038_read-the-bible2.pdf

Should a Christian read the Bible? It seems like a dumb question, but there are many Christians who have never tried to read a Bible, tried but failed, or just read selected parts. But if you already know what your faith is — an particularly if you attend a church in which lessons from the Bible are taught — is it really that important to read the whole thing? In a word, yes.

Let’s start off with the most important question: if you honest believe that God exists and has the power to punish you for all eternity, and if you honestly believe that this God helped write a book on the subject, then how could anything in the world be more important than reading that book? Sure, there’s a lot of great stuff on the best-seller list that you’d like to get to, but we’re talking about a book that your religion says can help you avoid eternal punishment. If, after considering this, you still don’t feel inclined to read the Bible, perhaps you need to ask yourself just how committed you are to this whole “religion” think in the first place.

Now for the second most important question: If, as a Christian, you believe that the Bible is the word of God, then shouldn’t you know what that word is? Or are you the kind of person who signs a contract at the bank without reading it because you figure you’ve probably already got a pretty good idea of what’s in there?

Maybe when you were young you had a Bible for children so you feel like you already know all the important parts and don’t need to waste your time reading through a bunch of “begats.” If so, did you know that most of these Biblical abridgements leave out quite a bit of text that is either difficult or “inappropriate” for children? For example, did you know that after escaping Sodom Lot was raped by his daughters? That Samson set fire to small animals? That God tried to murder Moses and only stopped when Moses’ wife circumcised their son? If all you’ve read are abridgements, there’s a lot you’ve missed.

As a Christian, perhaps you think that all you need to read is the New Testament. But the New Testament loses much of its meaning if it’s not read in light of the old testament. Try reading the Old Testament and looking for all the prophecies about Jesus that the New Testament says are there (you might be surprised to find that they aren’t all that obvious). Or take a look at God’s laws and behavior in the Old Testament — is the God who orders the killing of babies, loves the smell of burning sacrifices, commands the death penalty for disobeying your parents, and sets up rules for the proper keeping of slaves really the one you worship?

When you read the Bible, you also need to see if you can tell which parts your church believes are literal truth, which are allegory, and which are just poetry. Christians have a wide range of opinions on the subject.

If you find yourself having to ask what a lot of passages mean, why certain aspects of your belief aren’t clear, or why your church believes some things that appear un-Biblical, maybe you need to ask why, if God was going to give his words to humanity, he couldn’t do it more clearly and timelessly.

Then again, perhaps avoiding tough questions like that is why you are avoiding reading the Bible in the first place.

037_read-the-bible.pdf

It’s religious, it’s wrong, it’s boring, it’s old — why should an atheist read the Bible? It’s a fair question, one that a religious person might counter with, “How can you say you disagree with something you haven’t even read?”

Let’s address that last point first: is an atheist required to research a religion before not believing in it? Ideally, a good skeptic researches every aspect of an issue before arriving at a conclusion. But, in practice, there just isn’t enough time in the day to in-depth research on every possible topic of contention. Choices must be made; priorities set.

A religious person might argue that God is the most important subject of all and therefore demands to be thoroughly investigated. But to an atheist, something with an extremely high likelihood of not existing may pale in importance to other issues. Also, considering how many religions there are in the world, seriously sorting through to see if any of them might be correct is quite a daunting task. A religious person might suggest that only their religion needs to be investigated, but a person of any religion might say that.

So if there is no compelling need to investigate religion in general, is there a good reason to read the Bible in particular? For an atheist living in the United States (or another country with a similar religious makeup, history, or culture), there many be several reasons, including:

• The Bible contains many cultural references (Adam and Eve, the exodus, Job, Jesus’ miracles, etc.), and famous passages (“Am I my brother’s keeper?”, “Blessed are the meek,” etc.) and it is worth being familiar with these whether or not you are religious.
• The Bible is a very popular book, so many people have read it. This gives you a social reason to read the Bible — once you’ve read it, you can discuss it with others.
• Although much of it is legend, the Bible also has some legitimate history in it. If nothing else, the chapters on Jewish laws can be quite interesting.
• For an atheist (or skeptical theist), reading the Bible can be an excellent exercise in critical thinking. Some passages have a meaning that is only really clear when read in the context of the time it was written, and learning more about Biblical times and people can make the Bible more interesting. Learning about how the Bible was written, edited, and assembled can also be quite interesting.
• Perhaps the most mundane reason to read the Bible is to be able to say that you did. If a religious person challenges you to read the Bible and see if it inspires you to belief in God or acceptance of the message of Jesus, you can say that you already have, and you had no divine revelation.

036_bible.pdf

The Bible is both a work of history and of religious philosophy. There are more manuscripts of the Bible than there are of most ancient texts. So, even if we don’t agree with the Bible’s religious message, can we rely on it as a historical document?

The Bible includes five kinds of historical information, and they need to be handled differently.

Biblical historical information which is corroborated by acceptable non-Biblical evidence should be treated as reliable.

Uncorroborated but mundane information in the Bible — lists of rulers, descriptions of traditions, names of cities — should be treated just as it would if it came from any other historical document.

Things start to get sticky when we get to Biblical information that is particularly notable but not corroborated by non-Biblical evidence. This would include incidents like King Herod’s massacre of the innocents or the flight of hundreds of thousands of Jewish slaves from Egypt. Such events are only mentioned in the Bible, even though it would be reasonable to expect other historians of the day to make note of them. They should probably be treated with some skepticism.

Biblical history that is contradicted by non-Biblical evidence would include things like the list of patriarchs, which would lead us to believe that humanity has existed for only a few thousand years. In this case, the Bible should be treated as unreliable (and, in fact, most Christians and Jews either treat these portions of the Bible as poetic or non-literal or reinterpret them so that they are in concert with other evidence).

The most unreliable parts of the Biblical history are those that are both uncorroborated and extraordinary. This includes accounts of miracles, extraordinary human feats, and prophecy.

Some religious people complain that atheists do not treat the miracles in the Bible as history even though they are as well documented as other ancient occurrences. The problem is that, as extraordinary events, miracles need more than standard evidence to back them up.

It’s not just the Bible that is treated this way. Homer’s Illiad includes both mundane historical information and accounts of divine intervention. Historians require more proof of divine intervention in Homer than they require of details of battle. Similarly, there are historical documents that trace the Emperor of Japan’s ancestry back to Amaterasu the sun goddess, leading historians to treat the list as partially reliable and partially unreliable.

So when the Bible comes under extra scrutiny for making extraordinary claims, this is not a sign of religious bias but rather of standard historical scholarship.

To make matters worse, parts of the Bible — the Gospels in particular — seem to have a strong agenda of proving that many Old Testament texts are actually prophecies of Jesus’ life. This agenda may have lead to some elements of Jesus’ life being misreported so that they more clearly matched prophecy, so historians need to be particularly careful.

024_bible-questions.pdf

It’s possible to be both philosophically rigorous and believe that the Bible is God’s word, but far too many Christians have not asked themselves enough tough questions about the Bible to make sure that they are indeed rigorous. Here are a few they might consider:

• Which parts of the Bible are literally true and which are stories that have been simplified so they could be understood by the book’s original audience?
• What parts of the Bible do you think are okay for children? Do you think the “adult” parts of some Bible stories should be edited for children, or should children not learn those stories until they are older?
• If the Bible appears to contradict science (as it does in Genesis, for example), should you doubt scripture, doubt science, or doubt both?
• If the Bible was written under God’s direction, why doesn’t everyone agree what it means? Shouldn’t it be perfectly clear?
• There are scriptures that did not make it into the Bible. How can you tell true and false scripture apart?
• Is it moral to punish children for things their parents did? (Genesis 9, for example)
• Why did God “harden Pharoah’s heart” when Pharoah wanted to let the Israelites go? (Exodus 4-9)
• Does God still like how animal sacrifices smell? (Genesis 8, for example)
• Why doesn’t the Bible condemn slavery? (Exodus 21)
• Why did God order Moses to kill children? (Deuteronomy 3, for example)
• What precisely does “Thou shalt not kill” mean? When is it okay to kill a person?
• How can you tell which of the Jewish laws (such as the Ten Commandments, or eating lobster and being homosexual being abominations) should be obeyed by Christians?
• Are the Jews still God’s chosen people?
• How can you tell which Old Testament passages are the ones that have a “hidden” second meaning as a prophecy about Jesus?
• Did you know that there are at least two different endings for the book of Mark?
• Why did Jesus curse a tree? (Mark 11)
• Doesn’t Jesus’ rampage in the temple (John 2, for example) contradict turning the other cheek?
• Doesn’t Jesus want you to give away all your possessions? (Luke 14:33)
• What do you think happened to all the people who rose from the dead when Jesus died? (Matthew 27)
• Didn’t Jesus’ followers think that the second coming was going to happen soon? (Matthew 16)
• Why does Jesus think God has forsaken him if he is God? (Mark 15, for example)
• The Gospels don’t agree on a number of things, such as Jesus’ last words or the number of people who found the empty tomb. Can you explain how these are not contradictions, using reasoning that you would allow in the discussion of other topics?

ok I would like to startby saying that no I am not an atheist. I am a proud Chistian. And God never orderd Moses to kill babies or burn animals if he does show me where. We dont all believe in the pope or that atheists are satanic. I respest your beliefs i just dont agree with them there is a difference. And you didnt prove anything with your argument all you proved was how rude you are.

Glad to hear that you don’t think atheists are Satanic. For what it’s worth, atheists don’t think all Christians are wrongheaded.

When you refer to my arguments as rude, I assume you are talking about the site’s “Arguments against atheism” page. That page isn’t intended to be taken seriously.

Now, for the Bible questions, let’s start with the least distasteful one, God ordering Moses to burn an animal. Here’s one example:

Exodus 29:15-18: “Thou shalt also take one ram; and Aaron and his sons shall put their hands upon the head of the ram. And thou shalt slay the ram, and thou shalt take his blood, and sprinkle it round about upon the altar. And thou shalt cut the ram in pieces, and wash the inwards of him, and his legs, and put them unto his pieces, and unto his head. And thou shalt burn the whole ram upon the altar: it is a burnt offering unto the LORD: it is a sweet savour, an offering made by fire unto the LORD.”

Moses and his people killed children on many occasions, pretty obviously with God’s blessing. One case in which it seems pretty clear to me that this under God’s orders:

Deuteronomy 3:2-7: “And the LORD said unto me, Fear him not: for I will deliver him, and all his people, and his land, into thy hand; and thou shalt do unto him as thou didst unto Sihon king of the Amorites, which dwelt at Heshbon. So the LORD our God delivered into our hands Og also, the king of Bashan, and all his people: and we smote him until none was left to him remaining. And we took all his cities at that time, there was not a city which we took not from them, threescore cities, all the region of Argob, the kingdom of Og in Bashan. All these cities were fenced with high walls, gates, and bars; beside unwalled towns a great many. And we utterly destroyed them, as we did unto Sihon king of Heshbon, utterly destroying the men, women, and children, of every city. But all the cattle, and the spoil of the cities, we took for a prey to ourselves.”

If we can look to folks other than Moses to confirm that this is not a misreading of God’s intentions::

1 Samual 15: 2-3: “Thus saith the LORD of hosts, I remember that which Amalek did to Israel, how he laid wait for him in the way, when he came up from Egypt. Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass.”

First off let me start off by apologizing. It was hard for me to not start off with a smart remark so per request I’ll tone down the humor.

“As an aside regarding your example, humans are scientifically classified as apes.” So we are apes? I don’t think so, at least not in the sense I was using.

“you can give me a specific example of what you mean.” Memory would be a good example. I don’t find this part of the discussion as important as the others so I’ll skip it as you also would like.

“why do you feel that something unchanging must exist? Also, are you agreeing that if God, by your definition, is natural that God exists within time?” I believe God is unchanging in a sense for he is always good and that never will change. God would also exist in time if he is omniscient. But to be clear I think it could be said (assuming God exists of course) that this world is built on the eternal world or dimension or whatever it is, God.

As for the supernatural I’ll try to abandon any supernatural talk since it seems that you refuse to believe in it.

As to what you say about supernatural and natural theories I believe God is perfectly natural and more natural than we are to ourselves. And as natural theories agreeing with evidence I would have to ask what evidence? That there is no evidence for the supernatural that is what I’ve already said. But whether it is true or not is a philosophical question, whether or not it is more than likely that a supernatural being exists.

“Is that the kind of thing you are referring to when you disagree with the statement ‘if evolution is wrong, all of biology is wrong’?” I was more referring to the Darwinian theory of what is macro evolution, if biology stands on this than it doesn’t stand on much I would say. I think micro evolution explains a lot.

“Let me ask first what reading you have already done regarding evolution.” To be honest I haven’t done much. Sad, I took a whole semester of biology and they didn’t have us read primary sources like the “Origin of Species” or really anything else, for the most part they just told us that it is obviously true and showed us how much sense evolution makes. I did pick up a few things though. Oddly enough I learned more about evolution in Philosophy. Also the same with intelligent design except in philosophy we seemed to have made fun of it. But now that I think about it, it really is another solid theory, I’ll explain later. (btw my bio professors tried to show that religion doesn’t fully explain anything and then basically said that Christians weren’t that smart for being Christian, oh well)

“Any group of propositions that accounts for the evidence is a theory to a scientist.” I’ll remember this definition; I would also assume some are better than others.

I think the theory of gravity is much different then the theory of evolution. And even here scientists consider gravity a “scientific law” or a “natural law” but not in regards to evolution. But I suppose I could be wrong. The difference I think is that evolution, if there was enough evidence, then they would be considered facts and not theory or even “scientific law”, since there should be physical evidence as oppose to gravity. None the less I understand what you mean about theory but evolution is way different then gravity.

“It’s true that some of the animals in this evolutionary chain were land animals and some were sea creatures, but this doesn’t mean that scientists can’t make up their minds (as it sounds like you imply).” What I’m implying is that they can’t make up their minds on which ones were which. Look at all the portraits of the animals they are speculating about.

“Modern whales have some skeletal features that don’t make much sense except in an evolutionary context (such as vestigial leg bones “floating” in the bodies of some species). I think you might be looking to much into these “vestigial bones” or not enough. And you’re definitely going out on a limb calling them “leg bones”, I honestly do not see any leg bones in any whales or dolphins for that matter. I think it is more reasonable to believe another idea that says these bones help balance out or anchor the body of the whale and also help with movement of the their reproductive muscles.

“As an aside, occasionally modern whales and dolphins are born with miniature legs, and this makes complete sense in an evolutionary context.” You don’t believe in my giants but you want to believe in dolphins with legs. This is what you would say “sorely wanting” is if I’ve ever seen it. To call an extra pair of fins legs is to jump to conclusions. Unless you know of any dolphins that were born with hooves, human feet, or bear claws I will have to disagree. I believe I would have seen something of this in my biology class if it they truly have legs. You stated to me that I broadened the definition of religion to encompass atheism; I think your doing a similar thing here. Every little thing it seems whether we can explain it or not points at evolution just as “something I don’t know” means God so we are both guilty of this. Let us pretend we heard it for the first time, “dolphins are found to have legs”. Your first reaction would be “evolution” mine would be “really”. So let us forget our backgrounds if we saw this dolphin would the hind “legs” look more like fins or well like “legs”? If you like you can email me images just to show me these pictures you’re talking about.

“I meant that it isn’t controversial in scientific circles any more than “the earth is more than 6,000 years old” or “humans have walked on the moon” are controversial in scientific circles.” Well the world used to be flat.

“They generally either misstate the case for evolution or agree with the bulk of it, up to the point that it disagrees with their religious viewpoint, at which time they throw Occam out the window.” I have yet to see this. I don’t think I would be guilty of this, but you might think I am. As for “intelligent design”, let us give it another name since I don’t like the one being used. I would propose “natural intelligence” or “intelligent causation” that way people don’t think of it necessarily pertaining to religion or God. The way I would like to explain this is that there is some sort of intelligence that exists in nature naturally even in a microscopic cell. The cells carry out their job, which is very complex, and they do it naturally. This would be a good example I believe.

“Referring to Expelled — I was very disappointed by it.” For some reason this doesn’t surprise me.

“The movie also spent a lot of time poking fun and showing silly pictures instead of actually making arguments. I had honestly been hoping for something with a lot more meat to it.” I don’t remember the silly cartoons but I do remember them saying that the complexity of the cell is something Darwin never took in to account. He believed that the cell was very simple. So this is the first problem with macro evolution. There is nothing in this theory that can explain the complexity of the cell. Another thing is the theory of mutation which has, I believe, been proven to not go along with macro evolution at all. For example mutations don’t occur with new dna information but from old dna information this explains micro but not macro.

“I’m talking about the theory of evolution in biology.” Ok macro or micro?

“That’s possible, but since Darwinism has to be pretty seriously abused to support genocide” You have a point but what about eugenics?

“and it allows others to think in a similar way” What about purpose and meaning?

“but then I wouldn’t be dying because I refused to lie about my beliefs, I’d be dying for a greater good.” So there is a greater good, what is it? Also I thought there wasn’t anything after life so why would you willingly die for any purpose if life was all you had?

