₦airaland Forum

hupernikao:
In intelligent argument as this, pushing on burden of proof is a sign of lack of knowledge. When you know something proof it. If you say a god doesn't exist, that is a claim, so you proof it. If someone say he does exist that is a claim, he should also prove it. But hiding behind a burden of proof is a strawman approach and found among people who only talk of things they can even understand or defend.

I have asked you over 15 times since yesterday to prove your claim but you were only repeating the memory verse (Spiderman, spaghetti. Lol) you were taught by your senior counterpart.

Such mindset can't sit on the table of intelligent argument. It only strive online.

thats because the burden of proof is on that person who made the claim of a god. Which is the positive claim

It’s idiotic trying to shift to to someone who Deny the claim. You should go back to philosophy and logic class

Nothingserious:
Lol!

I give up.
You are just reasoning and responding like secondary school children. I am sorry for all the troubles abeg.
Go brush up and maybe come back after a while

Your god doesn’t exist unless you provide evidence.
That’s skepticism

Nothingserious:
Atheism is a religion.

Everything is usually wrong when it comes from a religious mouth, just like the Bible

Nothingserious:
If I were you, I would pretend small, check and come back. These questions are beginning to make me think we are on different pages.

Do you understand what argument from teleology or cosmology or morality or beauty meant?

Every sound atheist or skeptic should understand what I meant and should have sound objections and defeaters. Not the way you go about it pls.

skeptics don't believe magic. Your religion is magic

Nothingserious:
We shouldn’t be discussing here if you don’t understand those arguments.
Maybe this was a mistake after all.

you are yet to take me through microevolution

Nothingserious:
We shouldn’t be discussing here if you don’t understand those arguments.
Maybe this was a mistake after all.

Theres no evidence right? You just want to argue

Nothingserious:
The cosmological and teleological arguments for God do.

what evidence na?

TenQ:
I can see how violent your godlessness has made you!

Good night!

Run along Illiterate.

Mr. we can’t see electrons. Still living in the past.

TenQ:
Thank you for the hard lecture. I just read the 2018 paper ( an interesting and informative read)

1. About SEEING:
An optical microscope cannot resolve (visual) features smaller than about 200 nanometers (due to the Rayliegh criterion), and for comparison, a carbon atom has a diameter of 0.34 nanometers (van der Waals' value). None of these values are actually closer to the 'size' of an electron, and hence, one cannot 'see' an electron (or for that matter, any subatomic particle).

However, techniques such as Scanning Probe Microscopies can resolve atomic scale features (0.1 Angstroms is the finest), but they produce surface topographies by giving a map of different features (such as electronic charge distribution for a scanning tunnelling microscope) than actual visual data, that we refer to as 'seeing' macroscopically.

So, one cannot 'see' subatomic particles (in the literal sense of the word) such as electrons, protons, etc.
2. About Heisenberg Uncertainty Priciples:
We can never see the subatomic particles directly, but can only infer from observation of such indirect effects like tracks.
If there are many of them and they are emitting some radiation, and also if we shine some radiation on then and receive back the response this will also constitute a kind of seeing.
3. Use of Advanced Algorithms and Computational Techniques:
It is a demonstration of the power of advanced algorithms and computation in breaking and surpassing physical limitations of microscopes.

In simple terms, the use of attosecond pulses works by taking several pictures of exactly the same moment in the process, it’s possible to create stronger, but still sharp, images. A precondition is for the process to be repeated in an identical manner, which is the case regarding the movement of an electron in a ray of light.

A kind of stroboscope enables ‘freezing’ the periodic movement of the electrons. You then take several pictures pictures when the electrons is at the same position and the picture will turn out clear, despite the rapid motion.

Hence, yes I agree with you that the electron can be seen however not in the conventional sense of seeing.

