Comments on Atheist Propaganda: The Atheist's Riddle... Oh no, I'm so scared!

whatever dude. You missed my point completely. It&...

2011-09-21T23:13:13.061+09:00

whatever dude. You missed my point completely. It's about the larger picture and being able to tell theists why you actually believe their religion is WRONG. Neither of you knows regarding the origin of life or the universe so it may make for some entertainment for the rest of us, but you're just wasting your time.

"I didn't tell you that I was going to ma...

2011-09-21T23:06:24.043+09:00

"I didn't tell you that I was going to make Perry's Riddle to be persuasive to you that DNA was made by intelligence."

Then we have nothing to discuss. Perry offered something he called a "proof" it isn't even a convincing argument, let alone a proof. Conversation with me is finished. Thanks for reading.

sorry I left out your quote "Science knocks ...

2011-09-21T23:05:10.402+09:00

sorry I left out your quote

"Science knocks down more and more of these arguments every single year, then the religous make the same argument with something else, not realising that it will fall next. It's absolutely absurd! All of these questions will fall, it's only a matter of time. "

this is what I mean about worshipping at the altar of science. You can't possibly know whether science will make all these questions 'fall' or not.

My point is, these are theories, sometimes with a ...

2011-09-21T23:02:06.848+09:00

My point is, these are theories, sometimes with a lot of evidence and argument behind them, but don't confuse "the universe is expanding" with "science will one day figure out what happened in the first seconds of the universe or where it came from." We may THINK we know, but we don't.

That's what I am trying to tell you. I find it funny how you immediately try to pin viewpoints on me, such as "theists always try to ..." HOW DO YOU KNOW WHAT I BELIEVE? You would attack anyone who hints at offending the atheist orthodoxy (yes I've debated enough with atheists online to know). Get out of your own way and realize that although the theists you are debating may be wrong about their particular religion, you both share the fact that YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT HAPPENED OR HOW WE GOT HERE. And you both share the fact that the universe appears fine-tuned for us, intelligent observers.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fine-tuned_Universe#Possible_naturalistic_explanations

There ARE naturalistic explanations, but they are not FACT. They are theories. Just like string theory is a theory.

It's not as simple as saying:
Atheists believe in Facts.
They don't believe in anything else.
Theists are dumb, they try to make u believe in imaginary things.
One of their tricks is claiming u believe things, so what they believe is the same.

I didn't tell you that I was going to make Perry's Riddle to be persuasive to you that DNA was made by intelligence. You just made that up yourself. I said, that Perry's Riddle is an example of the larger point, that we simply don't know how life arose, we have theories about abiogenesis, about how this world came about but they are just THEORIES. So call them what they ARE. Stop laughing at theists as if you are sure there was nothing "super natural" that caused it. You can't be sure and it doesn't even make any sense. How can you possibly know that the laws and processes we discovered now were the ONLY ONES in operation back then? Nothing else could have happened eh?

I will leave you with this: if you want to laugh at someone, disprove them first. Seriously all this time you spend, you could have spent on disproving actual falsifiable claims made by all religions, sit back and be done and live your life.

http://www.stephenjaygould.org/ctrl/popper_falsification.html

It's not that laborious too. I'll start you off. Disprove the WORLD WIDE GIANT FLOOD THAT DESTROYED ALL HUMANITY SOMETIME IN THE LAST 10,000 YEARS and you will not have to debate theists about finer points like beginnings of life that neither one of you knows anything about. Just say, "well, something must have happened, but it couldn't have been your religion because I have just disproven it."

Exactly. Science doesn't know everything, and ...

2011-09-21T23:01:42.487+09:00

Exactly. Science doesn't know everything, and there is a chance it may never know how life began or how the universe got here. These may be reasons why really intelligent people like Einstein may think that there is some intelligence behind the formation of the universe. Anthony Flew thought so as well. Stephen Hawking lately does not.

now before this triggers another predictable tirade along the lines of "Einstein wasn't a theist!" Yes. I know. Stop dividing the world into atheists and theists. Here are some quotes:

"My religion consists of a humble admiration of the illimitable superior spirit who reveals himself in the slight details we are able to perceive with our frail and feeble minds. That deeply emotional conviction of the presence of a superior reasoning power, which is revealed in the incomprehensible universe, forms my idea of God."