“For example, if someone wanted to kill anyone related to your mother, would you consider that trivial?” I don’t know what you mean, this is kind of vague but I’ll say that I would die defending my mother if that is what you’re saying. I think I don’t value my life as much as you do yours in a sense. I hope I’d have the courage to die at any given moment whether it be up to me or not.

“That’s why I say it would be virtuous to save the trapped person, but not morally required.” Good point, I finally see what your saying. Sorry, I don’t catch on that quick. I have to ask, what do you think heroism is?

“Can you explain to me why denying God with words in this context would be a sin?” To tell you the truth I don’t know, I think to deny God as Peter did is wrong and in turn to ever deny Him is wrong. I don’t know whether or not He would say it is wrong in this context that is why I would ask for guidance and for forgiveness because I feel guilty just thinking about denying Him, if that is what I truly believe why should I deny it.

“but rather God sent Jesus to be tortured and die” then rise. But I’ll stop talking about Jesus since I understand what you say about ambiguity in this context.

“So, dialing this way back, if a child is the only Christian in a class of Muslim children and will be shunned or otherwise hurt if it is known she is not Muslim, should the child’s parent make sure everyone knows the child’s religion if the subject does not come up?” This is an interesting question. I, for one, don’t walk around telling everyone I’m a Christian (I don’t think that would be normal), maybe I should. Instead I try living a lifestyle that many would admire and respect. This way people can see that Christianity is a good thing. I don’t find it necessary to go around and tell everyone that my child is Christian that is their business. But I think that if someone was making me wear some sort of mark to signify my beliefs I would wear it.

“You say that God exists within a dimension and that this dimension is not outside our universe. Doesn’t this imply that this dimension, which is part of our universe, has always existed?” Yes it does imply that, I don’t see the problem. What it doesn’t imply is that the world has always existed. This eternal dimension very well could be the basis on which our world sits on.

“You want to talk about silliness and then misstate a number of scientific theories for the origin of life in mocking terms. Do I want to add to the list? Sure: Maybe a magic guy spent six days making everything and then took a nap” I don’t believe I misstated anything if I did go ahead and explain them to me. As for the magic guy, yup that is what I believe, and I never mentioned that it wasn’t crazy just true, now what do you believe in? (it sounds like you have something against this magic guy though he never did anything to you, also I was poking fun at you and myself but I suppose you can’t take yourself lightly) As for drinking the blood I don’t think you can add much to it that doesn’t already make it sound funny.

Honestly, I find myself thinking I’m crazy for what I believe from time to time but I think if everyone spent a couple days thinking they would too come to that conclusion. What about you? I think everyone has to be a little crazy or else they just aren’t sane. The truly insane people are the ones that don’t bother to think about these things. Magic guys are very crazy but so are every other scientific theories that explain the origin of life, and just because they are called “scientific” that doesn’t make them less crazy.

“That statement seems in conflict with your definition of “know” which includes truth.” I don’t think so because truth can be known without knowing any arguments for it or against it.

“What if some of these people only think they know but are wrong? In that case, they wouldn’t want to know, right?” As for this I wish everyone would spend more time on the most important topic of all time and learn how it makes sense, I call this truly believing. But they don’t so I can’t help them nor you so let them be this is amongst the willing few who want to discuss.

“If you really want to compare man to the animals you’ll see that we are way more different then we are alike.” By what measure? We are almost genetically identical to chimpanzees, for example.” Well that we have similar dna with chimps so far as I’m concrered supports more “natural intelligence” than evolution but that’s a different story. I also didn’t say man wasn’t an animal, though it does look like I implied it. But let us start the general comparison. We wear clothes no other animals do. Why would any animal start wearing clothes? We paint and draw, no other animal does this, unless we’ve trained them to do so. We speak with an incredibly wide vocabulary they don’t. This list goes on and on. I’ll wait to here your response here.

“I don’t see why, as we progress with our discussion, you are coming across as more and more of an ass. I’m glad you agree with my point, no matter how rudely.” I didn’t agree I was being sarcastic. Let me add it doesn’t surprise me that an evolutionary biologist doesn’t have humor.

“I have no problem with you positing that thought might be supernatural; I have a problem with you insisting that it must be.” Understood.

“I am not taking this on faith, but rather consider it to be the most likely explanation given my knowledge of the current state of research in the area.” So thoughts can be scientifically explained, is it that we don’t have wills but rather it is our nature and we can not control what we think?

“To help me get a better grasp on your point of view, can you tell me what you think the brain does?” I think our brain does a lot of things like it helps us survive but the one thing it allows overall is choice. You might say animals can choose but do they know it, are they self aware? And from the sounds of it you’d like to disagree that we can choose.

“We use evidence to form theories, and those theories are refined over time as new evidence arises.” Or thrown out like, the theory for macro evolution should be since there is no evidence for it.

“do you think that a story about God creating languages is in some sense a better explanation than the scientific theory that languages change and separate over time?” No but I hold it to be truth. Now how God works can be perfectly natural and explained in natural ways. Just as you say the Catholic Church does this very well with the theory of evolution. As for the Catholic Church and the poetical Genesis I don’t think your stating this correctly I believe they use words such as metaphors and allegories to explain it, there is a huge difference. If I wanted to agree with the Catholic Church and not think I suuppose it would make sense but I look at the evidence and there is nothing to support Macro evolution. You mention Punctuated equilibrium this sounds like a more reasonable theory but I don’t think there is proof for it either. You can try to show some proof here if you wish.

“If, for example, the Bible is God’s word, then would you agree that Genesis is a straight-forward telling of how the world was made?” I don’t claim to interpret the bible literally then you might assume that I think “God is a rock”, and I think rock worship to be incredibly close minded. I am simply stating that it is truth.
“God did it because I don’t understand it” then what about Darwinism, you revert to the theory a lot when you can’t explain something (like fins) or to science in general but you don’t understand either, so you do it more then I. For exp. “it is still being researched” that is your cop out just as “God is great and these things happen” is mine. (though I don’t know if mine really is)

“The gap this ‘evidence’ bridging together is oddly enough in the shape of God, who would have thought.” Evolution doesn’t seem to assert anything yet it seems to explain away everything any religion would teach, how?

“Your statement seems to also assume God exists.” You agree that good exists and the Bible gives great reasons as why one should be good this is what I mean and it does look like evidence to me.

“Indeed, a number of possible evolutionary pathways for the flagellum have been identified” Then what exactly was the first organism had it any complexity to it?

“You’re the one saying you can know.” Yes I am. Are you claiming that we can’t? If we can’t then what is the point of this discussion.

“That is the kind of skeptic I’m talking about. I say that I am awake because the theory that I’m awake is preferable by Occam’s razor. I can’t prove it’s true.” Well is this conversation real? Are you real? Do you really exist? This will be more difficult then I thought since you don’t even know whether you’re awake or not.

Regarding the Gospels: I never said they were inconsistent on the terms you mentioned, I said that they relied on their memory and this might explain the chronological order of them.

“Gospels were intended not as history but as arguments for Christianity” I think this is far off since I don’t see a single argument presented I see instead them presenting what they are saying is truth; they are making claims and giving laws not arguments. And if people agree or not it doesn’t matter that is there point.

Haven’t gotten around to researching Mathew 21:5 but when I get the time I will. But how do “know” that the Bible is more preferable than anything you’ve thought of, Occam razor can’t bail out a true skeptic.

I understand that God is unchanging (in the sense you mentioned), and I don’t have a problem with that. What I was asking was why you think that something unchanging must necessarily exist.

You say that God would exist in time, and that God is the dimension/world on which our world was built. If God exists in time and had no beginning, then there must be an infinite stretch of time, yes? And if God is the space on which our world was built, then that space must be infinitely old (even if our universe is not), right? I just want to be completely sure I am understanding you on these points because they are very important to my understanding your world view.

“As for the supernatural I’ll try to abandon any supernatural talk since it seems that you refuse to believe in it.” I don’t refuse to believe in the supernatural, I just don’t see sufficient evidence for it, and I try to avoid believing in things for which there is insufficient evidence. However, we appear unable to agree on a working definition of “supernatural,” so that might be a good reason for us to put the subject aside.

You mention macro and micro evolution. Can you define those terms for me so I’m sure we’re on the same page?

Regarding theories, you said you assume that some theories are better than others. That’s definitely true. Some scientific theories (e.g., that light is a wave in the aether) can be shown to be false.

Referring to which animals were land creatures and which were sea creatures in the evolution of whales, you say, “What I’m implying is that they can’t make up their minds on which ones were which. Look at all the portraits of the animals they are speculating about.” Have you got an example you can point me toward? The sources I’ve seen seem pretty clear. In any case, I will agree that there is a significant amount of speculation involved when reconstructing how an extinct creature looked and behaved, but the results of this speculation are not (in my limited experience) considered part of the evidence for an evolutionary series.

I don’t feel that I’m going out on a limb calling vestigial bones in some whales “leg bones,” in that they have characteristics of leg bones and, when you follow the evolutionary sequence, are the descendents of what we might call “true” leg bones. It’s certainly possible that these bones may have a use, but I’ve not seen a compelling explanation, and one of the intelligent design proponents whose podcast I listen to listed it as something he couldn’t explain.

Dolphins with legs: looking back at what I wrote, I did indeed get sloppy here. Embryonic dolphins begin to develop hind legs, but they are reabsorbed during development. I got this mixed in my head with reports of dolphins with extra fins, and proved that I need to brush up on the subject.

Even so, I disagree when you say, “Every little thing it seems whether we can explain it or not points at evolution just as ’something I don’t know’ means God so we are both guilty of this.” If I have a piece of information that fits into an evolutionary explanation (like the beginning of leg development in embryonic dolphins), I think it’s legitimate to say that it is evidence for evolution. If I have a piece of information that doesn’t fit into an evolutionary explanation, I won’t call it evidence for evolution. This is very different from someone (I’m not talking about you here) who claims a piece of information as evidence for God’s handiwork because science has not investigated or reached a conclusion about it. The difference is that evolution could be disproved by evidence that contradicts it, but there is no possible evidence of any kind that could not be attributed to God.

Talking about whether evolution is controversial, you say, “Well the world used to be flat.” Sure, and if you’re looking at a small piece of the world, it pretty much is flat for all practical purposes. But the more we looked, the more evidence we found, and the more we were able to modify the “Earth is flat” theory. At this point, we are still refining our understanding of the planet’s shape, but the refinement is in small details, and the fact that we are still learning does not imply that there is a significant chance we might discover we are completely wrong.

In science, a similar situation is true for evolution. Scientists are investigating the details of evolution (mechanisms, evolutionary paths, etc.), but that doesn’t imply that there is any question about whether evolution occurred.

I don’t mind using “natural intelligence” to refer to your beliefs on biology, particularly if you disagree with the Intelligent Design movement. You say that you think, “there is some sort of intelligence that exists in nature naturally even in a microscopic cell.” That seems to fit nicely with your previous statements about the universe being built on or within God. Wouldn’t it also fit with an intelligently directed form of evolution?

You say that you aren’t surprised that I was disappointed by Expelled. Then we agree that it wasn’t as good a film as it could have been, yes?

I don’t know what you mean when you say you, “don’t remember the silly cartoons” in expelled. Do you recall the film showing images for humorous effect (such as a fortune teller with a crystal ball)? That’s the kind of thing I found disappointing — they seemed to be using humor instead of intelligent counterpoint. I still wish that someone would put together a really solid ID film; Ben Stein and company really blew an opportunity.

That Darwin didn’t know how complex cells are is an argument against Darwin’s theory of evolution, not against the modern theory of evolution. It turns out that Darwin was wrong about a number of things and there were many things he didn’t know — that’s why evolutionary theory has developed over the years.

I’m not completely sure what you mean when you say, “mutations don’t occur with new dna information but from old dna information this explains micro but not macro.” Do you mean that new information can’t arise through mutation? If that’s what you mean, then could you elaborate?

After I pointed out that Darwin has to be twisted to support genocide, you ask, “what about eugenics?” I’d say Darwin doesn’t support that, either.

Regarding my statement that Nazis would condemn others who reason in the same way they do, you ask, “What about purpose and meaning?” I don’t understand the question.

You ask, “So there is a greater good, what is it?” I’d say there is no universal greater good, but there can be greater goods based on an individual’s values. You ask why I would willingly die for any purpose if life was all I had. It’s true that I don’t think there’s an afterlife, but I consider some things more valuable than my life (my child’s life, for example).

You ask what I think heroism is. I haven’t thought about that one too much, but I’d say that heroism is accepting risk for the benefit of others when you are not morally required to accept that risk.

I liked your answer about why denying God would be a sin. Just thought I’d mention it.

Regarding whether you would “advertise” your Christianity to a group that you knew would give your child a hard time, I completely understand your answer, and I agree with it. This brings us back to our original point: if you don’t advertise your Christianity knowing that Muslim children would abuse your child if you did, are you to blame for hiding your beliefs, are the Muslim children to blame for making your feel threatened, or is nobody to blame?

You ask what I believe about the origin of life. I believe that there are a number of competing theories (including God and other deities), but that we don’t yet have enough information to draw a firm conclusion.

Regarding whether people want knowledge and some people thinking that they know the truth but are wrong, you say, “As for this I wish everyone would spend more time on the most important topic of all time and learn how it makes sense, I call this truly believing. But they don’t so I can’t help them nor you so let them be this is amongst the willing few who want to discuss.” But if the default position is a willingness to know, how can there only be a willing few who want to know the truth?

Discussing the differences between humans and other animals, you list a number of things that humans do that other animals do not do (wear clothing, create art, have a large vocabulary). All of these are, it seems to me, byproducts of human intelligence. (I could quibble that hermit crabs wear clothes and spiders make webs that are “artistic,” but that would be avoiding your point — I understand what you mean.) I agree that humans are more intelligent than other animals, but I disagree that this makes us separate from animals unless we include “less than a certain amount of intelligence” in the definition of “animal.” I don’t see any reason to do that, and I can see reasons not to do it.

You ask, “So thoughts can be scientifically explained, is it that we don’t have wills but rather it is our nature and we can not control what we think?” This is a hairy subject because our vocabulary is so full of the assumption that the human mind of a separate thing. For example, the question “we cannot control what we think” assumes that there is a “we” separate from what we think. Given this, I’ll do my best to explain my position. In a nutshell, I think it likely that free will is an illusion that that, at our root, we are deterministic beings. We can get deeper into this if you like.

Regarding the brain, you say, “I think our brain does a lot of things like it helps us survive but the one thing it allows overall is choice.” I’m not understanding where you draw the line between the brain’s biological processes and thought. This sounds like you think that some kinds of thought (making choices) are a function of the brain. What parts of thinking would you say are not brain functions?

You ask whether animals are self aware. This is difficult to test, but it appears that some animals do have a degree of self awareness. For example, an elephant knows that the elephant in a mirror is itself, not another elephant.

You say that you hold as truth that God created languages (in the Biblical sense) as opposed to languages changing and separating over time. Do you disagree that there is evidence that languages change and separate over time? Or am I misunderstanding your point?

You again bring up the possibility that I use science to fill gaps, saying, “then what about Darwinism, you revert to the theory a lot when you can’t explain something (like fins) or to science in general but you don’t understand either, so you do it more then I. For exp. ‘it is still being researched’ that is your cop out just as ‘God is great and these things happen’ is mine.” (To begin with a small correction, I am not a Darwinist, and the modern theory of evolution disagrees with Darwin on many points.) As stated above, I do not use evolution as an explanation in and of itself. That is, I do not believe that “fins evolved” is a sufficient explanation for fins in the same sense that “God created fins” is a sufficient explanation for fins. The statement “fins evolved” is only meaningful if there is evidence to back it up.

The phrase “it is still being researched” is not a conclusion or a statement of faith. It is a statement of ignorance and potential to learn, nothing more. After research has progressed sufficiently, is it possible that the most likely explanation will be God? Sure. To put it another way, “It is being researched” is a desire for more knowledge, while “God did it” sounds like a final conclusion.

You ask, “Evolution doesn’t seem to assert anything yet it seems to explain away everything any religion would teach, how?” You are misstating the case for evolution. Among other things, evolution doesn’t explain how the universe came into being, how the continents move, why the stars shine, or any of a host of philosophical topics (what beauty is, what is moral, does God exist, etc.). Also, evolution asserts many things — that species descend with modification, that complex systems can come into existence though natural processes, etc.

Regarding good, you say, “You agree that good exists and the Bible gives great reasons as why one should be good this is what I mean and it does look like evidence to me.” I agree that good exists in the sense that some things can be labeled “good.” This is different from agreeing that “good” has any existence in and of itself (as an aspect of God or metaphysical truth, for example). I think that this is where we disagree on this subject.