I should have used a different question.
As per Electrons:
Isolated electrons cannot be split into smaller components, earning them the designation of a fundamental particle. However, it predicted that electrons in a one-dimensional chain of atoms could be split into [i]three quasiparticles: a `holon' carrying the electron's charge, a `spinon' carrying its spin (an intrinsic quantum property related to magnetism) and an `orbiton' carrying its orbital location.
Hence the classification of electron as a fundamental particle is thus blurred.[/i]

Thank you for helping to stretch out my information base.

A fool is one whose cup of knowledge is already full!

No wonder religion doesn’t improve, your are stuck in the past. When we have started talking about electron fractionalization that splits electrons, you are quoting Heisenberg, a world war 2 scientist. You think science is dormant like your brain and won’t grow?

Mumu, I will embarrass your destiny if you try to debate me in science.

TenQ:
Thank you for the hard lecture. I just read the 2018 paper ( an interesting and informative read)

1. About SEEING:
An optical microscope cannot resolve (visual) features smaller than about 200 nanometers (due to the Rayliegh criterion), and for comparison, a carbon atom has a diameter of 0.34 nanometers (van der Waals' value). None of these values are actually closer to the 'size' of an electron, and hence, one cannot 'see' an electron (or for that matter, any subatomic particle).

However, techniques such as Scanning Probe Microscopies can resolve atomic scale features (0.1 Angstroms is the finest), but they produce surface topographies by giving a map of different features (such as electronic charge distribution for a scanning tunnelling microscope) than actual visual data, that we refer to as 'seeing' macroscopically.

So, one cannot 'see' subatomic particles (in the literal sense of the word) such as electrons, protons, etc.
2. About Heisenberg Uncertainty Priciples:
We can never see the subatomic particles directly, but can only infer from observation of such indirect effects like tracks.
If there are many of them and they are emitting some radiation, and also if we shine some radiation on then and receive back the response this will also constitute a kind of seeing.
3. Use of Advanced Algorithms and Computational Techniques:
It is a demonstration of the power of advanced algorithms and computation in breaking and surpassing physical limitations of microscopes.

In simple terms, the use of attosecond pulses works by taking several pictures of exactly the same moment in the process, it’s possible to create stronger, but still sharp, images. A precondition is for the process to be repeated in an identical manner, which is the case regarding the movement of an electron in a ray of light.

A kind of stroboscope enables ‘freezing’ the periodic movement of the electrons. You then take several pictures pictures when the electrons is at the same position and the picture will turn out clear, despite the rapid motion.

Hence, yes I agree with you that the electron can be seen however not in the conventional sense of seeing.

I should have used a different question.
As per Electrons:
Isolated electrons cannot be split into smaller components, earning them the designation of a fundamental particle. However, it predicted that electrons in a one-dimensional chain of atoms could be split into [i]three quasiparticles: a `holon' carrying the electron's charge, a `spinon' carrying its spin (an intrinsic quantum property related to magnetism) and an `orbiton' carrying its orbital location.
Hence the classification of electron as a fundamental particle is thus blurred.[/i]

Thank you for helping to stretch out my information base.

A fool is one whose cup of knowledge is already full!

Its usually a disaster when a fundamentalist tries to talk about science.

You live under a rock

See how you are talking 1900 discoveries. Religion really makes people dumb

donnie:
You must come from space not to know how Bantus/ Negroes name thier children. Often times they're named according to the circumstances surrounding their birth. The story of Moses is known among the Bantus and even among the Nilotics of KUSH.

And by the way, the socalled Aramaic or ancient Hebrew are in the Bantu languages. They're not extinct.

Moses means pull out, it has nothing to do with existence of a fictional biblical Moses.

Nothingserious, please kindly explain microevolution to me.

Nothingserious:
You are finally regaining your senses. I am happy you knew all along that you had no monopoly of madness and ridiculousness.

Christians have no problems with microevolution. Macroevolution is what people like you have no empirical explanations for and want to force it on everyone as science when we know it is mere philosophy as Darwinism.

