If you're atheist..

[classthe_king]

If anything I've said has been wrong I would love for you to point that out.

[classthe_king]

If anything I've said has been wrong I would love for you to point that out.

wtf you don't know if God exists or not you just dont BELIEVE in him.

You're right. I don't know whether a god exists, I never said that I did. All I did was explain that it was improbable that a god exists and explained the reasoning behind why it's more rational that a god doesn't exist.

[Slim Fiasco]

If anything I've said has been wrong I would love for you to point that out.

wtf you don't know if God exists or not you just dont BELIEVE in him.

Yeah but the burden of proof is with those who assert the positive. You can't proof that there isn't a god, but you can try to prove that there is one. On that note, I know that god doesn't exist just by the fact there isn't any evidence supporting it. If you have some, feel free to provide them.

[Slim Fiasco]

well im the opposite, I think its improbable the universe could happen without a God

Why though? And again it's ok if you believe that but you kinda coming off as if it's more than a belief.

[Slim Fiasco]

well im the opposite, I think its improbable the universe could happen without a God

Why though? And again it's ok if you believe that but you kinda coming off as if it's more than a belief.

what do you mean?

Excuse me, I read impossible instead of improbable so that confused me, haha. But why do you think it's improbable, and have you at least considered the option of what was there before god?

[classthe_king]

well im the opposite, I think its improbable the universe could happen without a God

What evidence do you have to support that belief?

[Block]

If you're atheist, read the book God's Undertaker: Did Science Bury God? It's written by an Oxford professor of mathematics and philosophy. John Lennox, the author, delves into areas such as intelligent design, the genetic code (and how improbable it is that the genetic code just sprang in to existence), origins, etc. He's known for debating Richard Dawkins on the subject, and he disputes Dawkins's claims with science.

That being said, there's an immense difference between believing in a creator and formatting your life around an organized religion. Personally, I wholeheartedly believe that we were created. Why? The evidence in the book mentioned above, and the research I've done personally, is overwhelming.
Organized religions are the reason for most of the wars and suffering that have occurred throughout the history of mankind; however, God is not the cause of that. We as humans tend to attribute our selfishness and hatred toward one another to "God's will" only to use God as a scapegoat for our own animalistic instincts. Realistically, if God even does exist (I believe in the existence, but having never seen I won't proclaim it to others) he/it doesn't give a shit about what we do. Obviously.. And I doubt any of the natural phenomenon that we attribute to being 'God's wrath' is actually of 'God'.

In closing, It's in our nature to be territorial. It's in our nature to hate. It's in our nature to be selfish. The bible describes God as all those things. Why? Most likely because it's easier to take our own traits and paste them on to something we really don't understand, as a means to make that something more recognizable, than it is to just simply say, "I don't know." And leave it at that.


For anyone who wants the TL;DR version: I believe in a creator, not an organized religion's view of God. Read the book I mentioned above and you most likely will too.

[Maybe]

If you're atheist, read the book God's Undertaker: Did Science Bury God? It's written by an Oxford professor of mathematics and philosophy. John Lennox, the author, delves into areas such as intelligent design, the genetic code (and how improbable it is that the genetic code just sprang in to existence), origins, etc. He's known for debating Richard Dawkins on the subject, and he disputes Dawkins's claims with science.

That being said, there's an immense difference between believing in a creator and formatting your life around an organized religion. Personally, I wholeheartedly believe that we were created. Why? The evidence in the book mentioned above, and the research I've done personally, is overwhelming.
Organized religions are the reason for most of the wars and suffering that have occurred throughout the history of mankind; however, God is not the cause of that. We as humans tend to attribute our selfishness and hatred toward one another to "God's will" only to use God as a scapegoat for our own animalistic instincts. Realistically, if God even does exist (I believe in the existence, but having never seen I won't proclaim it to others) he/it doesn't give a shit about what we do. Obviously.. And I doubt any of the natural phenomenon that we attribute to being 'God's wrath' is actually of 'God'.

In closing, It's in our nature to be territorial. It's in our nature to hate. It's in our nature to be selfish. The bible describes God as all those things. Why? Most likely because it's easier to take our own traits and paste them on to something we really don't understand, as a means to make that something more recognizable, than it is to just simply say, "I don't know." And leave it at that.