Regarding the bacterial flagellum and my statement that a number of possible evolutionary pathways have been identified, you ask, “Then what exactly was the first organism had it any complexity to it?” Are you asking what the first organism was that had any complexity? I don’t know, and it may not be possible to know if insufficient evidence was left behind. If you are asking what organism has a less-complex flagellum, there are bacteria that have a structure very similar to a flagellum that they use to inject toxins into other cells. Such a structure may have evolved into the motive flagellum, since they are structurally very similar, even though they have very different functions. More research needs to be done in this area, but statements about there being no conceivable way for a flagellum to have evolved appear to be false.

You ask, “Well is this conversation real? Are you real? Do you really exist? This will be more difficult then I thought since you don’t even know whether you’re awake or not.” This conversation is real in the sense that it exists in some sense. I know that I really exist in the sense that I know that my thoughts exist. I can’t prove that I’m awake. I can’t prove that you physically exist. However, I take these things as given because I have no way to test their veracity and assuming them makes things less complicated.

I say that the Gospels are arguments for Christianity, and you respond, “I think this is far off since I don’t see a single argument presented I see instead them presenting what they are saying is truth; they are making claims and giving laws not arguments.” We may be disagreeing about what “argument” means in this context. When the Gospels say that, for example, Jesus fulfilled prophecies from the Old Testament, I’d say that’s an argument for Jesus being the Messiah. Similarly, I’d say that Jesus’ many miracles are supposed to be evidence of his divine nature. It’s also fairly well accepted that the Gospels were written with the conversion of particular audiences in mind — Matthew, for example, was aimed at Jews, which is why it emphasizes Hebrew prophecy.

You close by saying, “But how do ‘know’ that the Bible is more preferable than anything you’ve thought of, Occam razor can’t bail out a true skeptic.” A true skeptic doesn’t need bailing out because a true skeptic is looking for the truth, not defending a particular conclusion.

Well I finally got time to respond and it’s pretty long. You don’t have to post this right away take your time that’s what I’m gonna start doing. As for this one I hope you find the humor in it, you know it is always best to laugh at one’s self and take ourselves lightly. Enjoy.

“Time acts like a physical thing.” So it’s not really physical. When someone uses the word “like” this indicates a difference. For example we are like apes, there is a distinction because we are not apes.

“So far as I’m concerned, “eternal” is a measure of time — they’re not separate things. How would you define it?” How is eternal just a measure of time if it also implies the unchanging, or everlasting, or always existing.

“If I have a digital counter that shows a number which increases by one every second, I don’t need an unchanging counter to contrast it with” But you do need the rest of the numbers to stay the same. Besides this is not what I’m referring to what I mean is that there is something that is in us that links our thoughts to one another. We do have random thoughts but if that is all we had we wouldn’t be having this conversation. Like I mentioned before we are always in the moment, which in a way never changes, this is something the mind can pick up.

“I don’t see how a natural thing can exist without time.” I don’t see how anything can exist without eternal substance.

“I don’t see anything about the human mind that seems to be incongruous with nature.” That is because you refuse to see it. Look, let’s be hones, you chose this definition of natural thinking you would eliminate all the others but you can’t they still exist you just eliminated them in the context of this discussion which didn’t really do me any good as I’ve said. But if we take almost any other definition of natural we’ll see that the human mind really can’t be considered as natural as you’d like to consider it.

“As you indicate, given two supernatural choices, Occam’s razor can be used to select the preferable one.” I didn’t indicate a thing I just was saying that we can come to a supernatural explanation through Occam’s razor.

“You say you don’t see why it can’t be assumed that the creation of the universe was supernatural. I’d say that we don’t know enough about the subject to make such an assumption.” If this is the case then lets not make any assumptions this would include “naturalistic” theories.

“If evolution is wrong, then all of biology is wrong.” I would beg to differ. Though that is the popular view of things isn’t it. Even my atheist biology professor stated that this theory is the basis for all biology. I don’t think he was right then and I don’t think you’re right now.

“Evolution is not a little theory touted by a few high-visibility scientists, but a widely accepted one…” So this makes it right. Well you know Christianity used to be widely accepted. “…supported by evidence from many scientific fields.” I have yet to see such amazing evidence.

“the history of religious development is interesting, the more I learn about religion the more I understand human nature, and I find those religious people who seem to exhibit cognitive dissonance fascinating, and I am very interested in systems of ethics and morals” You really are starting to sound like a social scientist.

“The evolution of birds is still being researched, but nobody proposes that at some point birds had useless nubs that would one day evolve into wings.” As I recall the evolution of all things is still being researched.

Well let me tell you I’ve taken a biology course and they used this example of cetaceans to show and prove their theory was true and then they turned around and said it was still a theory which made me second guess it instead of just taking it on face value. So when they showed me the fossil evidence it didn’t really look like much of anything I could make out. In fact all the animals look well like different animals. It is easy to look at the drawings or portraits of what these animals might have looked like, which are mere speculation, and say “yhea evolution is real” but the drawings always vary. One drawing might show a water dominant animal while another shows a land dominant one. If scientist can’t make up their mind why should I trust them? If this is your proof I find it sorely wanting (inside joke). Maybe it’s because when I see bones that’s all I see I don’t have an agenda that I need to push.

“I’d say that the reason that most scientists treat evolution as true is not to get attention, but because there is a massive pile of evidence supporting it, and more evidence is found every day.” If there is so much evidence then again why is it still a theory?

“Pro-evolution scientists don’t have their stance to ’stand up for something controversial,’ because it frankly isn’t controversial.” Well obviously you don’t know what controversy is but to be quite frank most Pro-evolution scientist don’t have a will (inside joke) and really can’t choose to take a stand for anything, this would be a reasonable answer. But really this massive pile of evidence I have yet to see. Need I point out that there are many that are willing to debate for intelligent design that aren’t just religious people but these people are kept out of schools and Expelled as Ben Stein puts it. (which is a pretty darned good movie if you haven’t already seen it)

“You are incorrect when you say that evolutionary theory cannot be tested” Which theory are you talking about, and what do you mean by evolution. If you mean change, well call me an evolutionist.

“But can you tell me, in a nutshell, what your beliefs are concerning the origin of life on Earth” Still learning and willing. But I’m a little skeptical that evolution can explain all that it is said to explain. Maybe a better response would be clueless. I do believe in dinosaurs and micro evolution and also am leaning toward intelligent design.

“I would say that a purpose gives your life meaning.” Then any purpose I assign to myself gives my life meaning. Well in Philosophy wills seem to contradict each other all the time meaning someone is right and someone is wrong.

“That can be philosophically consistent. The only “meanings” in this sense that I would say may be worse than others are those that do not fit into a valid moral system (to take an obvious example, “killing all the Jews” is not a morally valid way to give your life meaning).” You almost seem to contradict yourself here. First let me say this first when you’re using the “killing all the Jews” thing that is, I’m taking a wild guess here, a reference to Nazi Germany. So let me be Devils advocate on this, If you’ve done any studying you would know that the Nazi philosophy was based on the aryan race. You can trace this back to Madam Blavatsky (don’t think I spelt it right) who was a theosophist and if I recall a luciferien (id call satanist, she started Lucifer press, which turned into Lucius trust). Her work along with Nietzsche had a major influence on Nazi Germany. Their ideas where heavily influenced by Darwinism. In fact the whole point of bringing back the aryan race was to stop suffering, to create a utopia on earth by forcing the evolution of the superior race. And if creating a utopia on earth meant killing all the weaker species than so be it. This sounds like a valid moral system from what you’re saying. I almost think it to be a cop out when people use the Jew’s to prove that Hitler was wrong because they forget that the number of Polish Catholics rivaled that of the Jews that were killed in the concentration camps. It’s almost as to say that Hitler is bad for killing Jews not for killing people, as if killing a hundred cripples would have been a service. I blame Hitler not because he was crazy but evil not because he hated Jews but devalued life. He was willing to sacrifice people for this new utopia, that is evil.

“(with a few sad exceptions)”. Could I ask what they would be?

“If someone is going to kill me for not being a Christian, I think it’s safe to assume that they’re nuts, and dying to defend the truth in the face of insanity is, as you point out, stupid.” I think it would be safer to assume that they are either evil or Muslim (jk). A bike is much different no one that is sane would want you to confess to being a bike this wouldn’t make sense. Muslims from what I here want to kill Christians. Now let’s pretend that an evil “Christian” dictator ruled, ex a more powerful George Bush, and he wanted all atheists to die would you say your atheist and die hoping your legacy invokes some changes. If I were atheist I know I would.

“I assume you would deny that your mother is your parent in order to save your life. Why would you not deny God for the same reason?” Only if she were atheist, no I’m just joking. In fact even if she was atheist I would not deny her for my life unless it was something trivial.

“It is a virtue to run into a burning building to save a trapped person, but it is not morally required that you do so.” I don’t think so, it is heroic and virtuous but you could be mixing courage with recklessness. If you are clearly able to save some one than it is required you do. But if you’re risking your life for another than it really is just up to the person. But if you clearly see that you won’t make it out alive and neither will the other this might be considered recklessness.

“Now what if the gun were pointed out the window and a passing stranger was going to be shot every time you refused to deny God?” You’re making this easy almost telling me what I should say. I would of course say I don’t believe in God (but as you’ve said before you can’t force me to actually believe this). But the way you’re doing this you’re making me out to be a martyr, I’m sinning yes of course but I’m sacrificing myself for others, and I hope God would forgive my choice if it so happens to be wrong.

“As an aside, I’d assume that God wouldn’t want someone to keep Kosher if doing so would mean they would starve to death, or demand that they stay where they are in face of persecution.” For a person that doesn’t believe in God you sure have a lot of opinions of what he wants. I don’t claim to know what He wants in every situation but I think it is safe to say that he wants what is best for your soul. If this means facing death over one of his laws so be it, if it means running off over the minor ones so be it. I find what you’re saying here relevant.

“I think I understand what you mean about Jesus dying on the cross in the context of a parent letting a child go through tough times, but I don’t know if it’s a good example for two reasons. First, because if Jesus and God are in a sense the same person, the analogy becomes ambiguous. And second, because God wanted Jesus to be sacrificed in the name of justice, not to defend his beliefs.” In logic neither of these objections would stand. First, (again) just because something is ambiguous doesn’t mean it is not valid or true it means we’re just not able to fully comprehend. Second I don’t see how Jesus didn’t die for his “beliefs” and for his Father and don’t let me forget our sins.

You almost make a good point about Herod but one thing Jesus was a baby and they were looking to kill him in specific because He was the one they feared (idk maybe because he was God), they were also told ahead of time. Another thing Jesus had what I call Purpose with a capital P. This is why they left, because he had to fulfill the purpose. I assume no one would stay somewhere if they knew they would get killed. And another thing we never mentioned that our kids would be killed for our beliefs. Jesus was no longer a child when he died. I will say that I would die right along with my child if I needed to defend my beliefs like a “Jew” or “Polish Catholic” in Nazi Germany.

“then he is a physical being and natural, even if he is outside our universe. I’m with you there.” Well, obviously you’re not. I like the way you try sneaking it past me. I never said that he was outside our universe that is clearly your own opinion. I’m also not with you when you say, “God couldn’t have created it since we are positing that God is within it.” I’m saying He Is the fore mentioned dimension. As for removing God from this dimension I don’t see how that would be possible.

“I wasn’t trying to imply that the brain is like a computer and therefore has a creator. That would be silly.” This is my favorite part. ( : Let us talk seriously about silliness. Sure intelligent design sounds crazy and funny for those atheist and evolutionary biologist that take things at face value. But wait one moment let us look at the other explanations these evolutionary biologist have for life on earth. First that dust very slowly evolved legs and we’re really just a “disease of the dust”, that’s a 5/10 on funniness. Next that lightning struck a biological mud pool and created life by perfectly aligning around 250 or so proteins creating an organism that was not only able to sustain itself but replicate, that’s a 6/10. Next, life first formulated on the back of magical crystals, getting funnier and funnier but just a 7/10. Last my favorite is the beliefs of Richard Dawkins, of the entire Scientologist cult, and all the crazy delusional sci-fi readers. The belief that long before there was life here on earth there was life on a different planet that evolved much quicker and gained much more advanced technology and was able to start life here on earth, not to mention this leaves out their story on how they came about, this is a 10/10 in my book. Do you wish to add to this list?

“These people don’t want to know the truth; they want to believe that God exists, whether or not it is true.” Maybe they know that it is true and either don’t know how to explain it or aren’t smart enough to defend their beliefs either way it is more respectable to decline discussion for these reasons then denying your beliefs all together. I myself like to debate.

Next you said something about how the brain is not supernatural. Well of course not according to what you say natural is, thank God that is not the only way we can use it. Now if we allow natural to mean a much more natural meaning then you can see that we humans are in a sense unnatural. If you really want to compare man to the animals you’ll see that we are way more different then we are alike. This is my Chesterton coming out. In fact how can we say that the animals are “wild” when they are way more predictable then we are. If you want to be honest with yourself it doesn’t take much to see this. We truly are the ones that have broken out of nature and gone wild, we are the savages. Whether you want to discuss it in this sense or not it is undeniable. Airplanes don’t exist in nature neither does clothe. I could go on but I need to know what you have to say so as not to waste your time.

“(for example, brain damage can remove knowledge).” This explains that knowledge is a function really? So cutting off my arm proves that I can throw a football. I guess this makes some sense.

In reference to sum and parts: I have in fact read books and seen ink; I see your point here. But thought, I have thought and thought and have never seen one or seen how one can be so real. In fact the human thought I don’t think has ever been explained to me fully so I would have to say this is not even a good comparison for the whole explanation might include something supernatural or at the very least alien.

“Now thought is a state of the brain I thought it was a function.” Here I was just trying to point out how you seemed to have switched the context of the word you were using. You in a sense changed the sense of the word. What I was getting at is that you’re changing the sense of the word function and seem to not let me change the sense of the word natural, that’s all, no contradiction.

I find it fascinating that you believe that a “thought is a piece of information stored in a brain state.” You might be taking this on pure faith since I don’t see it at all. What exactly is a brain state anyway?

As for the evolution of language, if you mean the change of language I’m all for it, but I’d have to insist we quit using the word evolution since it creates ambiguity where it can be avoided.

“I agree that there are likely things that will never be fully explained, but how do we know what those things are unless we try to explain them and see if the explanations work?” I guess your right we should just randomly guess and which ever story makes the most sense we’ll hold to be true at least that is what we are doing now.

“that is why science has room to progress” Science does not grow or have room for progress. It is already perfect and we are just adding knowledge to it. It only has room for truth not for “progress” and what ever that might mean. And when I say, “God did it” it’s because he did, he told me and you. I am not trying to fill any gap that is what you in fact are doing when take all this so called “evidence” to be true. The gap this “evidence” bridging together is oddly enough in the shape of God, who would have thought.

“I don’t think social sciences propose that things that are right and good persevere” They don’t that is what I propose. Look at all the great cities or countries in our history and how they were founded or protected and then how they fell apart.

“I will agree that the Bible gives better reasons for loving God than I could, but all of these reasons assume that God exists in the first place, so they don’t do much for me.” I guess you missed the point because God and the good seem to be very closely related if not the same for God is the source of all good. And if it gives better reasons to love the good then you do then take that as proof.

As for how beliefs developed I in particular don’t care but I am reading Chesterton and he is talking about the origin of myths and he is comparing myths of savages to the metaphors of poets which I think to be reasonable. So when you use the word “correct” in a sense pagans and savage myths are more correct than Darwinism or dare I say atheism, because they were invoked by deeper feelings and in trying to describe the indescribable we get these myths that sound a lot like metaphors for something deeper, but I suppose that doesn’t get us anywhere.

“That sounds like an intellectually dangerous way to live.” How can someone live intellectually and not supernaturally according to what you’ve said about what is natural?

A true skeptic doesn’t know whether or not they are in a dream or awake. A true skeptic doesn’t know what they’ll find when they open the door to their house (could be a different dimension). A true skeptic truly doesn’t “know” anything. But I suppose this is the philosophical term for it. If you mean it to say you question then I to am skeptic. I am confident in my belief in Christianity and that is why I’m here discussing it with you.

“found it to be the best explanation available.” I would suggest looking up more on intelligent design. When I first looked at intelligent design I thought it was a joke but the more I think about it the more it fills the spots that micro evolution doesn’t explain and the more evidence that is shown through nano-technology. The slow process of evolution might not be part of your thinking but it is of Richard Dawkins, whom by the way is an avid atheist evolutionary biologist. Back to ID I think you should look at what they say about flagellum and their motor and you’ve probably already read about the concept of irreducible complexity. At first glance it doesn’t seem like much but it is a solid argument. I don’t see how evolution explains this.

“How do you know truth without evidence?” This assumes that you know that you can know. How does one know?

“I think you are doing yourself a disservice here. If the Gospels are intended as history, then you have to explain why their chronology is not identical. If they are not strictly history, then this isn’t that big of a deal.” I can easily explain this they were written from the memory of different men. They are eyewitness accounts that almost seem identical and were not written at the same time or place. We convict people on less. Can you please explain to me every piece of history that doesn’t make chronological sense or any court case in history were a man should not have been convicted due to such overwhelming eyewitness testimony, I doubt it. I’ve read that in these days memory was incredibly important and people, besides being incredibly smart, lived on a reliance of memory. (This goes to show that there is no such thing as mental evolution). Also it is said that a lot of scripture was memorized, I can’t say the same for me today.

