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Does water have a taste? Is atheism a religion?

Does water have a taste?

  • Yes

    Votes: 17 68.0%

  • No

    Votes: 8 32.0%
  • Total voters
    25
some people here need to get a room and engage in some extramarital debate....:2razz:
 
UtahBill said:
do you realize that you sound like someone trying to convert others to his religion?
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Only if you consider every teacher everywhere to be trying to convert their students to their religion. The effort is to get people to think more critically and rationally about their beliefs. That's not religion, that's reality. Sorry you can't tell the difference.

Value of beliefs for others is not for any other person to decide. Why would you want to take away the pain medications for someone who really needs them? It is about the same thing.
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Value, no. Fact, yes. It is absolutely up to everyone to work to determine what is actually real and what is fantasy. If someone believes that there is no gravity and if they jump off the top of a tall building, they won't fall, that belief may have plenty of value to the believer, but he's also wrong. If he jumps off that building, no matter how strongly he believes, no matter how much faith he has, he's still going to be a puddle on the sidewalk. Strength of conviction means jack squat to reality.

I can't take away any pain medications if they don't have any to begin with. It's like homeopathy. It's WATER! It does nothing, no matter how strongly you believe it does. It's a placebo, nothing more. There might be some minor use in a placebo, but it's far preferable to get actual medicine that actually works. You argue that people "really need them", but the fact is, they want them. It's not need, it's a desire, usually borne out of ignorance. People just don't know any better. They've never been taught to think critically, to care about the facts and deal with reality as it actually is. It's a lot easier to play make-believe than it is to deal with actual problems head-on.

Sorry, that's just a pathetic position to take. I don't want to tell people that if they pray to a statue, they'll be fed, I want to teach them how to feed themselves! Sure, it's harder, but the results are far more predictable and positive.
 
Cephus said:
Only if you consider every teacher everywhere to be trying to convert their students to their religion. The effort is to get people to think more critically and rationally about their beliefs. That's not religion, that's reality. Sorry you can't tell the difference.



Value, no. Fact, yes. It is absolutely up to everyone to work to determine what is actually real and what is fantasy. If someone believes that there is no gravity and if they jump off the top of a tall building, they won't fall, that belief may have plenty of value to the believer, but he's also wrong. If he jumps off that building, no matter how strongly he believes, no matter how much faith he has, he's still going to be a puddle on the sidewalk. Strength of conviction means jack squat to reality.

I can't take away any pain medications if they don't have any to begin with. It's like homeopathy. It's WATER! It does nothing, no matter how strongly you believe it does. It's a placebo, nothing more. There might be some minor use in a placebo, but it's far preferable to get actual medicine that actually works. You argue that people "really need them", but the fact is, they want them. It's not need, it's a desire, usually borne out of ignorance. People just don't know any better. They've never been taught to think critically, to care about the facts and deal with reality as it actually is. It's a lot easier to play make-believe than it is to deal with actual problems head-on.

Sorry, that's just a pathetic position to take. I don't want to tell people that if they pray to a statue, they'll be fed, I want to teach them how to feed themselves! Sure, it's harder, but the results are far more predictable and positive.
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 I would like to believe that you are sincere but ignorant. Most of us know praying won't get wheat shipped from where it grows well (but not so much lately) to those who are unable to grow it, thanks to drought, pestilence, etc.. Most of us already know that we won't get food by praying for it. Those who don't have food don't need to be taught either. They need to be fed. They know how already, but you can't fight city hall or mother nature. If it wasn't for charity, often from christian sources, they would starve. The religions donating are showing that they at least subscribe to Matt. chap. 25. What athiest groups are there helping the world's poorest people get fed?
 
digsbe said:
Don't put words in my own mouth. I don't believe that God supernaturally crafted every rabbit and I know it's the result of sexual reproduction. I believe the first animals were created by God and that all in existence was created by God. One must have faith that the evidence for God is either incorrect by clinging to pseudoscience and unproven theories or by denying what we know about scientific laws.
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And again this goes counter to all evidence. "Animals" are the direct descendents of single cell organisms. These single cell organisms are in turn the direct descendents of chemical reactions in what is culturally referred to as the primordial ooze.

If you look at nature as a whole it would scream for a creator. People must have faith that God does not exist, because by faith they reject the proofs and things that suggest a creator.
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No. It does. Not.