(The following is from Einstein and Religion by Max Jammer, Princeton University Press)
"I'm not an atheist, and I don't think I can call myself a pantheist. We are in the position of a little child entering a huge library filled with books in many languages. The child knows someone must have written those books. It does not know how. It does not understand the languages in which they are written. The child dimly suspects a mysterious order in the arrangement of the books but doesn't know what it is. That, it seems to me, is the attitude of even the most intelligent human being toward God. We see the universe marvelously arranged and obeying certain laws but only dimly understand these laws. Our limited minds grasp the mysterious force that moves the constellations."

Einstein wasn't an atheist either.

What is my point?

My point is stop talking about "I BELIEVE ONLY IN FACTS" -- this is a comment more for Jim -- as if science is already 100% sure on on some points. That is my point I've been trying to make. No, you DON'T just believe in facts. In fact, you probably believe a bunch of false things in some areas simply because you aren't educated well enough in it.

"We are all idiots, just on different subjects" - Mark Twain

Admin you may not be "worshipping at the altar of science" but here is a quote from you:

One of your posters wrote:

"So what if your argument has the backing of facts as defined by science now? Remember that it was once scientifically accepted that the world was flat and that the Sun orbits the Earth. "

You misunderstand him by going off:

"So what if my argument has the backing of scientific facts?! Holy crap! That means EVERYTHING! So what? So EVERYTHING! And no, it was never scientifically accepted that Earth was flat. Science was not born at that time. The scientific method was born sometime around the 1600's. Are you telling me that people had done scientific experiments proving that Earth was flat? No. What you really mean is that it was commonly accepted by the public that Earth was flat. Except for the ancient Greeks, who had used observations of lunar eclipses to determine that Earth was spherical."

The guy means SCIENTIFIC THEORIES TODAY CAN BE CHANGED OR REVISED TOMORROW.

Newtonian mechanics anyone?

How about this: how much do you trust the FACTS of double blind drug studies?

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/12/the-truth-wears-off/

Seems as though in some areas they are not as FACT as we had previously thought.

In the 19th century, Lord Kelvin was one of the greatest physicists of his time, and by a scientific cooling model decided that the earth was 100 million years old. One of his contemporaries John Joly carried out Halley's calculations based on the saltiness of the oceans and got 95M years. Both men were close to each other yet both were WRONG. Science later changed.

"To pretend otherwise is to worship at the al...

2011-09-21T22:31:25.023+09:00

"To pretend otherwise is to worship at the altar of science knows everything."

Who was it who said, "If science knew everything, it would stop"? Seriously dude, I don't know anybody who thinks science knows everything.

"I guess atheists have their own biases and b...

2011-09-21T22:28:50.635+09:00

"I guess atheists have their own biases and blind spots. It's to be expected."

Nice. What an ass.

"The point you could have made for Perry..."

Ha! No, thanks. Why should I?

"... is the larger point I have made in my original post and the subsequent one."

Which you have failed to make clear and understood. It's a common trait among the philosophers that come here. A side effect seems to be the loss of any ability to communicate with people. You appear to be using an argument from ignorance, but I'm not even sure what your point is.

The rest was pure babble. The conversation can only continue if you clearly lay out why Perry's Atheist's Riddle is to be at all persuasive that DNA was made by an intelligence. Otherwise, you will not hold my interest any longer.

I guess atheists have their own biases and blind s...

2011-09-21T22:04:44.541+09:00

I guess atheists have their own biases and blind spots. It's to be expected.

The point you could have made for Perry is the larger point I have made in my original post and the subsequent one.

Call it a word game or change the words around to be whatever you want. It's the concept behind it that matters, and that's what you don't understand. "Facts" are just another word play by you. So now you know 100% truth by knowing Facts? What does that even mean? What is the Fact about how life began?

I tell you an incredibly straightforward thing like "evolution REQUIRES replication, but how did the first replicator arise?" That is a point that Perry could have made. The truth is, we don't know. We don't know how the universe started or what it looked like in the beginning. And no it's nowhere near being a FACT but is simply a lot of conjecture. To pretend otherwise is to worship at the altar of "science knows everything".

I would be much more reasonable if you were prepared to be rational, but I can see that you equate atheism with rationality. No one has ever been convinced by a skeptical position "I don't think there are good enough reasons that I would accept for you to believe in that, therefore you shouldn't." They have been convinced by a rational argument such as a PROOF or DISPROOF. And unless we're talking mathematics, there is no 100% proof or disproof, so talking about beliefs and degrees of belief is appropriate.