As for Mathew 21:5 I read it in my Bible and both seem to be identical. But I still need to look into the Hebrew form and the tradition of repeating things so I’ll need more time on this.

“I am actually far more interested in whether people have valid moral and ethical systems than I am in whether or not they believe that God exists.” This in a sense is cutting off the real sense of morality. For I believe morality implies universal code and a God. And if God is real shouldn’t you find that to be the most important thing. Again if all good was derived from God then you couldn’t separate the two.

I appreciate your time and effort on the responses so thank you.

When I said “time acts like a physical thing” you picked up on the word “like”. I did not mean to imply that time is not a physical thing, and apologize if I was being inexact. (As an aside regarding your example, humans are scientifically classified as apes.)

You ask how eternal is just a measure of time if it implies unchanging, everlasting, or always existing. I’d say that “everlasting” and “always existing” are references to time (specifically, to how long something has existed). I wouldn’t say that “eternal” implies “unchanging,” although it is sometimes used in that sense in discussions of philosophy. If you like, we can use this definition of eternal, but doing so has implications for phrases like “Jesus grants you eternal life” which may or may not be acceptable to you.

I disagree that “there is something in us that links our thoughts to one another.” We can agree to disagree on that one if you like, or you can give me a specific example of what you mean.

You say that you don’t see how anything can exist without eternal substance. I agree that there must, in some context, be an unbounded period of time during which things exist. I understand that you use eternal to imply unchanging — why do you feel that something unchanging must exist? Also, are you agreeing that if God, by your definition, is natural that God exists within time?

You are saying that I refuse to see the human mind as not natural. I agree that this is because of my definition of natural. But by defining supernatural to include the human mind, we must include other things in the definition of supernatural that certainly do not belong there or make the definition so broad that it contributes nothing to the conversation. If you can give me an alternate definition of natural that doesn’t have these problems, I’ll happily consider it. But since everything I know points to the mind as a function of the brain, I can’t consider it supernatural any more than I can consider the beating of my heart to be supernatural.

You point out that if we don’t know enough about the creation of the universe to assume it was supernatural, then we can’t assume it was natural. I agree with that and I don’t assume it was natural. However, I’d say that natural theories currently have the advantage over theories involving the supernatural, in that they agree with the evidence.

Let’s see if we can find some common ground on the subject of biology. I agree that parts of biology, such as elements of the study of how an animal matures, could exist without the theory of evolution. Is that the kind of thing you are referring to when you disagree with the statement “if evolution is wrong, all of biology is wrong”?

I agree that evolution being widely accepted does not make it correct; I was responding to what seemed like your implication that evolution was not widely accepted among scientists. You say you have yet to see “such amazing evidence” of evolution. Let me ask first what reading you have already done regarding evolution. Once I know that, I can try to give you some examples that you have not already considered (so that I don’t waste both of our time by bringing up things you’ve already seen).

You say, “As I recall the evolution of all things is still being researched.” That’s true, but then pretty much everything in science is still being researched. That does not imply that some things, like bird wings evolving from useless nubs, have not been ruled out by copious evidence.

Let’s talk about the definition of “theory” for a moment. In science, “theory” doesn’t mean “unproven” or “speculative” or anything like that. Any group of propositions that accounts for the evidence is a theory to a scientist. For example, the theory of relativity has been massively corroborated by experimentation, but it’s still called a theory.

You ask, “If there is so much evidence then again why is it still a theory?” No matter how much evidence there is for evolution (or any other scientific explanation) it will always be a theory. For example, Newton’s law of universal gravitation is referred to as a law, but it’s part of gravitational theory. You can’t say that it’s referred to as a law because it has been proven to be true, because it isn’t true (it’s an approximation).

It sounds like your biology professor may have done a poor job of presenting cetacean evolution. It’s true that some of the animals in this evolutionary chain were land animals and some were sea creatures, but this doesn’t mean that scientists can’t make up their minds (as it sounds like you imply). The bones of these creatures make a logical evolutionary series — some characteristics of which scientists predicted before the fossils were found. Modern whales have some skeletal features that don’t make much sense except in an evolutionary context (such as vestigial leg bones “floating” in the bodies of some species). As an aside, occasionally modern whales and dolphins are born with miniature legs, and this makes complete sense in an evolutionary context.

Regarding whether evolution is controversial. I meant that it isn’t controversial in scientific circles any more than “the earth is more than 6,000 years old” or “humans have walked on the moon” are controversial in scientific circles.

I agree that there are many intelligent people who argue for intelligent design, and in fact I subscribe to a number of podcasts by such people and have read many of their books. They generally either misstate the case for evolution or agree with the bulk of it, up to the point that it disagrees with their religious viewpoint, at which time they throw Occam out the window.

Referring to Expelled — I was very disappointed by it. The examples of people expelled for their scientific beliefs were, in my opinion, largely weak (for example, I’d say that not getting tenure is a far cry from being fired). The movie also spent a lot of time poking fun and showing silly pictures instead of actually making arguments. I had honestly been hoping for something with a lot more meat to it.

You ask what theory I am referring to when I say that evolutionary theory can be tested. I’m talking about the theory of evolution in biology. This theory makes a number of testable predictions, for example regarding what will be found in DNA or in certain layers of strata.

You say you are leaning toward intelligent design. Given your context, that makes sense. I would encourage you to reconsider the Catholic church’s opinion on this subject (which you said you disagree with), since I think they do a nice job of marrying science and theology in this area.

You say, “Then any purpose I assign to myself gives my life meaning.” It gives it meaning so far as you are concerned, yes. “Well in Philosophy wills seem to contradict each other all the time meaning someone is right and someone is wrong.” So far as these purposes do conflict with one another (they do not always), this is true. For example, if one person’s purpose is to spread Islam and another person’s purpose is to spread Christianity, than at least one of them is wrong in the sense that their purpose is to spread a false belief. But I would not say that either of these people has a “wrong purpose” — their purpose gives their life meaning, even if it is based on a false philosophy.

I should reiterate that when I say “gives meaning” in this context, I’m talking about a purpose giving one’s self meaning. I do not intend to imply that it gives one’s life meaning in some global, metaphysical sense.

Let’s talk about Hitler for a moment. It’s true that there were many influences on Hitler’s philosophy (if we can even call it that), and that many have argued that Darwinism fed into it. That’s possible, but since Darwinism has to be pretty seriously abused to support genocide, I don’t think it’s a black eye on the theory of evolution. (I think we’d agree that abuses of a philosophy or theory don’t prove the philosophy or theory wrong).

You continue, “And if creating a utopia on earth meant killing all the weaker species than so be it. This sounds like a valid moral system from what you’re saying.” It’s a valid moral system if it doesn’t contradict itself (which I believe Nazi philosophy did), and it allows others to think in a similar way (which Nazi philosophy certainly doesn’t — to do so it would have to hold morally blameless any race that thought Aryans were inferior and deserving of death). So no, Nazi philosophy is not a valid moral system.

I agree that, in reference to the Holocaust, non-Jews often are forgotten in conversation and that this is wrong.

I mentioned that the formal morality and ethics of those forms of Christianity and Judaism I have investigated do indeed fit my criteria for valid systems, and you asked what the “few sad exceptions” I mentioned were. These would generally be small “cult” groups which are more at the mercy of a charismatic leader than in the service of a valid moral system.

Regarding death because of religion. You ask, if a dictator, “wanted all atheists to die would you say your atheist and die hoping your legacy invokes some changes. If I were atheist I know I would.” It depends on the circumstance. I think I’d prefer to stay alive and fight the system rather than die pointlessly. If I had a chance to be a high-profile martyr, that might be a different story (and that might be what you meant), but then I wouldn’t be dying because I refused to lie about my beliefs, I’d be dying for a greater good. I think the morally important question is whether you would refuse to deny your beliefs at peril to yourself even when there is nothing to gain.

You say that you would not deny your mother “unless it was something trivial.” I don’t understand what you mean here. For example, if someone wanted to kill anyone related to your mother, would you consider that trivial?

Regarding running into a burning building, you say you are required to save someone if you are clearly able to do so, but if you’re risking your life it’s a personal choice (I agree that if there’s no chance of success you’re being reckless). I would say that one is definitely morally required to help another where the personal cost (in terms of both real cost and risk) is insignificant compared to the risk to the other. For example, if I can save a life by pushing a button that is right in front of me and there are no additional circumstances, I am morally required to do so. I think we can agree on this. Where we may differ is I can’t think of a realistic situation in which “saving someone trapped in a burning building” entails insignificant risk. That’s why I say it would be virtuous to save the trapped person, but not morally required.

I agree that the problem of whether you should deny God to save others from being shot is easy (or, at least, that it should be). Can you explain to me why denying God with words in this context would be a sin?

You say, “For a person that doesn’t believe in God you sure have a lot of opinions of what he wants.” If God is perfect, then he is morally consistent. I can form opinions based on that. Since Jewish law supports my position on this subject, I’m glad we agree on my original point that God wouldn’t necessarily prefer blind obedience to death.

Talking about Jesus dying as an example of a parent letting a child go through tough times, I agree that something being ambiguous doesn’t make it untrue, but something being ambiguous may make it a poor example, and that was my contention.

Continuing, you say, “Second I don’t see how Jesus didn’t die for his ‘beliefs’ and for his Father and don’t let me forget our sins.” Just to make sure we’re talking about the same thing, I’m discussing why God wanted Jesus to be sacrificed, not why (in earthly terms or from Jesus’ point of view) Jesus was put to death. In this context, God sent Jesus to Earth to die so that sinners could enter heaven but justice could still be served. Given this, I would say that God didn’t let Jesus experience tough times, but rather God sent Jesus to be tortured and die. I think that’s a significant distinction in the context of our conversation.

Regarding Mary and Joseph fleeing to save baby Jesus: we agree that nobody would stay somewhere if they knew they (or their children) would be killed. You mention dying along with your child like a Holocaust victim and this is a good analogy. I would point out that some people sent their children away — sometimes to the point of having their children raised in a different faith — to save them from the Nazis.

Getting back to our original discussion, where is the point at which one is morally required to stand up for one’s beliefs when their child is at risk? We agree that Mary and Joseph didn’t have to make a show of faith when their faith would have endangered their child. So, dialing this way back, if a child is the only Christian in a class of Muslim children and will be shunned or otherwise hurt if it is known she is not Muslim, should the child’s parent make sure everyone knows the child’s religion if the subject does not come up?

Regarding my saying God was outside our universe, I was not trying to sneak anything by you — I honestly assumed that was what you meant since you hold that God created our universe. Let me try this another way. You say that God exists within a dimension and that this dimension is not outside our universe. Doesn’t this imply that this dimension, which is part of our universe, has always existed?

You want to talk about silliness and then misstate a number of scientific theories for the origin of life in mocking terms. Do I want to add to the list? Sure: Maybe a magic guy spent six days making everything and then took a nap. Can we discuss this seriously and politely, or do I have to get into how the magic guy wants people to drink his blood?

Regarding people who I say don’t want to know the truth, you posit that perhaps, “they know that it is true and either don’t know how to explain it or aren’t smart enough to defend their beliefs either way it is more respectable to decline discussion for these reasons then denying your beliefs all together.” That statement seems in conflict with your definition of “know” which includes truth. What if some of these people only think they know but are wrong? In that case, they wouldn’t want to know, right?

Back to humans being somehow not natural. You talk about airplanes and clothing not existing in nature. This sounds like you are defining natural as “not of human origin.” This is a valid definition when, for example, talking about a product’s ingredients, but it has no philosophical benefit that I can see in the context of our conversation. Wouldn’t you agree with me that airplanes are neither supernatural nor concepts? If they are not natural, then what are they?

You say, “If you really want to compare man to the animals you’ll see that we are way more different then we are alike.” By what measure? We are almost genetically identical to chimpanzees, for example. True, our intelligence is greater than that of other animals, but many animals have abilities greater than ours and that doesn’t put them in a separate class. A Portuguese man o’ war is massively different than a penguin, but I am not tempted to say that one is an animal and the other is not. That a beaver can build a dam does not put it outside of nature.

To put it another way, I agree that humans are vastly superior to animals in intellect, but to me this doesn’t imply that we exist outside of nature in any sense.

You asked for evidence that thought is a function of the brain and I pointed out that brain damage can remove knowledge. You replied, “This explains that knowledge is a function really? So cutting off my arm proves that I can throw a football. I guess this makes some sense.” I don’t see why, as we progress with our discussion, you are coming across as more and more of an ass. I’m glad you agree with my point, no matter how rudely.

You say that the explanation for thought, “might include something supernatural or at the very least alien.” I would add that the explanation might just be something we do not yet fully understand. I have no problem with you positing that thought might be supernatural; I have a problem with you insisting that it must be.

You say, “I find it fascinating that you believe that a ‘thought is a piece of information stored in a brain state.’ You might be taking this on pure faith since I don’t see it at all. What exactly is a brain state anyway?” A brain state would be an electric or chemical arrangement in the brain. I am not taking this on faith, but rather consider it to be the most likely explanation given my knowledge of the current state of research in the area.

To help me get a better grasp on your point of view, can you tell me what you think the brain does?

Regarding trying to explain things, you say, “I guess your right we should just randomly guess and which ever story makes the most sense we’ll hold to be true at least that is what we are doing now.” This is obviously not what I meant. (As with your earlier mocking statements, you’re coming across as an ass, and I’m sure you don’t intend that.) We use evidence to form theories, and those theories are refined over time as new evidence arises. There is no random guessing involved. But to get back to my original point, do you think that a story about God creating languages is in some sense a better explanation than the scientific theory that languages change and separate over time?

You say that, “Science does not grow or have room for progress. It is already perfect and we are just adding knowledge to it.” It is true that science as a process does not grow, but science as a field certainly does grow as new knowledge is obtained. It progresses in the sense that it answers more questions and finds new things to ask questions about.

You say, “And when I say, ‘God did it’ it’s because he did, he told me and you.” What exactly did God tell us? If, for example, the Bible is God’s word, then would you agree that Genesis is a straight-forward telling of how the world was made? If not, then how are you receiving this information? From my perspective, it looks like many religious people accept science as truth and the more things science explains sufficiently the less things they attribute to God. I’d say this is a characteristic of “God did it because I don’t understand it” thinking.

In reference to filling gaps, you say (again sarcastically), “The gap this ‘evidence’ bridging together is oddly enough in the shape of God, who would have thought.” Are you saying that scientific evidence is narrowing the field in which it is reasonable to use God as an explanation? I would agree with that, but I don’t think that’s what you meant. If you mean something else, please rephrase.

Regarding reasons for loving God, you say, “I guess you missed the point because God and the good seem to be very closely related if not the same for God is the source of all good. And if it gives better reasons to love the good then you do then take that as proof.” My objection to the Bible’s argument was that it assumed God existed. Your statement seems to also assume God exists. I think that if you could show that “good=God” is a logical argument and not a definition, this would help me better understand your point.

Turning to how beliefs are developed, you say that Chesterton, “is talking about the origin of myths and he is comparing myths of savages to the metaphors of poets which I think to be reasonable.” I also think that’s reasonable. This is how the Catholic church treats the Bible’s creation story — it’s a “poem” about creation, not the literal truth. I can go with that. But I don’t think these stories have any truth value.

You say that a true skeptic doesn’t know whether or not they are in a dream or awake, etc. That is the kind of skeptic I’m talking about. I say that I am awake because the theory that I’m awake is preferable by Occam’s razor. I can’t prove it’s true.

You suggest that I look up more on intelligent design. At this point, I’m going to have to ask for specific sources that you would point me toward. I feel that I’ve researched this pretty extensively. You mention Richard Dawkins (I know who he is) and say that he considers evolution to be a slow process. Is he specifically against punctuated equilibrium? I had not heard this.

Discussing irreducible complexity in particular, you are right that I’ve read the argument about the flagellum, etc. The problem with the theory of irreducible complexity is that it largely discounts the possibility a current function arising out of a prior, unrelated function. It’s true that a flagellum without one of its components wouldn’t work as a flagellum, but it might work as something else. Indeed, a number of possible evolutionary pathways for the flagellum have been identified.

When I ask how one can know truth without evidence, you respond, “This assumes that you know that you can know. How does one know?” You’re the one saying you can know. I’m saying we can use evidence to get as close to the truth as possible.

Regarding the Gospels, you say that they are not consistent because they were based on the memories of different people. If you are saying that the Gospels are intended as history but are subject to human fallibility, I think this is a reasonable position. But my point was that the Gospels were intended not as history but as arguments for Christianity, and I think that this point of view is supported by the fact that different Gospels appear to be targeting different audiences.