We can prove gravity though science, but we can't put gravity in a test tube.
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Um yes, and a creator regardless of how much you claim that it can be simply can't be proven through a test tube. Gravity can be put in a test tube. Here's an example of how to prove the existence of gravity with a test tube. Drop it. What do you think makes it fall through air and come smashing into the ground? Now try a similar approach for a creator? Seriously, read a little about scientific evidence and how experiments work.
 
I posted this video in another thread, but I'll post it here too:
Henry Markram builds a brain in a supercomputer | Video on TED.com

I know that I exist to me, but I do not know for sure that you exist to you. All I have is my own reality. The rest is a series of decisions and suppositions about the nature of your reality. Every brain has the same basic components, but the orchestration of those components is unique to every individual. The only reason why we can communicate across such barriers is because we make a wide variety of assumptions about the reality of the person we are talking to. In other words, I assume that your reality must be like mine, and thus I take for granted that the way you interpret my views must also be the same. Enter miscommunication, social unrest, and war.

As long as people seek to find "correctness" in the theism vs. atheism debate, the arguments will be never ending. It doesn't occur to most people that you can unify the two sides into a singular concept. They can mutually exist in one mind, or exist separately in different minds. All combinations are possible. In other words, a person whose reality revolves around God and a person whose reality revolves around the absence of God can BOTH be correct!
 
American said:
Why do atheists make such a big deal out of religion? Why dont' they just ignore it?
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Religion has been the vehicle of change throughout history.
If someone wants to ignore it and get it out of their life they *can't* learn about what happened - well - everywhere, at any time in history.
I don't think there's a single thing I haven't learned in my Art History, World Civilization, or even Law class that doesn't related or decend *from* religous beliefs.

The notion of a religious-free living is *very* modern. . . most countries throughout history had religions as their center - very *few* lived without religion being an intricate part of their lives or setting the rules for which they did things by.
 
UtahBill said:
I would like to believe that you are sincere but ignorant. Most of us know praying won't get wheat shipped from where it grows well (but not so much lately) to those who are unable to grow it, thanks to drought, pestilence, etc.. Most of us already know that we won't get food by praying for it. Those who don't have food don't need to be taught either. They need to be fed. They know how already, but you can't fight city hall or mother nature. If it wasn't for charity, often from christian sources, they would starve. The religions donating are showing that they at least subscribe to Matt. chap. 25. What athiest groups are there helping the world's poorest people get fed?
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Great, then why don't you stop wasting your time on your knees praying to an imaginary friend in the sky and get on your feet and do something to help these people? People of all sorts give to charities, the largest charities in the world are non-religious in nature. Ever heard of things like the American Red Cross? Doctors Without Borders? Amnesty International? UNICEF? The reason people don't think about these organizations as non-theistic is because they don't bother making a big deal about it, they're too busy actually helping people to bother. It seems absurd that you feel you have to believe in something irrational in order to be able to reach out and help your fellow man.

Charities are actually realizing that pushing religion harms them when it comes to donations, that's why the Christian Children's Fund dropped "Christian" from their name and became ChildFund International. More people are apt to donate if they think the charity is actually helping people and not poisoning their minds with religious nonsense.
 
Hatuey said:
And again this goes counter to all evidence. "Animals" are the direct descendents of single cell organisms. These single cell organisms are in turn the direct descendents of chemical reactions in what is culturally referred to as the primordial ooze.
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This is wrong. Life did not all stem from the 1 single cell that magically came to life. Abiogenesis is fundamentally flawed, implausible, and even if possible could not prove that this is how life first started. Life did not rise from primordial ooze.
No. It does. Not.
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Yes it does. Why does it not?
Um yes, and a creator regardless of how much you claim that it can be simply can't be proven through a test tube. Gravity can be put in a test tube. Here's an example of how to prove the existence of gravity with a test tube. Drop it. What do you think makes it fall through air and come smashing into the ground? Now try a similar approach for a creator? Seriously, read a little about scientific evidence and how experiments work.
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And neither can you prove that all things rose from abiogenesis. You can't go years into the past and see it happening. Even if remotely plausible (which it isn't) no one can prove that this is how life started. What is the physical property of gravity? It's like time, it isn't physical but it does indeed exist. You can't put time and gravity in a test tube. They aren't physical things. Regardless, even the test tube itself in my opinion proves God exists. Where did the atoms come from that comprise it? Why is it there? How were those atoms created? By the Creator.
 
digsbe said:
This is wrong. Life did not all stem from the 1 single cell that magically came to life. Abiogenesis is fundamentally flawed, implausible, and even if possible could not prove that this is how life first started. Life did not rise from primordial ooze.
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Are you even remotely serious? Abiogenesis is flawed? Improbable? On what grounds please?

