelligent being? Only a fool will say that the seat of intelligence came by chance. Man cannot even create robots to be half intelligent as he is but man believe his intelligence came on its own. If you see a doll that could speak and act like human, what does that tell you about the kind of Maker?

Firstly, false dichotomy, and an obvious strawman. Don't put words into my mouth. I never said intelligence came about by chance.

Secondly, the source of intelligence, is consciousness, which is still largely unknown to us as I've said before.

No one is trying to deny the possible involvement of a creator in the process. We're only asking you to prove it.

"God" is not, and should not be a substitute for "I don't know"

That theory encourages selfishness if you look at it critically. Why then do we feel sorry and want to alleviate the suffering and injustice of others. They studied animals to cook up a stupid theory

Once again, if you don't understand something, try to learn rather than making up false claims. I've given you an example of survival of the fittest in the past, and here you are spewing the same rhetoric again.

Survival of the fittest does not necessitate selfishness. I gave you the plant as an example. What selfish behavior would a plant be portraying by growing a thicker skin to reduce evaporation? At least try to make it seem like you researched something.

Throughout human history, people who worked in groups or as part of a team had the highest chances of seeing the next day. For God's sake, we have paintings of people working together to take down lions and mammoths.

Historically speaking, our survival has always been tied down to cooperation, not selfishness. Your point fails here again.

Alright... I'll need to put on my special atheist gloves for this one.

I'll be cutting some of these short because I don't want readers to have to go through a large block of text before seeing the rebuttals. But i assure you nonetheless I've read through everything and will try to respond accordingly.

Also, arguing for the existence of “A creator" is relatively easy. Moving the discussion to something about a specific religious deity as the creator, is another thing entirely. And after going through this post, you seem to be doing the latter.

Anyways, Let's begin

Aemmyjah:


1. What is made has a Maker: You will surely agree with that. Everything small of great we use around us- needles, phones, chairs, vehicles all have a maker. Imagine walking through a Forest and seeing a coin or a toothpick, logically you know that someone must have dropped it there.

This proves next to nothing. Sure, everything that begins to exist, or as you put it, everything that is made has a maker. True. But it doesn't tell us anything.

You gave the example of the nice limousine. Sure, no one would dispute it had a maker. But no one argues that it had just one maker either. Tons of people worked together to being it into existence.

The best you can say from observation of the universe, is that it had a cause. Probably a conscious one. But that's about it.

2. Law and Lawgiver: Let me ask a question. Have you ever come across traffic signs and asked yourself 'Who is responsible for all these traffic laws?' Likely, you have never met such ones but intelligent minds are behind those laws and you will agree with me that where there is a mind, there's a personality, we can't have a mind and not have a personality.

The laws of physics also don't prove anything significant, except of course that they could've been caused by something. The argument I gave for the first point pretty much applied here as well.

3. Intelligence: We all have reasoning faculties. If my brain (the seat of intelligence) has no designer, I can trust it when making decisions but imperfections can make me make the wrong decision.

This hardly makes any sense. Your argument fails horribly when you consider that other animals were made by the same creator.

Would you trust a rat's reasoning faculty? What about a donkey's? Now do you see why your argument fails?

Let me ask athiests this question, you may do well to ask them too as they don't believe in a Creator God. If man arose without intelligent guidance, why should he have intelligence? Can unintelligence create intelligence?

This question has to do more with what intelligence means and less with the existence of a God.

4. Conscience: There are things we hate, condemn and won't tolerate. Mass murder, genocide, terrorism, incest, rape, injustice, etc.

All old testament nostalgia

Did these things simply evolve? Atheist themselves hate these things and condemn such ones as ungodly. If we truly evolve, why condemn these attitudes whereas they are displaying animalistic attitudes and they say we evolve from them and survival of the fittest which promotes greed, violence and selfishness.

Once again, try to understand survival of the fittest before making false claims about it. Secondly, all these are ralated to “consciousness".. a subject we have very little understanding about.. and a subject which theists, who claim to understand it, have failed to prove.

6. Religion: Religion is as old as man and we have have tens of thousands of religion.

And this proves what exactly??

Whether you're a Christian, Muslim, Buddhist or even an atheist, you're still a religious person having holding onto some strong principles and views. People have worshipped God and gods and humans and animals and non existent things. In the name of religion, people have killed and willing to die.
Why is that? Religion satisfies our spiritual need just as food satisfies our material need.

The fact that you can ask such a valid question and answer it in one of the least logical ways possible baffles me. If you have any idea how vastly religious ideas (as well as the cultures they originated from) vary, you'd understand why the answer you gave here literally makes no sense.

Also, I skipped the bible one because you've failed to prove the existence of a single creator, let alone the one portrayed in the bible.

Also, it uses a lot of circular, and quite frankly irrelevant arguments to prove a book to be “the word of God".. a phrase in itself that hardly makes any logocal sense either.

So far so good, atheists seem to be having upper hand cos they say that the mainstream Christian can't prove the reality of what they believe. I am Emmanuel and one of Jehovah's Witnesses.

Ah... It makes a lot of sense now.

Here, our beliefs are reality and we don't accept anything blindly even if it is the existence of a Creator

I highly doubt that.

Dtruthspeaker:


You have still not directly and expresly answered the question, your response is ambiguous.

I believe i have answered your question as clearly as i can. As far as we currently know, consciousness is associated with living beings, so if we accept consciousness as a part of the creation process, then yes, non-living things cannot create things.

But for the sake of your specific request and this discussion, I will explicitly spell it out.

A non-living thing cannot create the earth. Please proceed with bridging the gap between a creator and your creator.