On to morality, you say that my not caring if people are theists, “in a sense is cutting off the real sense of morality. For I believe morality implies universal code and a God.” Then we (obviously) disagree on what morality is. You are saying that someone who does not believe in God cannot be moral, yes? Regarding a universal code, I might agree that there are certain moral concepts that all reasonable humans would agree upon, but I don’t think there are many of them, and I think they generally concern rare situations (not killing babies for fun, for example).

You ask, “And if God is real shouldn’t you find that to be the most important thing.” Sure. That’s why I’ve spent so much time on the subject. And (to beat a dead horse) if I thought a book was the word of God, I’d read it before I read anything else.

“Again if all good was derived from God then you couldn’t separate the two.” Agreed, but I don’t think that this is the case.

I apologize for being “nasty” last time, I think frustration was setting in. Anyway I’ve tried cheering up the mood by being a little more “smart” and funny hope you like it.

“we can have either an infinite stretch of time or cause always preceding effect, but not both” So what is time? Isn’t it being able to tell that something has changed? I really don’t think time is a physical thing. Our bodies’ age but “time” doesn’t age our bodies. Does time age I don’t think so. I also disagree that it is more reasonable to say that infinity is any easier to understand than the eternal. The eternal I believe we said existed, right? This is what time is measured against right? Since time is always changing we can only see something changing in contrast with something that is not changing, doesn’t that make sense.

“It is also possible (I’d say likely) that we do not have a complete knowledge of the physics of time and that other completely natural options exist.” I would also agree that other completely natural options exist such as God since he created time, nature, and our mind he must then be natural. It could be said that He is so natural that this makes Him supernatural. (I’ll explain this below when I talk about the your natural) It could even be said that our knowledge is so small on this topic that we have yet to begin to discover what the eternal dimension will look like.

I think the supernatural can be proven by the mere fact that we exist and can talk. Our minds, whether or not you agree, truly is something out of place with nature. “then the razor would prefer the Greek gods to God” Very well but both are supernatural.

“You say that it can be assumed that the creation of the universe was supernatural. I don’t see why?” I don’t see why not.

“God is completely outside of the science of biology” I agree but the evolutionary theory is part of pop science. This theory is not biology, at least that’s what I think. But any way you put it this theory has had a major influence on the social sciences. Thinking that God is just a weird state we seek. Since we’re here you mentioned that you’ve read 1000 books or so, what makes you this interested on this topic? Maybe it is God given, at least that is what I would suggest; don’t bother asking what the social sciences will say.

Any evidence for macro evolution will do and any evidence that our minds have evolved will also do. Evidence for macro evolution will be hard to find because monsters don’t exist. Let me explain, in macro evolution there is no evidence that birds developed nubs before they developed wings. In fact the whole “only the strongest survive” is self defeating, meaning that this would not allow a slow natural adjustment to occur. If a bird had nubs that were of no use why would it survive to the point that it grew wings, this truly doesn’t make sense. Not to mention we have no fossil evidence of these malformed creatures that couldn’t survive. Neither do we have any fossil evidence that we slowly developed feet or toes or necks or eyes. And neither is there any evidence of these monsters that were trying to evolve wings or beaks or one eye but just didn’t work. But most biologists take this as fact. Well I heard once that true scientist don’t like to use the word fact or law and that is why they call it a “scientific law” like the scientific law of gravity. But in this instance they jump on this like it were true. I think they do it to get attention I truly do, if they stand up for something controversial they will be noticed. But further investigation will show them that there is no evidence for this type of evolutionary theory, and in fact this theory isn’t even a good hypothesis because you can’t even test it and there is no evidence to support it.

“(By the way, didn’t you say you were Catholic or leaning toward Catholicism? The Catholic church is pretty happy with evolution.)” Yes I’m leaning towards Catholicism but I don’t agree with evolution and if the Church does that’s just another one of their mistakes. To love something means you’re willing to change it or make it beautiful again you don’t just abandon it.

“soul, which I don’t think exists” psychology has the root word psyche which in Greek means soul this is what the original term was used for. Now people only think that the mind exists, though i have a hard time finding my mind half the time.

• I use “meaning” to refer to the purpose you wish your life to serve.
So everyone has meaning and purpose?
• Because a life without purpose would feel pointless to me, and I would not find that satisfying.
Life I believe is pointless either way what’s wrong with that, but why is the satisfying part so important?
• A valid moral system is (at minimum) a moral system that does not contradict itself and that is based on reasoning that is valid no matter who conducts it.
I agree with you on this, now does Christianity not fit this moral system?
• Are you asking if we can rank different types of meaning — “feed the poor” is better than “be happy,” etc.?
Is there some unqualifiedly better than others, if so why?

Major in the majors minor in the minors. “I asked what you would do if someone ordered you at gunpoint to believe that you are a bicycle.” Well I couldn’t do that because I don’t know what believing that I’m a bicycle would mean, but I know what your saying I could say I’m a bike but not mean it. But I would find this quite strange, if a person was serious I would assume they’re crazy and go along so that I wouldn’t die for no reason or at least not a stupid reason. Back to you if someone asked you whether you were Christian at gunpoint would you say yes to save your life or would you admit that your atheist and die for it. (many people have died to defend their paganism, ex. Holy Roman Empire) For some reason I’d think you’d say your Christian well so would I but in contrast I would die for my beliefs because I hold them to be true.

“It’s true that courage is a virtue, but I don’t think it’s a moral requirement.” I beg to differ what is the point of saying it is a virtue but not needed. All virtues interlock with one another and are all needed. There is no point in just having one of the virtues.

“I would find it very hard to tell a parent that they need to defend their beliefs (as opposed to avoiding the subject, for example) when doing so could leave their child shunned or beaten, and I would find it even harder to tell such a parent that it’s not those who are threatening harm that are to blame” Of course they are to blame for the harm if they do any but they are not to blame for someone not standing up for themselves. If you truly believe something to be true you would go to great lengths in defending what you believe is right, even if it means putting yourself or others in harm. Harm of course is bad but that shouldn’t change ones beliefs.

“I can see good arguments for either position, but am wondering what you would do.”
If I knew I was going to have my child take a beating I would be there for her. People that go through tough times usually become tough people, if they make it through. Jesus died on the cross for a reason and if the story is true (which i believe it to be) His father knew it would happen. I believe that this shows that life isn’t all there is, there are greater things than just ourselves.

As for time I really don’t think it has a physical existence and I believe you’re twisting the definition to fit your point. “Time is a dimension of space-time” I can’t grab it, which is the way I think the definition is supposed to be used. But for your sake time is \”physical\” what ever that means now. Well so is God, he exists in a weird dimension where He Is. But like I’ve said before I don’t have any “physical\” evidence of his existence, so this does us no good. But you insist on going down this road what else can I say. Also using this definition he would have to be considered natural now that I think about it since He exists both really and physically.

“I’d say that the brain is just a computing machine that we consider mysterious because we don’t completely understand it.” This is interesting you say that the mind is like a machine. Hmmm, almost like a very intelligent being might have created it just like we create machines, right. You admit that the brain resembles some sort of human design. God made us in his image, so He creates things in his image and we create things in our image such as computing machines. I’m sure this isn’t what you meant though.

“I disagree that all people, in general, want knowledge.” Well, I disagree with you. I assume you have children (if not I’m sorry for assuming). I have a daughter and I have plenty of nieces and nephews that are always asking questions in fact I would say that most kids are this way, very curious. Now as they grow older and lose this curiosity that to me seems to appear in us by nature seems almost unnatural. My point being that we all generally have a desire, a curious desire for knowledge when we start out. And some of us stay this way by choice or some of us get involed in other pointless things.

“The default position is that the unproven is to be treated as untrue until further evidence comes to light. Even when an issue seems settled, I think it’s worth examining new evidence.” This is a lot more clear thanks for clearing it up, I agree.

“That knowledge comes from thinking does not mean that it is not also a function of the brain” I also agree here in a way. It doesn’t sound like knowledge is function the way you mean it because many people who have brains use it to convince themselves that they can’t know anything (Skeptics for example, not you though because I don’t know why). I agree in this sense though, for example look what Bruce Lee says about knowing, “Knowing is not enough; we must apply.” Knowing is meant to be applied. Just like Aristotle would say.

“I hold that thought being supernatural is what needs to be proven here, not that thought is natural.” I don’t think so you’re the one saying that it is natural you have to present the reason why your claiming this.

“All of this is evidence that thinking is a function of the brain.” I completely agree that thinking is a function of the brain, though this doesn’t show how knowing is a function. Also just because it is a function doesn\’t make it natural, can we see a thought physically no, we can see electric impulses though that much is true. That they cary information that much i believe is also true. One problem electric impulses are not thoughts they are electric impulses. When I think I call it thinking I don’t call thinking electric magnetic impulses colliding through my brain, but I suppose you do.

“To be more precise, knowledge is having a thought that agrees with truth. A thought is a state of the brain and therefore not supernatural” Now thought is a state of the brain I thought it was a function. Oh well, to be even more precise knowledge is to comprehend the truth, and therefore even more so now then before supernatural. Let me explain we are the only animals that can comprehend the truth so this if not supernatural has to be extraordinary.

“You’re saying that I am not as clear as a book you haven’t even finished reading?” Yes.

“For example, it’s easier to tell a story about how a supernatural being created all the world’s languages than to explain how languages evolve” No, it is impossible to see how language “evolved” or how the world was created. There are things in this world that will never be explained and to try doing so is fruitless. To try to grasp an understanding of the world around us for practical purposes is reasonable.

“God did it” isn’t a rigorous explanation for where our universe came from” Neither is the Big Bang, not to mention the evolutionary theory. Just because something goes slow doesn’t mean it rigorously explains anything.

“You continue by saying that so far as the Bible explains things that are important, it does so more rigorously than I do” Yes it does here is an example. Love the Lord above all things. Well why you might ask? Here is a rigorous explanation (at least I take it to be), because He is the way, He is the law, He is the good, He is justice, He is your neighbor, He is the truth, He is all that is naturally good and right. Well if we love the Lord it seems like we’re under some sort of governmental system with rules and regulations. That is kind of strange isn’t it and the whole reason that the social sciences exist is to try explaining why things are supposed to be this way or how they came about this way, wait I know because they are right, they are good, and only such things will persevere. See the simplest concept of all is that people should love the good because it is the good, and this is what the Bible preaches Love God not because you’re forced but because he is the good. CS Lewis says something about God being more natural to us than ourselves. I think he’s right that our corrupt passions are unnatural and to strive for what is good is natural. To illustrate that point think about societies, if they follow this simple concept they will manage to survive with out blowing themselves up. Back to the social sciences I wonder why they care what others think and why they think in such ways. What is most important is what I myself think and why I think it, at least these things I can come to know. But it is easier to judge others as these social sciences are doing. But never mention to them to take the plank out of their eyes because they are the enlightened ones right.

“Whether or not I ultimately can be convinced cannot be decided by me” Everyone makes choices whether they decide to make them or not. Not making a choice is the worst choice a person can make.

“If a skeptic is someone who routinely doubts the validity of things that are stated as factual, then I’m a skeptic” Skeptics don’t routinely doubt, they doubt that the sky is blue (as you’ve done) and that the earth is real and that them themselves exist. Are you a skeptic I don’t really know but I do know that true skepticism goes nowhere.

“I prefer being a skeptic in this sense to taking stated facts at face value.”
Evolution is something I believe you take at face value. If you’re really unbiased and doubt your own beliefs you’ll see that evolution is not really explained. Then again this isn’t your belief you just find it more likely than God because it is a naturalistic explanation that explains that things happen very slowly.

This is a very good point, “I understand you have objections, but why don’t you just believe.” Chesterton, when asked about why he is Catholic he responds by saying that for the same reasons the smartest agnostic is agnostic.

“You seemingly imply that the truth is more compelling than evidence.” I think truth is evidence.

“You ask for evidence that the Gospels are unreliable. Well, they’re apparently written to make a point rather than just to relay history, and this introduces the possibility of significant bias” Well they are written to make a point the point is that the history is true.

If you can further explain this I’d appreciate this, “misreading or bad translations of Hebrew (e.g., Matthew 21:5). I think that’s a good start.” I need to know what your talking in reference to in the Old Testament since I’m not too familiar with it (weird huh me asking you for more information on the bible). And also I’ll need help from a pastor to help with the Hebrew translations so this might take a while to get back to you on.

I really am impressed that you care so much. Most people in this world don’t think their just sheep as Aristotle and Plato say, truly slaves to their desires. I again apologize for the “nasty” remarks last time and I hope the humor is a little easier on you.

Time is a tough nut to deal with, I’m sure you will agree. Let’s see what I can do here:

• “So what is time? Isn’t it being able to tell that something has changed?” I wouldn’t say so, because even if nothing changed time would still pass. Time is a dimension of space time that we experience as a sequence of moments, but I hasten to point out that people in different frames of reference may experience time differently.
• “I really don’t think time is a physical thing.” Time acts like a physical thing. For example, it can be warped by gravity. This is why the mathematics of space-time works.
• “Our bodies’ age but ‘time’ doesn’t age our bodies.” I agree, in the same sense that the Y axis doesn’t cause height.
• “I also disagree that it is more reasonable to say that infinity is any easier to understand than the eternal. The eternal I believe we said existed, right? This is what time is measured against right?” I think we need to back up on this one a bit and make sure we’re on the same page. So far as I’m concerned, “eternal” is a measure of time — they’re not separate things. How would you define it?
• “Since time is always changing we can only see something changing in contrast with something that is not changing, doesn’t that make sense.” I disagree. If I have a digital counter that shows a number which increases by one every second, I don’t need an unchanging counter to contrast it with.

You say, “I would also agree that other completely natural options exist such as God since he created time, nature, and our mind he must then be natural.” I’ll wait to see your argument about natural, but I don’t see how a natural thing can exist without time.

You say, “Our minds, whether or not you agree, truly is something out of place with nature.” We’re going to have to agree to disagree on this one, I guess. I don’t see anything about the human mind that seems to be incongruous with nature.

You make a good point: “‘then the razor would prefer the Greek gods to God’ Very well but both are supernatural.” As you indicate, given two supernatural choices, Occam’s razor can be used to select the preferable one. I think this is important because it shows that Occam does not automatically rule out the supernatural.

You say you don’t see why it can’t be assumed that the creation of the universe was supernatural. I’d say that we don’t know enough about the subject to make such an assumption. Decades ago when there really was no conceivable theory for a natural origin of the universe, I think it was definitely reasonable to assume a supernatural origin, but that is no longer the case.

You say that you agree that God is outside the science of biology, “but the evolutionary theory is part of pop science.” I don’t understand what you mean by “pop science” here. If evolution is wrong, then all of biology is wrong. Evolution is not a little theory touted by a few high-visibility scientists, but a widely accepted one, supported by evidence from many scientific fields.

It’s true that the theory of evolution has had an influence on the social sciences, just as it has on politics and other areas outside its domain. But I think it’s important to remember that this has no impact on whether or not evolution is true any more than abuses of scripture impact whether or not the Bible is true.

You ask why I am so interested in religion (in Judeo-Christianity in particular). I started out as a Christian wanting to know all about God since, let’s face it, if God exists that pretty much the most important thing in the world. Then I discovered that there were many kinds of Christianity and I set out to find which one was correct. That lead me to read about other religions, just to make sure I wasn’t wasting my time on the wrong one. After I realized that no religion was convincing to me, I continued learning about the subject for four reasons — the history of religious development is interesting, the more I learn about religion the more I understand human nature, and I find those religious people who seem to exhibit cognitive dissonance fascinating, and I am very interested in systems of ethics and morals. (As an aside, I said I have 100 books on the topic in my home — not 1,000.)

Let’s talk about evolution for a few minutes.

You say that any evidence for macro evolution will do and that it’s “hard to find because monsters don’t exist.” You then go on to talk about birds with half-developed wings, etc. It’s true that “monsters” of this type don’t exist, but fortunately evolution doesn’t require the existence of any such thing. Similar, it doesn’t matter if “only the strongest survive” is self defeating or not, since this isn’t what evolution requires.

As a species evolves, there are not “weak” or “monstrous” stages, hoping that they will one day evolve into something strong. Rather, there is a series of perfectly well adapted creatures that change over time in reaction to their environment, mutation, etc. The evolution of birds is still being researched, but nobody proposes that at some point birds had useless nubs that would one day evolve into wings.

If you have a chance, look into the evolution of cetaceans. There’s a pretty darned good series of fossils showing the evolution from a land animal to a whale, including the migrating of the nostrils across the face to the top of the head. It’s amazing stuff.

I’d say that the reason that most scientists treat evolution as true is not to get attention, but because there is a massive pile of evidence supporting it, and more evidence is found every day. Pro-evolution scientists don’t have their stance to “stand up for something controversial,” because it frankly isn’t controversial.

You are incorrect when you say that evolutionary theory cannot be tested. This is getting pretty far from our original topic, but we can go into that in more detail if you like.

I understand that you lean toward Catholicism but disagree with the Church’s stance on evolution. I don’t have a problem with that. But can you tell me, in a nutshell, what your beliefs are concerning the origin of life on Earth (the age of the earth, when dinosaurs existed, whether new species appear — that kind of thing, etc.)? This will help me understand where you are coming from.