Sometimes I think I'm going to say to atheists, "look guys! you are debating the wrong thing! you don't know what happened back then either! just worry about the actual testable claims religions make, and focus on disproving those! our science is advanced enough for you to get to the bottom of it" but then I realize, so many of them are just as irrational in this as the theists. It's about winning for you - so you win.

Jim, the bottom line is that it's a word game ...

2011-09-21T21:45:51.252+09:00

Jim, the bottom line is that it's a word game GM is playing. That's why I really don't wish to discuss it with him/her. But I'm interested in what this "crucial" point is that I SHOULD HAVE MADE FOR PERRY, according to GM.

"But you also BELIEVE that we are here someho...

2011-09-21T21:42:51.575+09:00

"But you also BELIEVE that we are here somehow, and that the universe is incredibly finely tuned for us, etc."

Really? The universe is "incredibly finely tuned for us"? Really? If this were even remotely true (which it isn't), then why is the Earth the only planet capable of supporting life?

I, like the Admin, pretty much gave up on you after you tried to tell me what I believe in. You confuse a belief system with knowing facts. Theists tend to think in terms of either you believe in this or you believe in that. In fact, the world is much simpler. I don't believe in evolution. I accept it as fact. I don't believe in the expansion of the universe. I accept it as fat. I don't believe my keyboard is black. I accept it as fact.

Theists like to get hung up trying to catch atheists believing in something because they think this will magically get them to realize that maybe, just maybe, invisible people exists and tell us what to do and they control everything and create everything.

Something that is a fact is just that. A fact. 2+2=4 whether you want to believe in it or not. Why? Because it is a fact. It has been true since the beginning of the universe, and it will continue to be true past the end. But you would say that I only believe in math. But that would imply somehow that if I wanted to, I could also believe that 2+2=5 and this would be acceptable.

And there are 2 reasons why I suggested you call t...

2011-09-21T18:02:28.566+09:00

And there are 2 reasons why I suggested you call the TV show. First is that they will be more than willing to spend the time with you. Second is that watching them deal with you will be entertaining for the viewers.

First, we need to get some things clear. The fact...

2011-09-21T17:54:36.180+09:00

First, we need to get some things clear. The fact that I have this blog does not mean I have to respond to or challenge every point that comes in. I have a job, I travel A LOT and sometimes I just don't find the comment interesting. I can't have people coming here and claiming victory because I failed to respond or to care. This blog is not an open invitation to take as much time from my life as one pleases.

But as you are clearly insistent, we can do this one step at a time. First, the Perry thing. I'm not clear on what you think is the "crucial" point of Perry's argument which is good yet I have ignored. Please explain why you think it is a good argument (and notice how I asked you rather than told you what you think it is).

Hey man you don't have to actually address wha...

2011-09-21T17:31:41.081+09:00

Hey man you don't have to actually address what I said, but it would be a bit sad since you wrote above (apparently a while ago) that you respond because you don't want to open yourself up to criticism that you're ignoring / avoiding, and I brought up something different, not trying to show you that Perry actually proved anything ... but showing you why your insisting that he proves something is missing the point.

Yes, Perry said his thing is a "proof" and you caught him, it's not a proof! Then again, a real mathematical proof can't be "toppled", so I can argue that he didn't really mean to say "proof" but merely argument. So perry claimed to have an argument, and made it. But it's not a proof. Whoop de doo, neither is yours. But you already said that.

But you are missing the crucial part, which is that you are focusing on the wrong thing. And telling me to go call an atheist radio station or whatever isn't going to change that. I have talked with atheists online quite a bit to know that they cringe when they hear "atheism is a belief system". They want to be able to dictate what "atheist" means and "belief system" means with an iron grip. Well, I use the terms in their plain meaning:

"belief" - the attitude that reality is a certain way

"belief system" - see "system of beliefs" - a system of interconnected beliefs, such as "Christianity is most likely false", "there is nothing supernatural", "life arose from non life in a natural way". For someone else it might be "Christianity is most likely false." "We are all brains in a vat." "This simulation was turned on 5 minutes ago." "Pickles can dance when you are out of the room"

Let me ask you one thing:

WHy do you debate?