Abiogenesis - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

In natural science, abiogenesis (pronounced /ˌeɪbaɪ.ɵˈdʒɛnɨsɪs/, AY-bye-oh-JEN-ə-siss) or biopoesis is the study of how life on Earth arose from inanimate matter. Most amino acids, often called "the building blocks of life", can form via natural chemical reactions unrelated to life, as demonstrated in the Miller–Urey experiment and similar experiments, which involved simulating some of the conditions of the early Earth, in a scientific laboratory.[1] In all living things, these amino acids are organized into proteins, and the construction of these proteins is mediated by nucleic acids. Which of these organic molecules first arose and how they formed the first life is the focus of abiogenesis.

In any theory of abiogenesis, two aspects of life have to be accounted for: replication, and metabolism. The question of which came first gave rise to different types of theories. In the beginning, metabolism-first theories (Oparin coacervate) were proposed, and only later thinking gave rise to the modern, replication-first approach.
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Yes it does. Why does it not?
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Because you're taking evidence and non-sequituring it to mean what you want it to mean.

And neither can you prove that all things rose from abiogenesis. You can't go years into the past and see it happening. Even if remotely plausible (which it isn't) no one can prove that this is how life started. What is the physical property of gravity? It's like time, it isn't physical but it does indeed exist. You can't put time and gravity in a test tube. They aren't physical things. Regardless, even the test tube itself in my opinion proves God exists. Where did the atoms come from that comprise it? Why is it there? How were those atoms created? By the Creator.
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This is silly now:

Miller

The experiment used water (H2O), methane (CH4), ammonia (NH3), and hydrogen (H2). The chemicals were all sealed inside a sterile array of glass tubes and flasks connected in a loop, with one flask half-full of liquid water and another flask containing a pair of electrodes. The liquid water was heated to induce evaporation, sparks were fired between the electrodes to simulate lightning through the atmosphere and water vapor, and then the atmosphere was cooled again so that the water could condense and trickle back into the first flask in a continuous cycle.

At the end of one week of continuous operation, Miller and Urey observed that as much as 10–15% of the carbon within the system was now in the form of organic compounds. Two percent of the carbon had formed amino acids that are used to make proteins in living cells, with glycine as the most abundant. Sugars, liquids, and some of the building blocks for nucleic acids were also formed.

In an interview, Stanley Miller stated: "Just turning on the spark in a basic pre-biotic experiment will yield 11 out of 20 amino acids."[9]

As observed in all subsequent experiments, both left-handed (L) and right-handed (D) optical isomers were created in a racemic mixture.

The original experiment remains today under the care of Miller and Urey's former student Professor Jeffrey Bada at the University of California, San Diego, Scripps Institution of Oceanography.[10]
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Again, you have no evidence for a creator so claiming there is one is quite useless. Where is this creator? What scientific experiments can one conduct to prove the existence? How can one observe it? As I said before, you might as well be claiming furry creatures came to the earth and made everything.
 
Digsbe, you can argue all the day that the 'evidence' shows there is a creator but it simply doesn't. That's not how science works at all. You don't simply get to look at evidence and because there is complexity within a mechanism you claim that it was created. The evidence will simply show that there was complexity in a mechanism and offer explanations for how this complexity came to be. Now we can go back and forth all day and you can argue that your creator works above the realm of nature but then doesn't that just show that you're arguing from ignorance? There is very little within the natural world which can't be explained through the rational observations of science. The fact that most of nature is connected through various systems simply shows that nature is connected through various systems. That's it.

But I must ask, do you also believe in every magical creature which has been proven to be mythical because little evidence supports their existence? I can claim all day that horses and bulls support a claim for the existence of unicorns but that doesn't make it so. Horses and bulls support claims for the existence of well, horses and bulls. The fact that abiogenesis has been proven to be not only be probable but possible within a lab shows that the conditions for a (let's call it) "spontaneous" existence to life are there. Seriously, scientists don't just make up stuff.
 
Hatuey said:
Are you even remotely serious? Abiogenesis is flawed? Improbable? On what grounds please?