For anyone who wants the TL;DR version: I believe in a creator, not an organized religion's view of God. Read the book I mentioned above and you most likely will too.

I couldn't disagree more. Of course, not just with you, but with all sides in this debate because I'm a cynic and my opinion revolves around not believing in anything that matters because that wouldn't be "ironic" enough from a spectral point of view.

Obviously it's unlikely that we sprung to life from nothing, but believing in an entity that has that power; that control over an otherwise million year long process... seems even more unlikely to me. The fact of the matter is, we don't know anything on the subject, and scientific "proof" is overly based on opinion, as is the religious aspect. We'll find out when we die.

BTW: I'm converting to Mormonism just in case.

[classthe_king]

If you're atheist, read the book God's Undertaker: Did Science Bury God? It's written by an Oxford professor of mathematics and philosophy. John Lennox, the author, delves into areas such as intelligent design, the genetic code (and how improbable it is that the genetic code just sprang in to existence), origins, etc. He's known for debating Richard Dawkins on the subject, and he disputes Dawkins's claims with science.

I agree with everything you said after this so I'll just ignore that. I haven't read that book, but I did look up a summary here and that wasn't convincing at all. He had some huge missteps in logic I'll try to address.

First, I don't know where he got that 40% statistic and if it's valid but 93% of the National Academy of Science didn't believe in a personal god and 72% were outright atheists. http://www.stephenjaygould.org/ctrl/news/file002.html

Regarding evolution, I don't know when he wrote this but there is TONS of evidence for evolution. The fossil record is booming with it and the dna evidence for it is astounding. To not believe in evolution is ridiculous. Here is just some of the evidence: http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/section1.html#pred4

Regarding abiogenesis, I can't believe he used Hoyle's fallacy. He has absolutely no idea what he's talking about on this subject.Here are just some of the reasons why the 1x10^40 calculation is wrong.

i. They calculate the probability of the formation of a "modern" protein, or even a complete bacterium with all "modern" proteins, by random events. This is not the abiogenesis theory at all.
ii. They assume that there are a fixed number of proteins, with fixed sequences for each protein that are required for life.
iii. They calculate the probability of sequential trials, rather than simultaneous trials.
iv. They misunderstand what is meant by a probability calculation.
v. They seriously underestimate the number of functional enzymes/ribozymes present in a group of random sequences.

If you look at a “self-replication” peptide from the Ghadiri group you see that it is 32 amino acids long with a sequence of RMKQLEEKVYELLSKVACLEYEVARLKKVGE and is an enzyme, a peptide ligase that makes a copy of itself from two amino acid long subunits. It is also of a size and composition that is ideally suited to be formed by abiotic peptide synthesis. The probability of generating this in successive random trials is (1/20)^32 or 1 chance in 4.29x10^40. Most people would say “Surely it would take more time than the Earth existed to make this replicator by random methods.” This isn’t true because that is only with sequential trials, as if there was only one protein/DNA/proto-replicator being assembled per trial. In fact there would be billions of simultaneous trials as the billions of building block molecules interacted in the oceans, or on the thousands of kilometers of shorelines that could provide catalytic surfaces or templates.

Say it takes a minute to toss a coin 4 times; to generate HHHH would take on average 8 minutes. Now get 16 friends, each with a coin, to all flip the coin simultaneously 4 times; the average time to generate HHHH is now 1 minute. Now try to flip 6 heads in a row; this has a probability of (1/2)6 or 1 in 64. This would take half an hour on average, but go out and recruit 64 people, and you can flip it in a minute. If you want to flip a sequence with a chance of 1 in a billion, just recruit the population of China to flip coins for you, you will have that sequence in no time flat.