Is it to hear yourself win arguments? To me, it is to get closer to the truth. And that means if my opponent is making an argument I can easily disprove on a technicality, I will do it and then say, "maybe you meant THIS?" and address something with more substance, if indeed I think it's obvious an improvement can be made to their position.

The truth is, we don't know what happened billions of years ago. We have absolutely no clue what happened in the first few seconds of the universe. We think we do. People abuse the Big Bang Theory so much but in fact it's just the body of theory that follows from the observation that the visible universe is expanding and accelerating (although the observable mass is actually escaping into invisibility). It does NOT mean we are freaking prophets who know what happened billions of years ago in the early stages of the universe or if the physical laws were even the same.

What we CAN do is DISPROVE religious claims such as the tower of babel etc. Atheists are debating the wrong things. Skepticism never convinced anyone. Simply DISPROVE claims and show why you DON'T BELIEVE something. Or to be more precise, show why you BELIEVE SOMETHING DID NOT HAPPEN.

Isn't that much better than empty rhetoric?

I think there's enough evidence on this site t...

2011-09-21T17:18:25.470+09:00

I think there's enough evidence on this site that I address points.

"... you have to be more charitable to the other side and make the points they SHOULD have made ..."

Now I have to do the work for them?

or leave yourself open to accusations that you'...

2011-09-21T17:16:04.832+09:00

or leave yourself open to accusations that you're avoiding or ignoring points, or some other garbage :P

anyway the main takeaway I want to tell you is this: I haven't read your whole blog, but you have to be more charitable to the other side and make the points they SHOULD have made, not attack the ones they HAVE made on a technicality. The sooner you realize the main point all theists are trying to make to you, the less you will have to vent. Although I'm sure you are venting less after several years ..... and now probably moved on?

You expected more? After you come here and arroga...

2011-09-21T17:14:52.371+09:00

You expected more? After you come here and arrogantly tell me what my beliefs are? Tough! Try asking me what I think instead of telling me and you might have more success.

Why don't you call The Atheist Experience TV show on Sunday? They've addressed this enough times they can deal with it quickly and they'd love to talk to you.

Too bad you didn't read the rest of it, becaus...

2011-09-21T17:10:07.588+09:00

Too bad you didn't read the rest of it, because I expected more from you. After all I read all the way past your insults and down to the "theist's riddle", the least you can do is see how I define my terms and back them up with actual explanations as to why I am saying what I am saying.

You may not like me saying that atheism is a "belief system" because you were conditioned that way. I know, I've talked to atheists and theists a lot. But think about what the words "belief" and "system" mean. Everything you do in your life is based on your personal belief system, which may or may not be consistent or stable moment to moment.

If it makes you feel better, change it to "atheists, even though they lack certain beliefs, must still have a belief system in order to act, and unfortunately that belief system necessarily has some serious holes". Happy? Now read the rest and address it -- or ignore it.

GM, as soon as you open with "atheism is a be...

2011-09-21T16:49:16.617+09:00

GM, as soon as you open with "atheism is a belief system", I stop reading. Is not believing in Bigfoot a "belief system"? This issue has been covered an excruciating number of times. But I did skim and found this:

"But you also BELIEVE that we are here somehow, and that the universe is incredibly finely tuned for us, etc."

Thanks for telling atheists what our beliefs are. These are absolutely not a requirement of atheism. No beliefs are. Some atheists believe we are not here at all, and the "fine-tuning" is such a loaded term, especially when you add "for us" to the end. I really don't think you have the first clue about atheism. I have no interest in pursuing this topic any further with you at this time, but somebody else might.

Let me take a step back. What do I mean when I say...

2011-09-21T16:40:06.437+09:00

Let me take a step back. What do I mean when I say you have beliefs? I mean that you can profess to lack beliefs all you want, but when you ACT, you do so on the basis of "thinking reality is a certain way" which is a BELIEF. So, when you act, such as transgressing some major commandment, then you are actually doing so on the basis of a BELIEF that nothing bad is likely to happen, or whatever.

So you BELIEVE that it is NOT LIKELY that Christianity is true.

But you also BELIEVE that we are here somehow, and that the universe is incredibly finely tuned for us, etc.