There is no science yet that has anything to say about miracles and supernatural events including the immaculate birth of Jesus Christ. Medicine didn’t say anything. Rather you said something because you think medicine can explain all reality you know. It cannot. It doesn’t have the tools to investigate miracles including the immaculate birth. Medicine can only say “ we do not know based on the facts available to us”.

Stop saying what medicine has not said.

Explain microevolution to me?

Nothingserious:
Now we see how the astronomical evidence supports the Biblical view of the origin of the world. The details differ, but the essential elements in the astronomical and Biblical accounts of Genesis are the same: the chain of events leading to man commenced suddenly and sharply at a definite moment in time, in a flash of light and energy.

Robert Jastrow, The Enchanted Loom

Show me the astronomical evidence that supports the Bible?
Just one

Nothingserious:
Far from disproving the existence of God, astronomers may be finding more circumstantial evidence that God exists.

Robert Jastrow

It hasn’t been proving, it cannot be disproved.

Only something that has been proven can be disproved, god hasn’t been proven

Nothingserious:
For the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream. He has scaled the mountains of ignorance, he is about to conquer the highest peak; as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries.

Robert Jastrow, God and the Astronomers

You can have your faith and be a scientist, that’s your business but you cannot invent anything with your faith in science because faith and beliefs don’t wrk in science

Nothingserious:
I doubt there are any strong scientific, philosophical or historical arguments against Christianity. Most of those in current circulation are nowhere near as persuasive as New Atheism imagines. ~Dr John Dickson is an author and historian

Evolution is against Christians story.
Even the Catholic Church now accepts evolution, what are you waiting for?

Geology says Noah’s ark didn’t happen.
Medicine says Jesus birth cannot happen.

N/B: if you ask me any strawman questions, I will resort to trolling but if you want to discusss like someone with brain, then be my guest.

PARADIZEPRIEST:
AIR!AIR! YOU CANT SEE AIR WITH YA EYES BUT AIR FUELS YOUR LIFE. THAT IS HOW GOD IS INVISIBLE.
IF YOU DONT BELIEVE THIS REALITY,THEN YOU ARE DENYING YOU OWN EXISTENCE,AND YOU A DECEIVING YOUR LIFE.Q.E.D

you can see air with your eyes sir with the appropriate technique.

Why are Christians so ignorant?

Nothingserious:
It’s a good start that you could recognize insult.
That’s an improvement from you.

The only thing left is to provide evidence for your imaginary friend

TenQ, even the basic information present on google is hard for you to research. You are finished I swear. Religion has destroyed you.

You are a shame to humanity, I will be ashamed of having child like you if I were your father

Total waste of education and resources

donnie:
They did not exist but there are folks bearing Moshe (the Hebrew name for Moses) as their native names in my village? Now you're afraid of what the consequences of your foolishness might be. So you talk carelessly.

Moses is an Aramaic word meaning pull out

Just like if I name Mt child Destiny, it doesn’t mean any fictional characters bearing that name existed

Nothingserious:
No. You made yourself foolish by your stance and intellectual ineptitude.

Just leave insult and provide evidence for your friend

TenQ:
SMH!!

Religion makes you an abject Mumu

TenQ:
SMH!!

See what dogmatism has done to you. Lol

You are stuck in Stone Age

TenQ:
Really!!!!!?

You then shouldn't have found it difficult answering the simple questions rather than EXPOSING your gross ILLITERACY about scientific knowledge.
What colour is an electron?
Is it transparent or translucent?
Is is spherical or egg shaped?
Does an electron have a smooth or rough surface?
Is the electron hollow or filled?

I am sure you have some pictures somewhere as google is your friend!

This one is living under a rock.
Are we still discussing the visibility of electrons?

TenQ:
Khai!
You fall my hands seriously.
Complete irredeemable ignorance.

Electrons can be seen?

I guess you received a Nobel prize for inventing techniques for seeing an electron.