Regarding meaning and purpose, you ask whether I mean that everyone has both meaning and purpose. I would say that a purpose gives your life meaning. They are not separate things. I may have been unclear before.

“Life I believe is pointless either way what’s wrong with that, but why is the satisfying part so important?” The satisfying part is important to me. I don’t intend this as a universal rule. I think that how one goes about giving their life meaning is a completely personal choice. You can believe that life is pointless if you want. That can be philosophically consistent. The only “meanings” in this sense that I would say may be worse than others are those that do not fit into a valid moral system (to take an obvious example, “killing all the Jews” is not a morally valid way to give your life meaning).

You ask whether or not Christianity fits my minimum criteria for a moral system. The formal morality and ethics of those forms of Christianity and Judaism I have investigated do indeed fit these criteria (with a few sad exceptions). If members of these religions all really followed the morality their religion teaches, the world would be a much better place.

You ask, “if someone asked you whether you were Christian at gunpoint would you say yes to save your life or would you admit that your atheist and die for it.” I like your answer about the bicycle, so I’m going to blatantly steal it. If someone is going to kill me for not being a Christian, I think it’s safe to assume that they’re nuts, and dying to defend the truth in the face of insanity is, as you point out, stupid.

You continue, “in contrast I would die for my beliefs because I hold them to be true.” Isn’t there more to it than just truth? For example, I assume you would deny that your mother is your parent in order to save your life. Why would you not deny God for the same reason?

You say, “I beg to differ what is the point of saying it is a virtue but not needed. All virtues interlock with one another and are all needed.” It is a virtue to run into a burning building to save a trapped person, but it is not morally required that you do so.

As we continue the discussion of who is to blame in these situations, please keep in mind that I am talking about atheists who live closeted lives (avoiding the subject of religion) to avoid persecution as opposed to atheists who lie about believing in religion. I agree with you that one should not casually lie about their core philosophy.

Moving on, you say, “If you truly believe something to be true you would go to great lengths in defending what you believe is right, even if it means putting yourself or others in harm.” I think this is largely true for one’s self (since that’s largely a moral decision), but once others are involved it’s a matter of ethics, and I think that can be very different. You say you would not deny your beliefs with a gun to your head, and I agree this is laudable. Now what if the gun were pointed out the window and a passing stranger was going to be shot every time you refused to deny God? (And for the sake of argument, let’s ignore the “I can lie because he’s crazy” defense.) I’d say this is a very different situation.

As an aside, I’d assume that God wouldn’t want someone to keep Kosher if doing so would mean they would starve to death, or demand that they stay where they are in face of persecution.

I think I understand what you mean about Jesus dying on the cross in the context of a parent letting a child go through tough times, but I don’t know if it’s a good example for two reasons. First, because if Jesus and God are in a sense the same person, the analogy becomes ambiguous. And second, because God wanted Jesus to be sacrificed in the name of justice, not to defend his beliefs.

A better example might be when Herod set out to kill infant Jesus. In that context, Jesus’ parents left the country rather than stay and defend their beliefs. I don’t blame them for doing so.

Getting back to time, you say that if time is physical then God is also physical, existing in “a weird dimension where He is.” Let’s try to sort this out a bit without getting into space-time (which I agree is a funky concept — I had to read quite a bit about it myself before being convinced it made any sense). If God exists in some dimension we can’t see (I have no problem with there possibly being dimensions we can’t see), then he is a physical being and natural, even if he is outside our universe. I’m with you there.

But if a dimension exists outside our universe, where did it come from? God couldn’t have created it since we are positing that God is within it. If it’s always been there, then we’re agreeing that there is at least one dimension that has existed whenever God had existed, and I would say that if we are assuming a dimension has always existed, why not remove God from the picture and consider that some unthinking process within that dimension may have created our universe.

On to my comparison of the brain and a computing machine. You are correct that I wasn’t trying to imply that the brain is like a computer and therefore has a creator. That would be silly.

I agree with you that people are curious, but we are defining “knowledge” as referring to what is true. I think that, no matter how curious they are, many people really don’t want to know the truth about certain subjects. I have met people who vehemently don’t want to discuss whether God exists because they need to know that God exists in order to feel good about life. These people don’t want to know the truth; they want to believe that God exists, whether or not it is true.

I say that thought being supernatural is what needs to be proven, and you respond, “I don’t think so you’re the one saying that it is natural you have to present the reason why your claiming this.” Since natural things exist, I hold that things should be considered natural until there is reason to believe otherwise. Even so, I think it’s reasonable to assume that thought is natural because there is no reason to think it can’t be sufficiently explained by natural processes, and the more we learn about the brain the more we can identify specific natural processes involved in thought.

You agree that thinking is a function of the brain, but say that this doesn’t show that knowing is a brain function. I don’t see any reason to draw a distinction; both are brain functions (for example, brain damage can remove knowledge).

You say that thinking being a function of the brain doesn’t make thinking natural, and that seeing an electrical impulse isn’t the same as seeing a thought. I’d say that the latter point is true in the sense that seeing a molecule of ink isn’t the same as seeing a book. But the sum being greater than the parts does not, to me, imply the need for any supernatural explanation.

In our discussion of knowledge, you say, “Now thought is a state of the brain I thought it was a function.” It sounds like you’re trying to sarcastically point out a contradiction in what I am saying. To clarify: thinking is a function of the brain. A thought is a piece of information stored in a brain state. One of the functions of the brain is maintaining these states. These definitions don’t seem to have any significant bearing on the conversation, but if it helps we can get as specific as we need to.

We next talked about how it is easier to tell a story than to find a true explanation, and I brought up the evolution of language. You say, “No, it is impossible to see how language ‘evolved’ or how the world was created.” I was referring to languages evolving over time (German, English, and French coming from common roots, Greek changing over the centuries, etc.), and I’m hoping that you simply misunderstood. It is, it seems to me, incredibly easy to show that languages evolve in this way. My point was that the Bible’s story about why there are so many languages in the world is much simpler to understand than the truth that languages change over time, but that doesn’t make the Bible’s story preferable or even (from my perspective) remotely possibly true.

You say, “There are things in this world that will never be explained and to try doing so is fruitless.” I agree that there are likely things that will never be fully explained, but how do we know what those things are unless we try to explain them and see if the explanations work?

Regarding my statement that “God did it” isn’t a rigorous explanation for the universe’s origin, you reply, “Neither is the Big Bang, not to mention the evolutionary theory.” I agree that both the Big Bang and evolution are not rigorous — that is why science has room to progress. But I would say that both are more rigorous than “God did it” because invoking God does nothing but replace something you don’t understand with something else you don’t understand.

You give an example of something important that the Bible explains better than I do. You say that the Bible says God should be loved because he is the law, he is good, etc., and that social sciences try to prove the same sort of thing (“why things are supposed to be this way or how they came about this way, wait I know because they are right, they are good, and only such things will persevere.”) But the Biblical passage is about why God should be loved, and I don’t think social sciences propose that things that are right and good persevere. I think you are talking about apples and oranges here.

I will agree that the Bible gives better reasons for loving God than I could, but all of these reasons assume that God exists in the first place, so they don’t do much for me.

I will also agree that “people should love the good because it is the good” is a laudable philosophy. I don’t see as much of that as I’d like, though, and I’m not sure I’d agree that to strive for what is good is natural (particularly since people won’t agree about what “good” is in this context).

You wonder why social sciences care what other people think. I’d say that social science is concerned (in part) with how beliefs and cultures change over time. You might argue that they are trying to explain away Christianity instead of facing the reality of it, but then what do we say about non-Christian cultures? I assume you don’t think that they also are correct, and if their beliefs are false, why not examine how those beliefs developed? And what about those Christian groups that have false beliefs? Isn’t it worth trying to figure out how those developed?

I said, “Whether or not I ultimately can be convinced cannot be decided by me” and you responded “Everyone makes choices whether they decide to make them or not. Not making a choice is the worst choice a person can make.” I am incapable of choosing whether or not to be convinced. Either the evidence is compelling to me or it is not. If I could choose to be convinced or not to be convinced, then I could choose to reach conclusions regardless of the evidence for or against them. That sounds like an intellectually dangerous way to live.

You say, “Are you a skeptic I don’t really know but I do know that true skepticism goes nowhere.” I would vehemently disagree with that. Because I am a skeptic, I can feel very confident and comfortable with what I believe because I know that I have sought the truth to the best of my ability. It sounds to me like you also sought the truth and found it. Would you say that you never questioned your own beliefs, or that your quest for knowledge lead you nowhere? And once you have reached a conclusion, what does it hurt to test that conclusion — as we are testing our conclusions in this conversation? As a Christian, you must be confident that there is an answer to any challenge to Christianity, so why not find out what those answers are?

Regarding my not taking things at face value, you say, “Evolution is something I believe you take at face value. If you’re really unbiased and doubt your own beliefs you’ll see that evolution is not really explained. Then again this isn’t your belief you just find it more likely than God because it is a naturalistic explanation that explains that things happen very slowly.” You are severely misstating my position here. I think that evolution is a good explanation because I have significantly investigated it — including reading many books by creationists and proponents of intelligent design — and found it to be the best explanation available. Even though evolution is a naturalistic explanation, if it did not seem to make sense I would not prefer it to a supernatural explanation. As for preferring it because “things happen very slowly” — I don’t know why you keep bringing that up. I am actually skeptical that evolution always happens slowly, and in any case I don’t see why a slow process would be a preferable explanation to a faster one. That’s not even part of my thinking.

You say, “I think truth is evidence.” But this assumes that you know what truth is. How do you know truth without evidence?

Regarding my saying that the Gospels were written to make a point rather than to deliver history, you say, “Well they are written to make a point the point is that the history is true.” I think you are doing yourself a disservice here. If the Gospels are intended as history, then you have to explain why their chronology is not identical. If they are not strictly history, then this isn’t that big of a deal.

I referred to Matthew 21:5. Basically, Matthew says that Jesus rode into Jerusalem on two animals, apparently because he misunderstood the Hebrew tradition of emphasizing a point by repeating it in other words (the Hebrew meant one animal, but said it twice for emphasis). The other Gospels have Jesus on a single animal. If you have a chance to ask a Hebrew scholar about this, I’d be interested to hear what he/she has to say.

“I really am impressed that you care so much.” Thank you for that. I really do care, and despite the great length of our debate here, I am actually far more interested in whether people have valid moral and ethical systems than I am in whether or not they believe that God exists. I think that if we all spent a little more time thoughtfully considering our actions, the world would be a much better place.

(Once again I’m posting without proofreading. I’m going to get my self in trouble one of these days.)

I would like to point out that most assumptions are unproven. Hence they are assumptions.

“Now to say that there is such a thing as an insoluble mystery is not to attack reason. It is to say that reason, by itself is insufficient. Reason has its place, but first it has its starting place, which is never reasonable. He says, ‘You can never prove your first statement or it would not be your first statement.’ In other words, there is no such thing as a reasonable assumption. (That would be an oxymoron.) Chesterton points out that logic is a process that can be performed with any assumption. He says that you can only find truth with logic if you have already found truth without it.”—Dale Ahlquist

Ockham’s Razor is trying to find preferred theories. If there is an infinite amount of time then there would be no beginning therefore no intermediate (at least in the physical realm sense it seems that everything does seem to happen in a natural series of cause and effect). We are now in a hard spot unless we believed that there was a beginning. So i believe it is more reasonable that something created time and existed out of time. This seems to be a theory that allows our natural thought process. This theory i believe than would be preferred. I don’t think Ockham’s razor disqualifies theories that have “new” things to them but theories that don’t make sense. I also don’t think that the razor would say that the supernatural is anything new especially when we are talking about the creation of the universe, i would say it could be assumed that the creation of the universe was supernatural.

Aquinas: I think it is better to move on since you haven’t convinced me and i obviously haven’t convinced you. Moving on i would like to know what you think the problem with Kalam’s argument is, since his argument makes more sense to you.

“But that does not allow us to paint the whole field with the brush of religion.” I’m simply not doing this. I said that your atheism, since it is based on popular science, is a religion. I think it is a given that today’s popular science is a form of religion. Let me reiterate, not all science is this way just today’s popular sciences. (social sciences, biology, and other)

“Do you have an example of something inexplicable that some people would say science explains but which Christians consider a mystery?” That’s easy God (the Holy Trinity). For in the Christian faith no one claims to know the Father and allows Him to remain mysterious so that the Son and His teachings can be understood more fully. Unlike the popular science of today which ever one you’d like to choose out of the social sciences (which are all based on unproved assumptions called theories), biology, or any other science im leaving out. In the social sciences they call God an “Oceanic Feeling” or the “Super Ego” if i remember correctly. God evolved out of our superstition they explain, He evolved out of our empty feeling. They never once think that the empty feeling can be filled. In biology they claim the same since everything nowadays flows from the evolutionary theory, man evolved from monkeys and then sought God, this truly seems to be the solution. But there is no evidence that man evolved and especially none that our minds have evolved. If you can provide proof of the evolution of our mind I’ll reconsider. (Saying that someday we will discover the origins of the mind through science is a cop out, or “unproved assumption”) Anyways the fact is that through these sciences people have a harder time explaining what morality is and why people should be moral (ex, only the strongest survive). In Christianity it is simple for us to be moral people because we don’t bother explaining our origins in this sense. If Adam and Eve actually existed that’s awesome just great, if their story is simply an allegory that’s cool too. I don’t claim to know this unlike biology and psychology.

So you oppose Aristotle’s ethics because he is theistic but you like Kant’s philosophy though he is theistic?

“Personally, I prefer my life to have meaning.” What is meaning? And why do you prefer it? Also what is a valid moral system? There must be a measure by which you mean meaning. If not there would be no point in using it the way you are. (Competition is not always a good thing either.)

“I agree that there are things worth living or dying for, but I would not globally include justice, good, and faith on the list, and I think everyone’s list would be a little different.” Obviously everyone’s list will be different but does that make them all right? I would have to say no since it is a mental impossibility, because some lists will contradict others.

If someone was forcing me to say i was a bike i would laugh and yell it at the top of my lungs, “I am a bicycle”. If someone asked me if i were Christian and they were pointing a gun at my face i would like to believe that i would say “Yes, im Christian”. I hope i would have the strength to die for my beliefs, especially my love for God.

“I blame the bigots they live amongst.” I would have to blame the atheist or for that matter any theist that denies their beliefs because they are not strong enough to defend themselves (im assuming we are speaking of full grown adults), this seems cowardice. Courage is a virtue. To blame others for something a person themselves can’t do seems like the easy way out.

Your definition of natural; “having a real or physical existence, as opposed to one that is spiritual, intellectual, fictitious, etc.” This is a very narrow definition that will not achieve anything as we will see.

“Is thought natural or supernatural? You say that being unable to see or touch thought makes it unnatural or supernatural by my definition, but I don’t think that is the case — there are many things we can’t see or touch that are perfectly natural (time, temperature, a vacuum).” But they are not part of your definition. You can’t make exceptions, this doesn’t make sense.

“I disagree that my definition of natural makes the mind a supernatural thing, any more than it makes a running computer program a supernatural thing.” You’re wrong, by your definition time, temperature, a vacuum, and running a computer program is all supernatural. They are things that are not physical, and by your definition not natural. We may be able to see the screen of a computer but we really don’t see the “concept of the program”, when the computer is shut down i would say that the program exists somewhere in the memory of the computer. Not to mention that the computer is nothing like our mind since it doesn’t think and imagine as we can without inserting any disks. Concepts would, by definition, be supernatural along with numbers and a variety of other things.

“Regarding willingness to know: “All men by nature desire knowledge” is merely a statement of human desire. “The default position is a willingness to know” is a very different statement because it introduces the words “default” and “willingness.” Saying that men desire knowledge in general does not imply that, in any given case, people desire to know the truth, but saying that willingness to know is the default position does imply this. Saying that knowledge is desired does not imply willingness to know the truth — one may want knowledge, but only be willing to accept certain things as “true”.” I honestly don’t think this makes any sense, especially the part about Aristotle’s generality not applying to every case. Just because i introduce new words don’t get fooled they mean the same thing. Nature seems to be a default position and, willingness seems to be a desire. I also think that knowledge is knowing the truth. If a person knows a lie i doubt anyone will call that knowledge unless they are fooled. To want to know means you want truth. That people don’t desire truth is to go against their nature, in my and Aristotle’s opinion.

“If when I said that the default position is that the unproved is untrue you said that all men by desire knowledge, then you would not be contradicting my point, but adding to it the desire for further investigation.” No. When the unproved is untrue it doesn’t matter how much “investigation” you do because you’ve already stated that it is untrue. You are sounding very skeptic and then turnaround and say that you’re willing to investigate reasonably, this seems unreasonable. Like the Chesterton quote, you’re just backing up your skepticism with your reason there is nothing reasonable about that especially when we are striving for knowledge.

