Atheist vs Theist

Discussion in 'Debates & Contests' started by DennisTate, Mar 22, 2017.

  1. modernpaladin

    modernpaladin Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Hopefully not the same way that atheists react when theists claim that technological advancement and research into the human mind, other dimensions, or the nature of energy will likely provide future insight into more concrete dynamics of creation, God and/or the human spirit.
     
  2. Derideo_Te

    Derideo_Te Well-Known Member

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    That has already happened. FTR I am a "spiritual" atheist because what is termed "spiritual" by theists is merely a state of mind.

    Scientific studies conducted with devout atheists measured brain waves when the participants reached what they deemed to be "spiritual states". This state of mind has also been found to occur in other non human mammals.

    In summary this state of mind exists but it is not evidence of any deity.

    The nature of matter/energy results in a logical paradox for an imaginary omnipotent "creator" as defined by theists. Since matter/energy can neither be created nor destroyed per the laws of physics the paradox arises when the question is asked if there is anything that the theist's imaginary omnipotent "creator" can create that they cannot destroy? If the answer is no, the theist's imaginary omnipotent "creator" can destroy anything that they create then they cannot be omnipotent because it means that the theist's imaginary omnipotent "creator" cannot create something that is indestructible. The reverse logical paradox also applies.

    The problem that theists face is that they "created" their deity based upon their Stone Age level of superstition. What was unknown was always deemed to be "goddidit" and since their ignorance far surpassed their knowledge they bestowed their deity with all kinds of knowledge and powers that have subsequently been determined to be nothing more than natural phenomena of the universe that we inhabit.

    Science today acknowledges that there is a still a great deal to learn but does not pretend that what is unknown is the "work" of some imaginary omnipotent "creator". It was a mere quarter of a century ago that science found a way to detect planets around other stars. Now we know of thousands of other planets out there of which about 2 dozen are likely to be similar enough to earth to have life on them.

    When, rather than if, life is detected on other planets what will theists do when their holy texts are proven wrong yet again about humanity being in no way "special" to their imaginary omnipotent "creator"?

    Scientific knowledge will continue to advance while theism will stagnate.

    That is what happens when the environment changes and things that fail to adapt go extinct. This process of evolution applies to concepts just as it does to species.

    There are countless deities whose religions have gone extinct over the millennia and yet scientific knowledge from when Zeus "ruled the heavens" is still around today. The theorems of Pythagoras are still taught in schools around the world and his math has allowed us to learn about the universe.

    Everyone is born an atheist.

    Math is the language of the universe.

    No amount of theism is ever going to alter those realities.
     
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  3. modernpaladin

    modernpaladin Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Its a matter of perception. Animals and machines can both percieve elements of reality currently unknown to us. Our perception is continually expanding as we study and advance. The common claim that 'there is no God or spirit or soul' is intellectually disingenous and innaccurate. A genuine claim would be 'we cannot perceive any God, spirit or soul' but even that is not necessarily true as many claim they can. Its merely provably true that we cannot quantify God, spirit or soul...yet. Its possible this will always be true. Its also possible that it will not.
     
  4. Grumblenuts

    Grumblenuts Well-Known Member

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    It's possible that water will always be wet. It's also possible that it will not. It will always be possible to say nothing and convince some that you are actually saying something.
     
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  5. modernpaladin

    modernpaladin Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Oh i guess you're right. We now know everything we will ever know, and we will never be able to perceive or detect that which we cannot already. We should just stop researching and developing altogether.
    :frown:
     
    Last edited: Aug 19, 2017
  6. Grumblenuts

    Grumblenuts Well-Known Member

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    And yet again. It will always be possible to say nothing and convince some that you are actually saying something.
     
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  7. Derideo_Te

    Derideo_Te Well-Known Member

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    Since what an individual claims cannot be measured such allegations are anecdotal and thus have no substance of any merit.

    We will encounter aliens before any evidence of a deity or creator comes to light.
     
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  8. Derideo_Te

    Derideo_Te Well-Known Member

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    That were forced to embrace the reductio ad absurdum fallacy exposes the weakness of your position.
     