What colour is an electron?
Is it transparent or translucent?
Is is spherical or egg shaped?
Does an electron have a smooth or rough surface?
Is the electron hollow or filled?

You should have checked before spewing your ignorance everywhere!

Thicker than brick

Still doesn’t get it

TenQ:
You are an evidence!
A System complete with ability to See, Think, Hear, Feel, Move, Reproduce and Grow from dumb Atoms that produced complex molecules, that formed specialized tissues....all working seamlessly to form a personality that is now so wise that he believed that some random stardust just somehow coordinated and arranged themselves to give him life.

How many times can one randomly juggle every part of a Boeing 747 together that it will assemble itself into an aeroplane?

why am I not evidence for the existence of Flying Spaghetti Monster?

Nothingserious:
Lol!

Not for you actually. It’s an evidence against your foolishness. Just for the records you know...

The lack of evidence for your god made me foolish

Nothingserious:
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-04-18/dickson-tips-for-atheists/5397892


Top 10 tips for atheists this Easter

The Drum / By John Dickson
Posted Thu 17 Apr 2014 at 11:19pmThursday 17 Apr 2014 at 11:19pm, updated Fri 18 Apr 2014 at 2:20amFriday 18 Apr 2014 at 2:20am
There is a dissonance between Christ's "love your enemies" and Moses' "slay the wicked".
There is a dissonance between Christ's "love your enemies" and Moses' "slay the wicked".(Dean Lewins: AAP)
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Atheists should drop their easily dismissed scientific, philosophical or historical arguments against Christianity, and instead quiz believers about Old Testament violence and hell, writes John Dickson.

As an intellectual movement, Christianity has a head start on atheism. So it's only natural that believers would find some of the current arguments against God less than satisfying.

In the interests of a more robust debate this Easter, I want to offer my tips for atheists wanting to make a dent in the Faith. I've got some advice on arguments that should be dropped and some admissions about where Christians are vulnerable.

Tip #1. Dip into Christianity's intellectual tradition

This is the 1,984th Easter since 7 April AD 30, the widely accepted date among historians for the crucifixion of Jesus (the 1,981st if you find the arguments for 3 April AD 33 persuasive). Christians have been pondering this stuff for a long time. They've faced textual, historical, and philosophical scrutiny in almost every era, and they have left a sophisticated literary trail of reasons for the Faith.

My first tip, then, is to gain some awareness of the church's vast intellectual tradition. It is not enough to quip that 'intellectual' and 'church' are oxymoronic. Origen, Augustine, Philoponus, Aquinas, and the rest are giants of Western thought. Without some familiarity with these figures, or their modern equivalents - Pannenberg, Ward, MacIntrye, McGrath, Plantinga, Hart, Volf - popular atheists can sound like the kid in English class, "Miss, Shakespeare is stupid!"

Tip #2. Notice how believers use the word 'faith'

One of the things that becomes apparent in serious Christian literature is that no one uses 'faith' in the sense of believing things without reasons. That might be Richard Dawkins' preferred definition - except when he was publicly asked by Oxford's Professor John Lennox whether he had 'faith' in his lovely wife - but it is important to know that in theology 'faith' always means personal trust in the God whose existence one accepts on other grounds. I think God is real for philosophical, historical, and experiential reasons. Only on the basis of my reasoned conviction can I then trust God - have faith in him - in the sense meant in theology.

Tip #3. Appreciate the status of 6-Day Creationism

Richard Dawkins and Lawrence Kraus have done a disservice to atheism by talking as though 6-Day Creationism is the default Christian conviction. But mainstream Christianities for decades have dismissed 6-Day Creationism as a misguided (if well-intentioned) project. Major conservative institutions like Sydney's Moore Theological College, which produces more full time ministers than any college in the country, have taught for years that Genesis 1 was never intended to be read concretely, let alone scientifically. This isn't Christians retreating before the troubling advances of science. From the earliest centuries many of the greats of Judaism (e.g., Philo and Maimonides) and Christianity (e.g., Clement, Ambrose, and Augustine) taught that the 'six days' of Genesis are a literary device, not a marker of time.