Okay, you are looking at that number again, 1 chance in 4.29 x 10^40, that's a big number, and although a billion starting molecules is a lot of molecules, could we ever get enough molecules to randomly assemble our first replicator in under half a billion years? Yes, one kilogram of the amino acid arginine has 2.85 x 10^24 molecules in it (that's well over a billion billion); a ton of arginine has 2.85 x 10^27 molecules. If you took a semi-trailer load of each amino acid and dumped it into a medium size lake, you would have enough molecules to generate our particular replicator in a few tens of years, given that you can make 55 amino acid long proteins in 1 to 2 weeks. So how does this shape up with the prebiotic Earth? On the early Earth it is likely that the ocean had a volume of 1 x 10^24 liters. Given an amino acid concentration of 1 x 10-6 M, then there are roughly 1 x 10^50 potential starting chains, so that a fair number of efficient peptide ligases (about 1 x 10^31) could be produced in a under a year, let alone a million years. The synthesis of primitive self-replicators could happen relatively rapidly, even given a probability of 1 chance in 4.29 x 10^40 (and remember, our replicator could be synthesized on the very first trial). Assume that it takes a week to generate a sequence. Then the Ghadiri ligase could be generated in one week, and any cytochrome C sequence could be generated in a bit over a million years (along with about half of all possible 101 peptide sequences, a large proportion of which will be functional proteins of some sort). Although I have used the Ghadiri ligase as an example, the same calculations can be performed for the SunY self-replicator, or the Ekland RNA polymerase.

The rest of his points are terrible...the monkey machine? I came into this expecting it to be something good because you recommended it but it's just as bad as all the other apologist's arguments. That have no understanding of what they're talking about and therefore state things that are completely wrong and hold no weight. If that convinced you I suggest you do a little more unbiased research.

[Block]

One of your first statements was that you didn't read the book itself. That synopsis that you referred to as your source doesn't even come close to what the book actually states. On top of that, I'm more inclined to believe the math of an Oxford Mathematics professor than that of a common forum-goer on the internet. That's just logical, right?

This guy has debates with Richard Dawkins. If you know as much about this subject as your wall of text implies, you know who Dawkins is and why his name holds so much weight. If Dawkins has trouble disputing his theories, why should we be inclined to believe that you can?

I didn't post here to debate. I only posted to spread the knowledge that I found to be personally gratifying. Read the book, not the outline.

[Spyder]

evolution took us so far, then the devine intervention of gods took place
however they werent superhumans they were aliens with technology

explains everything tbh, why we have so much monkey dna and why evolution took a huge jump

[SliK]

evolution took us so far, then the devine intervention of gods took place
however they werent superhumans they were aliens with technology

explains everything tbh, why we have so much monkey dna and why evolution took a huge jump

Lmao at least religious idiots have to follow a book full of stupid ideas... Those stupid ideas came straight out your ass.

[classthe_king]

One of your first statements was that you didn't read the book itself. That synopsis that you referred to as your source doesn't even come close to what the book actually states. On top of that, I'm more inclined to believe the math of an Oxford Mathematics professor than that of a common forum-goer on the internet. That's just logical, right?

This guy has debates with Richard Dawkins. If you know as much about this subject as your wall of text implies, you know who Dawkins is and why his name holds so much weight. If Dawkins has trouble disputing his theories, why should we be inclined to believe that you can?

I didn't post here to debate. I only posted to spread the knowledge that I found to be personally gratifying. Read the book, not the outline.

That's why I posted the source, too make sure it was a good representation. And me being a "common forum-goer" and him being an Oxford professor has nothing to do with it. I can site sources from actual scientists that no what they're talking about and clearly proves why he is wrong. Yes, I know who Dawkins is and I've watched many of his debates but I've come to the conclusion that he is a horrible debater. He's a genius obviously, and has a wealth of information in his brain but he never knows when to say what and he isn't very good at explaining himself, which is something many people have pointed out.

[Block]

evolution took us so far, then the devine intervention of gods took place
however they werent superhumans they were aliens with technology

explains everything tbh, why we have so much monkey dna and why evolution took a huge jump

Lmao at least religious idiots have to follow a book full of stupid ideas... Those stupid ideas came straight out your ass.

Actually they didn't. They sound crazy, but I want to see you try to dispute it after being handed the evidence of diamond-tipped cutting tools from ancient Egypt, how the pyramids were created so perfectly and we can't replicate it even today or how they exist on almost every continent in the world without those civilizations ever having contact with one another.

There's shit we just don't know about and probably never will.

[Block]

And me being a "common forum-goer" and him being an Oxford professor has nothing to do with it.

That has everything to do with it. Everything.

Also, evolution as theory. Intelligent design is a theory. Each of which is impossible to disprove given the evidence on either side. Your problem is that you're looking at this situation in a very biased manner, due to the fact you had previously made up your mind. At this current time, I have as well. Beforehand, though, I had not. After having done research in to both areas, intelligent design seems much more feasible.