Abiogenesis - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Tell me how believing millions of random DNA sequences survived a harsh environment and aligned themselves in the right order to code for sequences within a membrane that also so happened to have all the right amino acid sequences lined up and stable enough to function within the presence on tRNA to code for functional proteins. Also, how the life giving energy sparked the cell into life and not destroying it. It's vastly improbable.


Because you're taking evidence and non-sequituring it to mean what you want it to mean.
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Aren't you doing the same?
This is silly now:

Miller
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Really? Why the Miller-Urey research argues against abiogenesis
Again, you have no evidence for a creator so claiming there is one is quite useless. Where is this creator? What scientific experiments can one conduct to prove the existence? How can one observe it? As I said before, you might as well be claiming furry creatures came to the earth and made everything.
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From personal experience I know that God exists. From scientific truths I know a Creator exists. I have explained how Creation points to a creator and have already said that God is not a physical piece of matter/energy that we can experiment with and test. God is above matter and created it. He isn't matter and cannot be manipulated. Similarly. You can't say all life started via abiogenesis even if by some chance it is proven true. You can't prove that life started that way devoid of a creator.

Digsbe, you can argue all the day that the 'evidence' shows there is a creator but it simply doesn't. That's not how science works at all. You don't simply get to look at evidence and because there is complexity within a mechanism you claim that it was created. The evidence will simply show that there was complexity in a mechanism and offer explanations for how this complexity came to be. Now we can go back and forth all day and you can argue that your creator works above the realm of nature but then doesn't that just show that you're arguing from ignorance? There is very little within the natural world which can't be explained through the rational observations of science. The fact that most of nature is connected through various systems simply shows that nature is connected through various systems. That's it.
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It does. You haven't disproven how because science and energy cannot be created nor destroyed that it doesn't point to something beyond science (God) to have created it. I look at evidence and what we know and make conclusions. I'm not arguing that complexity demands a creator. I am arguing that scientific law and order demands the need for a creator. The universe is limited. It can't create matter or energy, it also cannot destroy matter and energy. Matter and energy can change forms and are governed by laws. Rational observation has proven that energy and matter cannot be created. Thus is it also rational to believe something beyond science must have created energy and matter (God).
But I must ask, do you also believe in every magical creature which has been proven to be mythical because little evidence supports their existence? I can claim all day that horses and bulls support a claim for the existence of unicorns but that doesn't make it so. Horses and bulls support claims for the existence of well, horses and bulls. The fact that abiogenesis has been proven to be not only be probable but possible within a lab shows that the conditions for a (let's call it) "spontaneous" existence to life are there. Seriously, scientists don't just make up stuff.
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I will not respond to this. And also, abiogenesis has not been proven.
 
digsbe said:
I will not respond to this. And also, abiogenesis has not been proven.
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Nope, abiogenesis has not been proven. There's a lot about the primordial earth and the conditions we don't know yet. Doesn't mean we won't know, doesn't mean something like abiogenesis (a natural process by which life arose) wasn't present. Without the data we sit at a fork in the road and can say one of two things. A) We don't know yet, but the most plausible answer is that there was some natural mechanism which gave rise to life. B) God did it. That's the choice. Science does not say that B has to be the answer. No part of the scientific method would point to B. The scientific approach would merely state that we do not know at this point.
 
Ikari said:
Nope, abiogenesis has not been proven. There's a lot about the primordial earth and the conditions we don't know yet. Doesn't mean we won't know, doesn't mean something like abiogenesis (a natural process by which life arose) wasn't present. Without the data we sit at a fork in the road and can say one of two things. A) We don't know yet, but the most plausible answer is that there was some natural mechanism which gave rise to life. B) God did it. That's the choice. Science does not say that B has to be the answer. No part of the scientific method would point to B. The scientific approach would merely state that we do not know at this point.
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That isn't true. That's only true for naturalism, which locks God out of everything. Let me propose this. If mankind is the process of evolution, can we comprehend everything? If our brains are the product of random mutations why should we suppose that every mystery can be comprehended and understood? Animals have their limitations. A dog can't understand science, humans can. But like a dog, can we understand higher concepts? Isn't there a limit to our understanding and our capacity? The human mind is the greatest out of all living things, but who are we to understand everything and claim that our science and method can know all? I think science will come to the undoubted conclusion that life did not occur naturally to which we will have to give a reason whether it be God, a random self propagating energy force beyond natural limitations, and the like.
 
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