Tip #4. Repeat after me: no theologian claims a god-of-the-gaps

One slightly annoying feature of New Atheism is the constant claim that believers invoke God as an explanation of the 'gaps' in our knowledge of the universe: as we fill in the gaps with more science, God disappears. Even as thoughtful a man as Lawrence Kraus, a noted physicist, did this just last month on national radio following new evidence of the earliest moments of the Big Bang.

But the god-of-the-gaps is an invention of atheists. Serious theists have always welcomed explanations of the mechanics of the universe as further indications of the rational order of reality and therefore of the presence of a Mind behind reality. Kraus sounds like a clever mechanic who imagines that just because he can explain how a car works he has done away with the Manufacturer.

Tip #5. "Atheists just go one god more" is a joke, not an argument

I wish I had a dollar for every time an atheist insisted that I am an atheist with respect to Thor, Zeus, Krishna, and so on, and that atheists just go 'one god more'. As every trained philosopher knows, Christians are not absolute atheists with regard to other gods. They happily affirm the shared theistic logic that there must be a powerful Mind behind a rational universe. The disagreements concern how the deity has revealed itself in the world. Atheism is not just an extension of monotheism any more than celibacy is an extension of monogamy.

Tip #6. Claims that Christianity is social 'poison' backfire

Moving from science and philosophy to sociology, I regard New Atheism's "religion poisons everything" argument as perhaps its greatest faux pas. Not just because it is obviously untrue but because anyone who has entertained the idea and then bumped into an actual Christian community will quickly wonder what other fabrications Hitchens and Dawkins have spun.

I don't just mean that anyone who dips into Christian history will discover that the violence of Christendom is dwarfed by the bloodshed of non-religious and irreligious conflicts. I mean that those who find themselves, or their loved ones, in genuine need in this country are very, very likely to become the beneficiaries of direct and indirect Christian compassion. The faithful account for an inordinate amount of "volunteering hours" in Australia, they give blood at higher-than-normal rates, and 18 of the nation's 25 largest charities are Christian organisations. This doesn't make Christians better than atheists, but it puts the lie to the claim that they're worse.

Tip #7. Concede that Jesus lived, then argue about the details

Nearly 10 years after Richard Dawkins says that "a serious historical case" can be made that Jesus "never lived" (even if he admits that his existence is probable). It is astonishing to me that some atheists haven't caught up with the fact that this was always a nonsense statement. Even the man Dawkins cites at this point, GA Wells (a professor of German language, not a historian), published his own change of mind right about the time The God Delusion came out.

New Atheists should accept the academic reality that the vast majority of specialists in secular universities throughout the world consider it beyond reasonable doubt that Jesus lived, taught, gained a reputation as a healer, was crucified by Pontius Pilate, and was soon heralded by his followers as the resurrected Messiah. Unless sceptics can begin their arguments from this academic baseline, they are the mirror image of the religious fundamentalists they despise - unwilling to accept the scholarly mainstream over their metaphysical commitments.

Tip #8. Persuasion involves three factors

Aristotle was the first to point out that persuasion occurs through three factors: intellectual (logos), psychological (pathos), and social or ethical (ethos). People rarely change their minds merely on account of objective evidence. They usually need to feel the personal relevance and impact of a claim, and they also must feel that the source of the claim - whether a scientist or a priest - is trustworthy.

Christians frequently admit that their convictions developed under the influence of all three elements. When sceptics, however, insist that their unbelief is based solely on 'evidence', they appear one-dimensional and lacking in self-awareness. They would do better to figure out how to incorporate their evidence within the broader context of its personal relevance and credibility. I think this is why Alain de Botton is a far more persuasive atheist (for thoughtful folk) than Richard Dawkins or Lawrence Kraus. It is also why churches attract more enquirers than the local sceptics club.