“it is possible that only natural things exist. In fact, I think that is likely the case” Then there is also no such thing as natural, just what is is, there is no need for the word natural.

“Knowledge is physical (a function of the brain); truth is not physical (it’s a measure of reality). I desire the know the truth about all things, whether natural or not. That I am not convinced that supernatural things exist doesn’t mean that I am unwilling to consider their possibility or try to investigate their nature so far as I am able.” Knowledge is obviously not a function but an end to a means which is thinking. And i see no proof that thinking is a physical thing of its own. Thinking is something executed by our brain but thought itself is not the brain, this is where you’re making your mistake. Now if your going say truth is not physical this is another mistake because all truth would then be supernatural according to your definition. Knowledge is having truth in our mind. This is also not a physical thing making it supernatural. If you’re not convinced than explain it to me clearly enough so that i’m convinced (i doubt you’ll be able to do so.) This brings me to my next point if you yourself can’t clearly and rigorously explain things to an individual with at least half a mind (myself) then what puts you against the Bible? If it seems no matter how rigorous you explain something people still will not understand it. So far i think Aristotle and Chesterton make more sense then you (no offense) and they seem to believe in a God. The Bible i think more rigorously explains the things which are important than yourself, at least so far it does, and it is also easier to understand than yourself.

You say that you can be convinced, is this really true? It seems like you would rather defend your atheism sense this is fun in itself. Just like i think philosophy is fun. But your not making sense (i might not be either but what your saying about the natural truly doesn’t make sense) so it seems your putting your thoughts and priorities in defense of your atheism above really giving yourself a chance at being convinced. You really are being a skeptic. And this i really don’t think is a reasonable stance for philosophy. If i could politely suggest to instead of trying to figure out ways around an argument (that don’t make sense) and try finding truth, this will be the only chance anyone has at convincing you of anything. This might come off as rude, so I’ll apologize for that, but i think it’s true. I never said i could be convinced so don’t even bother with trying to convince me (I’ve already been convinced), you’re the one that says you’ll listen to “compelling evidence”. I think that the truth is compelling enough.

“I think it’s far more likely that the Gospels are so unreliable that we can’t make a fair judgment of Jesus in this matter.” Then bring to me some evidence that the Gospels are really unreliable. I don’t think we can discredit the Bible just because it has the supernatural in it. That would be like saying what Chesterton says about sailors, only stupid sailors saw Iceland, and the reason they are stupid is because they saw Iceland. This doesn’t go anywhere as you can see and is very unreasonable.

As for good and evil ill put that off for now.

It’s true that an assumption can be unproven. It’s also true that any conclusion drawn from something unproven cannot be considered proven. (I should clarify, though, that when discussing syllogisms I sometimes refer to the premises as assumptions since the person putting forth the argument assumes that they are true, not because they are unproven.)

You say that in an infinite amount of time there would be no beginning (true), and that in the physical realm there is a series of cause and effect (also true), and that we are in a hard spot unless we assume there was a beginning. I say that we are in a hard spot whether or not we assume there was a beginning. As I discussed in my previous post, as we understand time, we can have either an infinite stretch of time or cause always preceding effect, but not both. Since “something created time” and “something exists outside of time” both include concepts far more difficult and undefined than an infinite stretch of time, I prefer the latter explanation. It is also possible (I’d say likely) that we do not have a complete knowledge of the physics of time and that other completely natural options exist.

I disagree that the supernatural is not anything new, other than in the sense that the concept is not new. If the supernatural were proven to exist, that would indeed be a new thing, and this is what Occam’s razor is concerned with. If the age of a concept was significant, then the razor would prefer the Greek gods to God (which I personally think it should, but that’s an entirely different conversation.)

You say that it can be assumed that the creation of the universe was supernatural. I don’t see why.

You asked what the problem with Kalam’s argument is. It’s the problem I spelled out in my previous post regarding infinity vs. cause and effect. (Both Kalam and Aquinas have this problem, but in my opinion Aquinas also has additional problems.)

You say, “I said that your atheism, since it is based on popular science, is a religion. I think it is a given that today’s popular science is a form of religion. Let me reiterate, not all science is this way just today’s popular sciences. (social sciences, biology, and other)” My atheism is not based on popular science (as you define it). I also disagree that it is a given that these sciences are a form of religion (biology in particular — I’ll agree that some social sciences are at least problematic, if not religious). Please explain further.

I asked for an example of something inexplicable that some people say science explains but which Christians consider a mystery and you proposed God. I’d say you are incorrect when you say that the science of biology has an explanation for God — the concept of God is completely outside of the science of biology. As for social science (which, again, I agree has problems), at best it can attempt to demonstrate where belief in God comes from — it can’t prove or disprove anything about God Himself.

Discussing biology further, you state, “But there is no evidence that man evolved and especially none that our minds have evolved.” I’m going to have to hear your definition of “evidence” in this context, since from my perspective there is tons of it. (By the way, didn’t you say you were Catholic or leaning toward Catholicism? The Catholic church is pretty happy with evolution.)

Now, when you say that people have a harder time explaining what morality is and why people should be moral, you may have a point. Certainly misstatements of the theory of evolution — you refer to “only the strongest survive” — have been used to try and draw moral conclusions, and they should not be. Science is not a valid means of studying morality. However, even if believing in evolution makes it more difficult to be moral, that doesn’t prove that evolution is wrong — it, at best, proves that people have difficulty being moral if they are not being coerced.

You ask, “So you oppose Aristotle’s ethics because he is theistic but you like Kant’s philosophy though he is theistic?” No. I disagree with some of Aristotle’s justification for ethics because it involves the soul, which I don’t think exists. I think that much of Kant’s moral philosophy stands whether or not one is religious (and Kant does point out, if I remember correctly, that it’s easier to be moral if you are religious).

Responding to a number of items that you bring up in quick succession:

• “What is meaning?” In the sense of life having meaning, I use “meaning” to refer to the purpose you wish your life to serve.
• “And why do you prefer it?” Because a life without purpose would feel pointless to me, and I would not find that satisfying.
• “Also what is a valid moral system?” A valid moral system is (at minimum) a moral system that does not contradict itself and that is based on reasoning that is valid no matter who conducts it. Plenty of moral systems don’t meet these simple requirements.
• “There must be a measure by which you mean meaning. If not there would be no point in using it the way you are.” I’m not sure what you mean here. Are you asking if we can rank different types of meaning — “feed the poor” is better than “be happy,” etc.? I don’t know that this would be useful or necessary, but hadn’t really thought about it.
• “(Competition is not always a good thing either.)” Agreed.

Regarding peoples’ lists of things they would be willing to die for, you say, “Obviously everyone’s list will be different but does that make them all right?” No, having different lists does not make all the lists right. I see no reason it should. But you say that all the lists being right, “is a mental impossibility, because some lists will contradict others.” Since this is a matter of personal philosophy, the lists can be contradictory without being wrong. “Joe is willing to die to defend Islam” does not imply that Moe is wrong if he is willing to die to defend Christianity. If you are asking for a list of things that everyone will agree it’s worth dying for, I don’t have one (but I’d be willing to entertain suggestions).

You say, “If someone was forcing me to say i was a bike i would laugh and yell it at the top of my lungs, ‘I am a bicycle’.” Sure, but I didn’t ask about that — I asked what you would do if someone ordered you at gunpoint to believe that you are a bicycle. I assume you couldn’t do that. Similarly, I couldn’t be forced to convert to a religion at gunpoint. At best, I could laugh and yell “Jesus is my savior” at the top of my lungs, but I’d be lying to avoid being shot.

You say that you would blame the atheist or theist who was not strong enough to defend themselves, instead of blaming those who persecute them, and that “To blame others for something a person themselves can’t do seems like the easy way out.” It’s true that courage is a virtue, but I don’t think it’s a moral requirement. In particular, I would find it very hard to tell a parent that they need to defend their beliefs (as opposed to avoiding the subject, for example) when doing so could leave their child shunned or beaten, and I would find it even harder to tell such a parent that it’s not those who are threatening harm that are to blame. In all seriousness, if you knew that harm would come to your child if you announced your religious beliefs, would you stand up and tell the truth or sneak away, given the opportunity? I can see good arguments for either position, but am wondering what you would do.

I don’t understand how you are seeing a contradiction in my definition of natural. You can’t see or touch time, temperature, or a vacuum, but (per my definition) they have a real or physical existence and are therefore natural. I am not making an exception.

You say, “You’re wrong, by your definition time, temperature, a vacuum, and running a computer program is all supernatural. They are things that are not physical, and by your definition not natural.” Time is a dimension of space-time — it’s physical. Temperature is a measure of motion — also physical. A vacuum has calculatable properties in quantum physics, just like any other physical thing. A computer program is (essentially) an arrangement of electrical charges, and electricity is physical. All of these are physical things.

You say that a “computer is nothing like our mind since it doesn’t think and imagine as we can without inserting any disks.” To me, that’s like saying “a digital watch is nothing like a super computer, since it can’t help design airplanes or model weather systems.” I’d say that the brain is just a computing machine that we consider mysterious because we don’t completely understand it.

You say, “Concepts would, by definition, be supernatural along with numbers and a variety of other things.” Concepts would not be natural by my definition, but I would also not call them supernatural in that they have no existence in and of themselves. I could conceivably answer the question, “Where is God?” but not the question “Where is pi?” Concepts are neither natural nor supernatural. If everything must be either natural or supernatural, then anything that can be defined but doesn’t exist is supernatural, and I’m sure you can see all the problems that would cause (I wouldn’t say that my Aunt Frida is supernatural just because she doesn’t exist).

You say, “I also think that knowledge is knowing the truth. If a person knows a lie i doubt anyone will call that knowledge unless they are fooled. To want to know means you want truth. That people don’t desire truth is to go against their nature, in my and Aristotle’s opinion.” I will accept a definition of knowledge that requires truth. But given this definition, I disagree that all people, in general, want knowledge. They may want knowledge about certain subjects — or even most subjects — but there may be areas where they only want to “know” the truth if that truth has a certain form. We agree that there are some beliefs people will defend to the death, but there are some people who have so much invested in a certain belief (that their son is not a murderer, for example) that they will defend it to the death even to the point of discarding evidence just because it contradicts their belief.

Regarding the default position being that the unproved is untrue, you say, “When the unproved is untrue it doesn’t matter how much ‘investigation’ you do because you’ve already stated that it is untrue.” Perhaps I was being unclear. The default position is that the unproven is to be treated as untrue until further evidence comes to light. Even when an issue seems settled, I think it’s worth examining new evidence.

Regarding my statement that it’s possible that only natural things exist, you say, “Then there is also no such thing as natural, just what is is, there is no need for the word natural.” Not so. There is use for the word “real” even though only real things exist. And, I should point out, you seem to be treating my saying something is possible as if I am saying that something is definitely true (as you did with my saying that it is possible that Jesus was mistaken). This may be making our discussion more difficult than it needs to be.

Back to the brain, you say, “Knowledge is obviously not a function but an end to a means which is thinking.” I disagree. A person can’t have knowledge without a brain, and a person cannot think without a brain. That knowledge comes from thinking does not mean that it is not also a function of the brain.

“And i see no proof that thinking is a physical thing of its own.” I hold that thought being supernatural is what needs to be proven here, not that thought is natural. But let me take a stab at giving evidence for this anyway. Thinking hasn’t been shown to exist without a brain. Damage to the brain can impact thinking. Malformed brains frequently correlate with difficulty in thinking. Increased brain complexity generally correlates with increased ability to reason. Brain surgery can change how someone thinks. Even with our rudimentary knowledge of how the brain works, scientists can sometimes detect how someone is thinking about a specific topic by examining the activity of that person’s brain. All of this is evidence that thinking is a function of the brain.

“Now if your going say truth is not physical this is another mistake because all truth would then be supernatural according to your definition.” Truth is a concept, as discussed above. You continue, “Knowledge is having truth in our mind.” To be more precise, knowledge is having a thought that agrees with truth. A thought is a state of the brain and therefore not supernatural.

Now things seem to get a little nasty on your part: “This brings me to my next point if you yourself can’t clearly and rigorously explain things to an individual with at least half a mind (myself) then what puts you against the Bible?” You’re saying that I am not as clear as a book you haven’t even finished reading? That’s pretty harsh. I’d say that part of the problem with this comparison is that the Bible is neither particularly clear nor rigorous — if it were, I think there would be a lot less disagreement about what it says. Another part of the problem is that it’s always easier to make up a story about how something works than to explain how it really works. For example, it’s easier to tell a story about how a supernatural being created all the world’s languages than to explain how languages evolve. This does not imply that the story is a better explanation in any useful sense.

You say that no matter how rigorous I am people do not understand and that I am not easy to understand. I certainly accept responsibility for being unclear, so far as I am. But you also seem to be fighting my attempts to explain (as opposed to fighting my explanation) quite frequently by misstating my position, and that makes my job more difficult than it has to be.

You continue by saying that so far as the Bible explains things that are important, it does so more rigorously than I do. I have two responses to this. First, where are these rigorous explanations? For example, “God did it” isn’t a rigorous explanation for where our universe came from. Second, the Bible may explain things but it proves very little. I can explain to my child exactly how Thor makes lightning, but this does nothing to prove that Thor exist.

You ask, “You say that you can be convinced, is this really true?” It is true that I am open to being convinced. I am committed to changing my mind in the face of solid reasoning. This is how I became an atheist in the first place. Whether or not I ultimately can be convinced cannot be decided by me, but by the weight of the evidence.

“You really are being a skeptic.” If a skeptic is someone who routinely doubts the validity of things that are stated as factual, then I’m a skeptic (even of my own beliefs). I prefer being a skeptic in this sense to taking stated facts at face value. If you are defining a skeptic as, for example, someone who is against religion, then I am not a skeptic. As an aside, I think that a person can have completely reasonable, rational reasons for being religious, and I don’t think less of a person who is religious for such reasons.

You continue, “If i could politely suggest to instead of trying to figure out ways around an argument (that don’t make sense) and try finding truth, this will be the only chance anyone has at convincing you of anything.” I have read the Bible in several translations and have more than 100 books in my library on Christianity, written from religious, scholarly, and atheistic perspectives. I subscribe to several apologetic podcasts and read religious-philosophy Web sites. If I seem to not be considering an argument, perhaps it’s because I’ve been looking for the truth for decades and have seen nothing new in a long time. Every argument seems to boil down to, “I understand you have objections, but why don’t you just believe.”

You say, “I never said i could be convinced so don’t even bother with trying to convince me (I’ve already been convinced), you’re the one that says you’ll listen to ‘compelling evidence’.” So once you’ve made up your mind about something you’re not willing to consider further discussion? If that’s what you mean, I think it’s unfortunate. In any case, I have no desire to try and change your religious position.

“I think that the truth is compelling enough.” You seemingly imply that the truth is more compelling than evidence. How do you know what the truth is without evidence? Way back when we began our discussion, I suggested that you share what convinced you to become a Christian. You declined and that’s fine, but it’s starting to sound like that information might have helped us streamline a lot of this conversation.

Regarding the reliability of the Gospels, you say, “I don’t think we can discredit the Bible just because it has the supernatural in it.” I agree, but I also think that explanations that involve the supernatural require a higher level of evidence because the supernatural itself is unproven. If I read a document that claimed to be historical but said that ancient Egyptians could do magic, I would be particularly skeptical of it (can I assume you would not?) When I read about the Trojan war, I consider details of battle locations more likely reliable than explanations of which deities impacted the battle. I’ll give more credence to a sailor who says he saw a new island than one who says he saw a new island teeming with leprechauns. I require more evidence from someone who says they can predict the weather with psychic powers than from someone who says they can predict it with statistics. I don’t think any of this is unreasonable, and, in fact, I think it helps me not take many untrue things at face value.

You ask for evidence that the Gospels are unreliable. Well, they’re apparently written to make a point rather than just to relay history, and this introduces the possibility of significant bias. So far as they tell the truth, they do not always tell the whole truth. There are things reported in the Gospels as old-testament prophecies which are based on misreading or bad translations of Hebrew (e.g., Matthew 21:5). I think that’s a good start.

You had a great responses to what i said so i couldn’t help but to respond to them all.

Faith- belief that is not based on proof Belief- something believed; an opinion or conviction; or confidence in the truth or existence of something not immediately susceptible to rigorous proof religion-a set of beliefs concerning the cause, nature, and purpose of the universe

I believe we are guilty of these three things. You say you are not “convinced”, this is a belief in itself, is it not? Your are also not convinced, i take it, that He doesn’t exist, you just find it higly unlikely. Doesn’t that sound more accurate.I know it sounds a little more agnostic but that’s my point. I know your probably thinking, “I have faith that this conversation isn’t going anywhere. Bye!” But i appreciate the time none the less it’s rare that people can discuss ideas now a days. These on liners are funny but i bet i can come up with even funnier ones.

You’ve convinced me about the giants but not about your uncle.