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  9. Grumblenuts

    Grumblenuts Well-Known Member

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    True, but it obviously just being another straw man supplied sufficient cause to dismiss, thereby avoiding the risk of lending false credence to already repeated vacuous nonsense. However, I do have "issues" (lol) let's say, with the following:
    No argument with your conclusions, which we vastly agree upon, but the premises you employ to get there... "Science today", when it comes to the discipline of physics at least, understands and therefore accurately explains less today than it did 100 years ago. The so-called "laws of physics" taught in every mainstream school and text of supposed higher learning today are disgraceful nonsense. They describe physical nature just realistically enough to put nearly everyone to sleep. But in truth matter is not analogous, equal to, or even necessarily proportional to energy and we all know it, at least subconsciously. Einstein was obviously brilliant but highly confused and wrong here nonetheless. Energy is actually an action, a verb. Mass is literally what we consider matter, a noun. Look, we're energizing this mass over here by heating it with this Bunsen burner! And we're lifting this mass here to set it on this table! Both acts (heating and lifting) require "work", exerting effort - obviously another verb in this context. Energy is work. In no logical sense is it a "capacity to do work" or noun or any kind of "Potential Energy". The language required to actually understand our physical reality has disappeared from our vocabulary. Replaced with idiotic babble.
     
  10. Grumblenuts

    Grumblenuts Well-Known Member

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    "Environmental Energy - the Discovery of a new physical Truth: There is no energy in matter other than that received from the environment." - Nikola Tesla, 1938

    The above makes evident that even Tesla was forced by the dictionary to use the word "energy" as a noun back in 1938, even though he obviously knew better, and had repeatedly chided Einstein for his nonsensical "curved fabric of space" model, just for example. Nevertheless, he's saying energy is actually an action in there, not a material thing. The environment acts upon (or reacts with) matter. Whenever it does the act is an end in itself. A rock gets warmed by the Sun. Each infinitesimal increase in temperature is energy (modern noun sense) instantly creating and destroying itself simultaneously. There is no such thing as conserving energy and we're always destroying every bit we have any "potential" to use. The environment is what becomes "energized" or locally potentialized allowing for "work" or energy, in other words.
     
    Last edited: Aug 20, 2017
  11. modernpaladin

    modernpaladin Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    We might. Suppose we do, and it turns out they seeded earth with microbes that they engineered to evolve into us? Would it be incorrect to call them our creators?
     
    Last edited: Aug 20, 2017
  12. Derideo_Te

    Derideo_Te Well-Known Member

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    Can you hold physical energy in the form of matter in your hand? Does the energy your body derives from consuming food not exist in the apple that you consumed? Why do you lack energy when you are starving?

    One of the best examples of the conversion of energy into matter and back into energy is to take a seed from that apple and plant it in the ground. The seedling becomes a tree by absorbing the chemical nutrients it requires dissolved in ground and the carbon in the atmosphere and then uses the energy of the Sun via the process of Photosynthesis to create the physical matter of the tree in the forms of wood, leaves and eventually buds and apples. If we cut down the physical matter of the tree trunk and branches and burn that wood in a fire the energy of the Sun that was used to form that wood is released by the action of the fire as Radiant Energy in the forms of light and Thermal Energy in the form of heat.

    And yes, I agree energy can be measured as work. The example of picking a basket of apples and placing them on the table means that you have transferred some of your energy into each of those apples where it is stored as Potential Energy. If you drop one of those apples that Potential Energy converts into Kinetic Energy as it falls. The mass of water matter stored behind a dam wall is Gravitational Energy that can be converted into Electrical Energy when it passes through the turbines of a Generator on it's way down river. The Nuclear Energy contained in an atom that holds it together is released when split apart in the process called Fission.

    The equation of E=MC2 that Einstein came up is merely the mathematical representation of the relationship between matter and energy and how it converts from one to the other. Are there better ways to represent these concepts and how they interrelate? Probably, but that requires the use of higher levels of math and physics than the average person can grasp. Suffice to say that in the context of PF these layman's terms are what we have to work with in order to have discussions that touch on these subjects. I, myself, while only an amateur science enthusiast appreciate that I am not always conveying terms as precisely as would be needed to pass advanced courses.
     
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  13. Derideo_Te

    Derideo_Te Well-Known Member

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    You are merely shifting the focus of the Origin of Life into a chicken and egg strawman.
     
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  14. Grumblenuts

    Grumblenuts Well-Known Member

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    Plus if the intent was to produce us, that would be a really long, convoluted way to go about it, indicating stupid rather than anything "advanced" or "intelligent" in terms of design.
     