Tip #9. Ask us about Old Testament violence

I promised to highlight vulnerabilities of the Christian Faith. Here are two.

Most thoughtful Christians find it difficult to reconcile the loving, self-sacrificial presentation of God in the New Testament with the seemingly harsh and violent portrayals of divinity in the Old Testament. I am not endorsing Richard Dawkins' attempts in chapter 7 of The God Delusion. There he mistakenly includes stories that the Old Testament itself holds up as counter examples of true piety. But there is a dissonance between Christ's "love your enemies" and Moses' "slay the wicked".

I am not sure this line of argument has the power to undo Christian convictions entirely. I, for one, feel that the lines of evidence pointing to God's self-disclosure in Christ are so robust that I am able to ponder the inconsistencies in the Old Testament without chucking in the Faith. Still, I reckon this is one line of scrutiny Christians haven't yet fully answered.

Tip #10. Press us on hell and judgment

Questions can also be raised about God's fairness with the world. I don't mean the problem of evil and suffering: philosophers seem to regard that argument as a 'draw'. I am talking about how Christians can, on the one hand, affirm God's costly love in Jesus Christ and, yet, on the other, maintain Christ's equally clear message that those who refuse the Creator will face eternal judgment. If God is so eager for our friendship that he would enter our world, share our humanity, and bear our punishment on the cross, how could he feel it is appropriate to send anyone to endless judgment?

This is a peculiar problem of the Christian gospel. If God were principally holy and righteous, and only occasionally magnanimous in special circumstances, we wouldn't be shocked by final judgment. But it is precisely because Jesus described God as a Father rushing to embrace and kiss the returning 'prodigal' that Christians wonder how to hold this in tension with warnings of hell and judgment.

Again, I'm not giving up on classical Christianity because of this internally generated dilemma, but I admit to feeling squeamish about it, and I secretly hope atheists in my audiences don't think to ask me about it.

***

I doubt there are any strong scientific, philosophical or historical arguments against Christianity. Most of those in current circulation are nowhere near as persuasive as New Atheism imagines. Contemporary sceptics would do well to drop them. Paradoxically, I do think Christianity is vulnerable at precisely the points of its own emphases. Its insistence on love, humility, and non-violence is what makes the Old Testament seem inconsistent. Its claim that God "loves us to death" (literally) creates the dilemma of its teaching about final judgment. Pressing Christians on this inner logic of the cross of Christ will make for a very interesting debate, I am sure. Believers may have decent answers, but at least you'll be touching a truly raw nerve of the Easter Faith.

Dr John Dickson is an author and historian, and a founding director of the Centre for Public Christianity. View his full profile here.

Long articles and still no evidence of skydaddy.

No wonder he doesn’t exist

TenQ:
You can see electrons?

Abegi, what colour is an electron?
Is it transparent or translucent?
Is is spherical or egg shaped?
Does an electron have a smooth or rough surface?
Is the electron hollow or filled?

Please, I'll like to know from your infinite wisdom of the physical world?

Religious Illiterate doesn’t even know that electron can be seen and even split into half.

Product of special center

You live in 21century but your brain is stuck in Bronze Age

TenQ:
You can see electrons?

Abegi, what colour is an electron?
Is it transparent or translucent?
Is is spherical or egg shaped?
Does an electron have a smooth or rough surface?
Is the electron hollow or filled?

Please, I'll like to know from your infinite wisdom of the physical world?

Bros if you failed secondary school physics, no one wiill lecture you on how and the technique employed to see electrons here.

The topic here is god doesn’t exist and you have not provided an evidence that he does

TenQ:
So, you opened a story on hear-say!? SMH!!

And you still have no shame than to ASK for another HEAR_SAY from me!?

I honestly shake my head violently

I just asked for evidence for your skydaddy, is there anything wrong in that?