“a possibility cannot truly become an impossibility just by being highly unlikely. However, I would say that something can be so unlikely that it should be treated as nonexistent” This is either contradictory or very ambiguos, why should something be treated as nonexistent? What about emotions? I don’t believe that God is highly unlikely, well maybe according to science He is but we discussed this already this is not the realm for science. I know you’ve heard the arguement that “it could have been just as easy for nothing to exist but things exist, they do”, though we really can’t determine the easiness of it, you still understand the argument. As for the greek gods there is a chance they exist but my Lord has told me they don’t, so for me at least they don’t. This is proof of my faith.

I disagree that my definition of truth is narrow. I also think that just because a thing is narrow doesn’t mean that it is of no use. That a man’s eyes were blue yesterday will be true for the rest of eternity, right? Eternal is something that is not bound by “time”, something that does not change. Sit and think about the word “moment”. We live in a moment and the moment comes and goes at every moment. There is something so strange here that can’t be explained. It is almost as if the moment was eternal because it is never gone we are always in it, though things change around us. The concept of the “good” has never changed. There has never been a good that everyone agrees with. So it can not change over time as you say. This atheist vs theist converstation we’re having was discussed by many before Christ and i think it is safe to say that the argument has not changed. How can it be that what was true on monday is no longer true on tuesday.

I was mistaken, sorry. You did propose a definition i forgot. So truth is something that agrees with reality. I’m not sure how this is different from what i have said except only that it is more ambiguous. How can truth disagree with reality? And how would miracles be explained? How does the existence of God disagree with reality? how does the nonexistence of God agree with reality? I can go on. Do you mean in accordance with science?

i agree with your response about miracles.

Now to taking things on face value. Well to tell you the truth that was the hardest part of me being faithful and for that matter Christian. How did God walk on water, raise the dead, and heal the sick. I honestly don’t know He was God. I really don’t have a complete definition of what God is, no one can. As for Mohamed i don’t know much about him except that he was a Christian follower at a point in time until he departed from the church because not a single priest that he met with could decide what Jesus was; Savior, God, prophet, or Man. So he leaves the Church and some where in there the Qur’an came about. (side note, Jesus is the most quoted prophet in the Qur’an) Now is it possible that this man spoke with God i believe so but isn’t it also possible he spoke with satan. I believe only the teachings can tell. A distinct difference from the Bible and the coran is that we believe in free will and the will of God, two diffent concepts or whatever you want to call them . In the Coran they only believe in the will of Allah, there is no human mistakes just Will. As for the others i don’t know much about but i doubt thier teachings make as much sense as Chrits’ do and there for i don’t care much about, sorry for somewhat avoiding the quetion, but i think you know my answer (it is possible). Another thing that is compelling in Christianity is the cruxifiction, why would someone let themselve be tortured just over a claim that He was God? That doesn’t make sense this man must have been crazy unless He was indeed God. And it He was God why would even He let this happen to himself there must be something to the story.

Aquinas. In Aquinas’ Summa he lays down the fundamental principles on which basis he wrote it on. I beleive it goes something like this; Theology is the master science of all other sciences, the other sciences would include philosophy and science. He says these are things that just help us see tiny glimpses of the eternal but can not explain them only the devine can through revalation. So his “intent” on this arguement is to show that it is very likely or shall i dare say true that there is something eternal that can’t be explained through a lesser science. He does this with one of the lesser sciences, philosophy. That is what i meant when i said his writing need to be taken in context to his whole work.

Really, physical evidence for the big bang? I haven’t been, as you say, convinced of any or by any to believe that the big bang is more a possiblity than God.

I really like what you said about gravity this time. It sounds pretty clear to me now. But in a way we still don’t know the actual cause for anything. Yes i move because electrical impulses in my brain are sent trough out my body or whatever but this (that bodies can move) i believe to be astonishing. The scientific explanation i believe is viewed as the end and not the mean. But who is to say. The body moving is truly remarkable and would near a miracle in my opinion.

The big bang theory and God can be investigated by science but they don’t get us anywhere. God’s existence can be tested by science it just doesn’t work. People use to way ill patients before they died and then immediatley after they died to see how much there soul weighed. This is a theory wouldn’t you agree? This is a test, no? It didn’t work, did it?

“I’d say that the significant possibility of there being an unknown naturalistic explanation is enough to qualify this as part of nature.” So nature is a part of God, i have no problem saying this. Oh brother talk about ambiguous. It seems that your coming around.(bad joke)

“not useful because it gets us nowhere.” Where are we going??? What is your measure, progress?

“how do you decide whether to blame your child or the gorilla?” Easy, common sense. In “reality” i don’t use these complicated thinking methods because they’ll slow me down. Unlike your uncle children lie in fear of spankings. I don’t see any use of Occam’s in at least this dicusion, maybe at a crime scene but not here.

“What isn’t safe to say is that there is a universal moral standard for when this is or is not okay.” How is this not safe? We spoke before on this you actually claimed, “I would say that morality has both subjective and objective elements.” This is very accurate i believe. And this is true i would insissit that it is very safe to say that there is a universal moral standard. A man should not kill when he knows he is wrong or thinks he can be wrong. This is a unversal moral law that i believe in. Now if a man is completely corrupt and doesn’t know it then in a sense he can plead ignorance. But how many people don’t know they are corrupt, or don’t know when they have done something wrong?

Didn’t mean to avoid the question i just misunderstood. That would definitely be murder,without a doubt. It is ok to love your children but shouldn’t justice, righteousness, and piety be first. CS Lewis says “once love becomes a god it becomes a demon.” I completely agree. Any how back to my misunderstanding, i would like to believe that there is a philisophical difference between manslaugter and murder. I got this actually from one of the greatest philosophers of all time, Aristotle. I would quote him except i let a friend borrow my Nichomachean Ethics (no joke). He says somehting on how a person can be unwillingly ignorant of a situation in and accidently cause trouble. Unlike our legal system he doesn’t think drunk drivers can plead manslaugter because they should know not to get drunk and should be held responible on how they control themselves. I guess i could check online for his quote but if you have this book it would be much faster to flip through the pages and find it yourself.

Sense i am not to familiar with the Old Testament i’ll take your word on this topic. But Jesus also said, And you shall love the Lord you GOd with all your heart, with all your mind, and with all your strength. This is the first commandment.” In a way things might have changed after Jesus came, i wouldn’t be sure on how to explain it because i lack in this department. But i will say this if God told me to kill a child i would do so only if i had faith engough to know it was my real Lord and not satan. I also don’t have anything against ambiguity your are the one that insissits on throwing it out but you seem at times more ambiguous than i.

Feel free to respond in full it just might take a little longer than usual for me to respond since i’m becoming more busy. I hope we can keep this going until one of us can understand the other. Or untill the issue becomes exhausted (which can take forever far warning).

You start off by defining terms, which I always appreciate.

Faith: “Belief that is not based on proof” is one definition of faith. Faith can also be trust based on past experience. If you only want to use the first definition, that’s fine with me (and it may simplify our conversation).

Belief: I’m okay with your definition, but hasten to point out that by this definition anything anyone is convinced of is a belief.

Religion: I don’t much care for this definition, but I will agree to use it for the purposes of our discussion if we can agree that the phrase “purpose of the universe” assumes that there is a purpose of the universe. If this is the case, then atheism is not a religion because it does not include belief in a universal purpose.

Now, applying these definitions, you state, “You say you are not ‘convinced,’ this is a belief in itself, is it not?” Are you asking whether my lack of belief in God’s existence is a belief? If so, then I would say that it is. By your definition of belief, it is my opinion that God does not exist.

You go on to say, “You are also not convinced, I take it, that He doesn’t exist, you just find it highly unlikely.” I disagree with this statement. The existence of God is so unlikely that I am convinced He does not exist. That’s why I’m an atheist.

You say that my statement, “a possibility cannot truly become an impossibility just by being highly unlikely. However, I would say that something can be so unlikely that it should be treated as nonexistent” is either contradictory or ambiguous. Let me attempt to clarify by way of example. Let’s say that you have $100 in the bank. You can log onto the bank’s computer an check your balance at any time. Now let’s say that the bank, for some bizarre reason, takes half of your money every day. On Monday you have $100, on Tuesday you have $50, on Wednesday you have $25, etc. In short order, you will have less than one penny in the account. That fractional penny will grow smaller and smaller each day into eternity, and at some point it will be such a small fraction that if anyone asks if you have any money in the bank you will be justified in answering “No.” Is it true that you have no money in the bank? No. Is it true that, for any imaginable practical purpose you have no money in the bank? Yes. This is not a contradiction.

You ask, “What about emotions?” Well, what about them? Emotions are not unlikely; they clearly exist.

You say you don’t believe that God is highly unlikely. That’s fine. But do you mean that you think God is not unlikely because there is evidence for His existence, or do you mean that even before you had any evidence you thought it was not unlikely that God existed? The latter point is the most important one for the purpose of this conversation.

You say that you believe the Greek gods don’t exist because God has told you they don’t, and that this is proof of your faith. What about the possibility that when you think you are receiving information from God you are being deceived? I’m sure you would agree that some people who think they receive information from God are indeed wrong, so how do you know you aren’t wrong (without saying that highly unlikely possibilities can be discarded)?

I agree that a narrow definition can be of use, but I think that your definition of truth is so narrow that it rules out some things you would not want to rule out. You’re right that the statement “the man’s eyes were blue” is eternally true, but I was referring to a phrase like, “the mans eyes are blue.” The difference is significant — I assume you don’t mean to imply that present-tense statements may not be true even if they completely agree with reality. Alternately, you might be saying that something is eternally true if it is true at the moment it is spoken, but that would be an odd use of the word “eternal.” Can you clarify?

You confuse me a bit with your discussion of the eternal nature of “good.” You say, “The concept of the ‘good’ has never changed. There has never been a good that everyone agrees with. So it can not change over time as you say.” Are you saying that the concept of “good” doesn’t change over time because people don’t agree what “good” means? I honestly don’t understand your point here. Please rephrase it, if you have a chance.

How can it be that what was true on Monday is no longer true on Tuesday? A day has passed, that’s how. If my child is one day old on Monday, she’s no longer one day old on Tuesday. But getting back to the roots of this conversation, can something be moral on Monday but immoral on Tuesday? It depends on how closely were are defining the moral situation. Something as general as killing your parent (without the circumstances carefully defined) may be immoral one day and moral the next because circumstances have changed.

You say that “truth is something that agrees with reality” is ambiguous because “how can truth disagree with reality?” By definition, truth can’t disagree with reality — that’s why it’s truth. “My grandmother is a bicycle” is not truth because it doesn’t agree with reality. “God exists” is truth if God exists. My definition differs from yours in a number of ways, but most significantly for our purposes it does not require truth to be eternal.

On this subject, you ask a number of questions:

• “And how would miracles be explained?” If the supernatural exists then some miracles are acts by a supernatural being and some are natural occurrences misinterpreted as supernatural acts. If the supernatural does not exist, then all miracles fall into the latter category.
• “How does the existence of God disagree with reality?” If God exists, then the existence of God doesn’t disagree with reality.
• “how does the nonexistence of God agree with reality?” If God doesn’t exist, then the non-existence of God agrees with reality.
• “Do you mean in accordance with science?” No. Science is one way of trying to find reality, but it does not define reality.

You ask why would someone let themselves be tortured over the claim that they were God (I’ll assume the Gospels are accurate about Jesus’ torture and death for the point of this discussion.) He might let this happen if he was convinced he was right. If Jesus wasn’t really God but believed he was, does that mean he was crazy? No, he might just have been wrong. He also might have believed he was something other than God but had his words and deeds misinterpreted. Or he might not have believed he was God but believed that his death would benefit his people.

You ask, “And [if] He was God why would even He let this happen to himself there must be something to the story.” Perhaps the simplest explanation for why God would allow this to happen to him is that he wasn’t God. If Jesus didn’t have the power to miraculously stop his crucifixion, then it is not surprising that he didn’t.

Aquinas: I understand what you mean, but I think that even taken as a whole Aquinas’ proofs for the existence of the divine are sorely wanting. For example, I’d say that the Kalam cosmological argument is much more rigorous than the argument of Aquinas that you referred to.

Referring to physical evidence for the Big Bang — I’m not clear on whether your are questioning whether there is any evidence or whether that evidence is convincing. There certainly is evidence (with cosmic background radiation being the most spectacular example), but whether it is compelling is more of a personal question. For me, evidence of the Big Bang is more compelling than evidence for the existence of God because evidence for God’s existence tends to be based more on lack of knowledge (e.g., “we don’t completely understand gravity, therefore God exists”) than on knowledge.

You say, “The big bang theory and God can be investigated by science but they don’t get us anywhere.” I completely disagree with this one. Research into the Big Bang has taught us quite a bit about how the universe works. I continue to maintain that God is outside the realm of science.

Continuing with this, you say that, “God’s existence can be tested by science it just doesn’t work” and then discuss experiments to see if the soul has weight. These experiments were intended to demonstrate that there was a human soul, not that God existed. That they failed does not prove that there is no God or that there is no soul, but only that if there is a human soul is has no detectable weight. Whether or not God our a soul exists is beyond science’s ability to test. I can think of no scientific experiment that would prove that God does or does not exist.

By the way, when you said that science can test for the existence of God but that it doesn’t work, aren’t you in effect saying that there are valid methods for testing for the existence of God but that these methods have negative results? If that is what you are saying, then you are implying that science can prove that God does not exist (in the same sense that when an experiment to detect radiation finds no radiation it means that there is no radiation). I don’t think that’s what you mean.

You respond to my considering things with a naturalistic explanation as part of nature by saying, “So nature is a part of God, i have no problem saying this. Oh brother talk about ambiguous.” Actually, by not allowing a distinction between natural and supernatural, you are the one being ambiguous. Instead of proving that something is caused by God, you are defining everything as caused by God. I could play the same sort of game in the other direction by defining God as “I don’t know.” So when you say that nature is part of God, I would respond, “So when you say nature is a part of God, you are saying that nature is another subject you don’t understand.” That would not be very charitable of me, and would not be useful for our discussion. Your not allowing a natural/supernatural distinction has the same effect.

You ask, “What is your measure, progress?” I’m not sure I understand the question. If you are asking whether I do not find something philosophically useful if it explains nothing and cannot be reasonably used to draw conclusions, then I will say yes.

I’ll quote the entirely of your response to my question about how you decide whether to blame a child or a gorilla since I think it is very important to our discussion: “Easy, common sense. In ‘reality’ i don’t use these complicated thinking methods because they’ll slow me down. Unlike your uncle children lie in fear of spankings. I don’t see any use of Occam’s in at least this dicusion, maybe at a crime scene but not here.” In this context, what is common sense other than selecting the explanation that invents the fewest new things? By invoking “common sense” here, you are using Occam’s razor with a different label stuck on it. It’s not a “complicated thinking method” at all — it’s something everyone does all the time, every single day. As for using this type of thinking “at a crime scene but not here,” wouldn’t you agree that the question of whether or not God exists is far more important than finding the solution to any crime? And if it’s so important, shouldn’t we use all the tools at our disposal? (BTW, it is surprising to me that you would value speed of decision making over being sure your child is not innocent, but that is a side issue so I won’t dwell on it.)

Looking at this from another perspective, I’d say it’s just common sense that dead people stay dead, donkeys don’t talk, etc.

But let’s go back to the child/gorilla example for a moment, just so I can get a real firm grip on how you think. Let’s say you are home alone and hear a crash from the other room. You go in and find that a lamp is broken. There’s nobody else around. The doors and windows are closed and locked. How seriously would you consider the possibility that God broke your lamp?

You say that there is a universal moral standard for how much clothing a woman can wear in public. Okay; what is it. You are right that I asserted that morality has both subjective and objective elements, and I would say that standards of decency are subjective, not objective — there is no quantifiable universal moral standard for how much human nudity is appropriate in public.

Discussing the morality of killing, you say, “A man should not kill when he knows he is wrong or thinks he can be wrong. This is a unversal moral law that i believe in.” I’ll agree with that, but it’s only part of the story. The real question is whether or not killing when you do not think you are in the wrong is ever murder and therefore morally prohibited. You continue, “Now if a man is completely corrupt and doesn’t know it then in a sense he can plead ignorance. But how many people don’t know they are corrupt, or don’t know when they have done something wrong?” That last bit — about knowing when you have done something wrong — is exactly where we get into trouble when we try to say “thou shalt not murder” is a universal moral law. Do you think that in centuries past those who burned women accuse of witchcraft knew that they were doing wrong, or do you think that they were not murderers? Is a lynching ever murder? Was Jack the Ripper not a murderer if he was a sociopath? If two tribes of cannibals hunt each other for food, is this allowed by the Ten Commandments because the cannibals think they are doing no wrong?

We can skip discussing the Old Testament since you’re not familiar with it (although, as an aside, I’d suggest that you make it a high priority to read any book that you think God had a hand in writing). But regarding the morality of killing babies, you say that things might have changed after Jesus came. But if some moral truths changed after Jesus came, then they are not eternal and therefore, by your definition, not truths, right?

I know these discussions are getting lengthy (I’m up way after my bedtime myself), so take your time replying.