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  15. Grumblenuts

    Grumblenuts Well-Known Member

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    Understood and appreciated. I happen to be a science and engineering graduate with professional experience and forty some years of considering of these things on top. Think about that possibility. Believe me, I'm well aware and educated on the subject, yet still somehow disagree. Consider discussion, pondering, asking questions instead of just presuming to lecture because you disagree. We've all been trained (programmed) to disagree.
     
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  16. Derideo_Te

    Derideo_Te Well-Known Member

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    Too true, especially since this is a political forum. ;)
     
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  17. Grugore

    Grugore Active Member

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    I've never seen any verified evidence for evolution. Because there is none. In fact, the theory of evolution is not even a scientific theory. It does not use the scientific method. There are no experiments that can be done to verify it. It barely qualifies as an hypothesis.
     
  18. Grugore

    Grugore Active Member

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    Problem with that. DNA contains information. Observation tells us that information exists only as the result of intelligent minds.
     
  19. Grumblenuts

    Grumblenuts Well-Known Member

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    That is entirely wrong. Say you're on a golf course. After dumping a bucket of balls on a green, you witness the caretaker make the hole and drop the cup into it. Did she magically transfer some of her energy into each of those balls? Because, ya know, suddenly there's this gravitational potential difference between the bottom of the cup and the green. What if she put a bunch in a beaker of water and stirred them slowly until her neck ached and her back couldn't take it anymore? No detectable change in the balls, but she's ready to kill someone. Did work. Worked her butt off. Why no credit from the balls, dammit!

    "If you drop one of those apples that Potential Energy converts into Kinetic Energy as it falls." So what happened to all that supposed "energy" after it fell into the bucket of chicken feathers without a sound? If you pick up a ball (once), drop it, and it bounces 99 times before coming to rest, did you somehow.give it the summation of all those subsequent "potential energies" reached after each bounce on top of the initial lift? What if you removed the air and it didn't bounce at all?
     
    Last edited: Aug 21, 2017
  20. Derideo_Te

    Derideo_Te Well-Known Member

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    Your inability to comprehend the scientific method does not invalidate Evolution nor the credible evidence that supports it.
     
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  21. Derideo_Te

    Derideo_Te Well-Known Member

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    Good grief!

    I am having a hard time detecting any discernable intelligence behind the content of that post.
     
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  22. Derideo_Te

    Derideo_Te Well-Known Member

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    Here are better answers to PE and KE than I can provide.

    http://www.tutorvista.com/physics/potential-energy-changing-to-kinetic-energy
     
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  23. Canell

    Canell Well-Known Member

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    Two twins were talking in the womb:

    - Tell me, do you believe in life after birth?

    - Of course. After birth comes life. Perhaps we are here to prepare for what comes after birth.

    - Forget it! After birth there is nothing! From there, no one has returned! And besides, what would it look like?

    - I do not know exactly, but I feel that there are lights everywhere … Perhaps we walk on our own feet, and eat with our mouth.

    - This is utterly stupid! Walking isn’t possible! And how can we eat with that ridiculous mouth? Can’t you see the umbilical cord? And for that matter, think about it for a second: postnatal life isn’t possible because the cord is too short.

    - Yes, but I think there is definitely something, just in a different way than what we call life.

    - You’re stupid. Birth is the end of life and that’s it.

    - Look, I do not know exactly what will happen, but Mother will help us…

    - The Mother? Do you believe in the Mother? !

    - Yes.

    - Do not be ridiculous! Have you seen the Mother anywhere? Has anyone seen her at all?

    - No, but she is all around us. We live within her. And certainly, it is thanks to her that we exist.

    - Well, now leave me alone with this stupidity, right? I’ll believe in Mother when I see her.

    - You can not see her, but if you’re quiet, you can hear her song, you can feel her love. If you’re quiet, you can feel her caress and you will feel her protective hands.

    :icon_yoda:
     
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  24. Bob0627

    Bob0627 Well-Known Member

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    The only proof here is that the Universe and everything in it exists, nothing more, nothing less.
     
  25. Grumblenuts

    Grumblenuts Well-Known Member

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    Lol. Oh, who cares once they're born anyway? Everyone knows the fetus is all the "life" that actually matters! Long live the death penalty! Global warming? What global warming?
     

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