So YOU have to fill in the holes in your belief to your satisfaction. I understand that we can simply say "I don't know whether there is life elsewhere in the universe" or "I don't know how come Susan Lucci didn't win an emmy for many years." But can you appreciate how this one's different? You are so confident science will crack it. Let's say it NEVER DOES. This is the stuff that will bother you. That's how it's different. Looking backward, of course it happened. Conditional probability: 100%. But HOW? What did it look like when it was happening? We just don't know right now and it's unnerving because we'd like to say it happened NATURALLY, and HERE'S HOW, but we can't.

Of course, that doesn't automatically mean a particular religion is true. What it does mean is that you and other intelligent atheists would really like to fill in the gaps with something other than "we don't know BUT I AM SURE IT WASNT SUPERNATURAL". You would like to do this because you DO continue to take actions in the real world every day and they DO rest on a belief that it's UNLIKELY that so and so religion is right. But however little you want to admit it, that is a CLAIM that you make in YOUR MIND. And you have to back it up. And you would be able to do it much better if you didn't have the gaps in such crucial things as "how did life begin" or "how did the universe begin", or maybe cute side questions like "how did sexual reproduction come from asexual?" The best you can do is DISPROVE religious claims and show that, even if there was something supernatural that caused this, the religion is not true.

I just arrived here, and I remember seeing this ri...

2011-09-21T16:39:37.283+09:00

I just arrived here, and I remember seeing this riddle. I think you do give it too little credit and I was kind of put off by the language, but then I slogged through the various comments and apparently you like to vent here. OK.

I just want to point out what I think is a bit of a misunderstanding here. Not that Perry is right or wrong, but that you maybe ignored/missed some related undertones of the debate.

First of all, atheism is a "belief system". By that I mean, that is a system. Of beliefs. Yes, I know atheists say that atheism is simply the non-belief in gods. And I get that all atheists can be different. What I am saying is, you are then faced with trying to find alternative answers to questions such as the following:

Q: How did complex life arise?
A: Evolution can pretty much explain it.

Q: Okay, and what is evolution?
A: More or less it consists of replication with random mutation, followed by natural selection.

Q: So evolution is a process that requires replication?
A: Yes. It is a step in the evolutionary process.

Q: Okay, so how did the first replicating thing arise? It couldn't have arisen through evolution.
A: Yes, it arose through abiogenesis.

Q: And what is that?
A: We don't really know at this point but we were able to get some non replicating things to come out of non replicating things, such as Miller-Urey experiment. Also we were able to make some buckeyballs of PAH, which we think may have come from space somewhere. Or it may not.

Q: Okay so you haven't actually been able to figure out how replicating things as complex as RNA (and not, say, crystals) can come from non replicating things in the absence of forces that are the result of evolution (minds, knowledge, blabla)

A: Not yet.

So, when a theist uses a "DNA is a code" argument or a "how did the universe begin to exist" argument or something along these lines, they are trying to say that YOU, the atheist, still have holes in your system of beliefs.

Great page! I love all this stuff. I guess if we c...

2011-07-14T06:38:57.038+09:00

Great page! I love all this stuff. I guess if we can't knock down the whole DNA coding thing we just have to accept that we were put here by intelligent aliens. I mean people even give testimonies about their experiences/probing with/by aliens so that constitutes further proof. Oh boy, intelligent design is great!

dude, you're just bitter...

2011-02-27T14:48:05.856+09:00

dude, you're just bitter...

Oh my. Just had to say, this has been so much fun ...

2010-12-29T13:05:41.703+09:00

Oh my. Just had to say, this has been so much fun to read so far! The incredible lack of self awareness of their own stupidity (the religious posters here) is always freshly amazing.

I am constantly frightened and yet highly entertained by the idiocy of these people.

Didn't I write in the post that neither side c...

2010-10-20T12:12:34.570+09:00

Didn't I write in the post that neither side can prove its case? All I know is that this argument is no proof for the existence of gods or any other strange intelligence. That was my goal.

But because all we have are natural processes, I think we're pretty safe to assume for the moment that it was natural. Do you have any evidence that there is such a thing as a supernatural force, or a supernatural process? Anything? I can show that chemistry exists, and chemistry would be the natural forces we're talking about. That puts me far ahead of people like Perry. Can anybody demonstrate this supposed supernatural force?

The problem is you now have to prove your argument...

2010-10-20T12:04:25.513+09:00

The problem is you now have to prove your argument. You have to prove that DNA and RNA were created through natural processes. You have to show how nature created DNA. Even the greatest scientific minds haven't been able to do that yet, so it looks like your argument is up shit creek without a paddle.