Dawkins vs Lennox; The God Delusion

[Caroljeen]

@Whatsisface, here are my thoughts on the first thesis in the debate.

Thesis One: Faith is blind. Science is evidenced -based.

Dawkins set forth a strawman argument, imo, by saying that "Religion teaches us to be satisfied with not understanding." He praised science for actively seeking things our while religion teaches us that "God did it "therefore we don't need to work on it...there is no thrust to push us to try to understand, and religion stultifies. Dawkins gave the impression that Christians are not interested in the sciences. I found this insulting to Christians who work in the sciences. I've never heard anyone preach that we should not study science. Lennox made a good point when he stated that what divides him and Dawkins is not science as they both are committed to science, but it is their worldviews of Atheism vs Theism.

Dawkins surprised me by using a Christian argument by saying, "When you consider the beauty of the world, you wonder how it came to be what it tis...you are naturally overwhelmed with a feeling of awe, a feeling of admiration, and you almost feel the desire to worship something..." Then he goes on to say how science has now achieved an emancipation from that impulse to attribute these things to a creator.

Then he proceeded to use another argument that believers use (Heb 3:4) in that we look at the things around us and understand that they are manmade; houses, cars, chairs... and when we look at the natural world, we have the impulse to attribute those things to a creator. He follows with the grand statement, "It is a supreme achievement of the human intellect to realize that there is a better explanation for these things--that these things can come about by purely natural causes." He points to the theory of evolution as the better explanation. He admits that science doesn't have an explanation for the cosmos.

Lennox responded with the reason that men began scientific inquiries in the 16th-17th was that they expected to find laws in nature because they believed in a lawgiver. "Far from religion hindering science it was the driving force behind the rise of science in the first place." He referenced Whitehead's thesis. He also accused Dawkins of making a category mistake by confusing mechanism with agency. Instead of saying, "we have a mechanism that does X, Y, and Zed therefore no need for an agent", we should say that "the sophistication of the mechanism is evidence of the sheer wonder of the creative genius of God."
Lennox touched on faith and how Christians do not believe in God by blind faith. He said that his faith is no delusion. It is rational and evidenced based--part objective, some comes from science, history, and part is subjective coming from experiences without going into detail possibly for lack of time.

I believe Lennox was more persuasive in their first round and responded well Dawkin's arguments.

 

[Whatsisface]

Thesis One: Faith is blind. Science is evidenced -based.

Dawkins set forth a strawman argument, imo, by saying that "Religion teaches us to be satisfied with not understanding." He praised science for actively seeking things our while religion teaches us that "God did it "therefore we don't need to work on it...there is no thrust to push us to try to understand, and religion stultifies. Dawkins gave the impression that Christians are not interested in the sciences. I found this insulting to Christians who work in the sciences. I've never heard anyone preach that we should not study science. Lennox made a good point when he stated that what divides him and Dawkins is not science as they both are committed to science, but it is their worldviews of Atheism vs Theism.

I will meet you half way on this one and acknowledge that of course there are Christians who are serious scientists, Francis Collins comes to mind as an example. Where I can see Dawkins has a point is when religion was a dominant force in society and saw scientific advances that went against church orthodoxy as heretical, Galileo comes to mind as an example who was eventually put under house arrest for the rest of his life and ordered not to teach that the Earth orbited the Sun. I do wonder whether this can be laid firmly at the feet religion or at the more unpleasant side of human nature, as the people in the church in power a the time might well have seen their power threatened. Or both.

Also, there are people today, creationists, who if they had the power would ban all mention of evolution which is a cornerstone of modern science.

In all the history of science there have been things once thought supernatural that we now have natural explanations for, it's never been the other way round.

Dawkins surprised me by using a Christian argument by saying, "When you consider the beauty of the world, you wonder how it came to be what it tis...you are naturally overwhelmed with a feeling of awe, a feeling of admiration, and you almost feel the desire to worship something..." Then he goes on to say how science has now achieved an emancipation from that impulse to attribute these things to a creator.

Then he proceeded to use another argument that believers use (Heb 3:4) in that we look at the things around us and understand that they are manmade; houses, cars, chairs... and when we look at the natural world, we have the impulse to attribute those things to a creator. He follows with the grand statement, "It is a supreme achievement of the human intellect to realize that there is a better explanation for these things--that these things can come about by purely natural causes." He points to the theory of evolution as the better explanation. He admits that science doesn't have an explanation for the cosmos.

Yes, I agree with him here.

Lennox responded with the reason that men began scientific inquiries in the 16th-17th was that they expected to find laws in nature because they believed in a lawgiver. "Far from religion hindering science it was the driving force behind the rise of science in the first place." He referenced Whitehead's thesis. He also accused Dawkins of making a category mistake by confusing mechanism with agency. Instead of saying, "we have a mechanism that does X, Y, and Zed therefore no need for an agent", we should say that "the sophistication of the mechanism is evidence of the sheer wonder of the creative genius of God."

I disagree with Lennox here in that you have to infer God from "the sophistication of the mechanism" as the mechanism doesn't show God to exist, so we don't know the mechanism is actual evidence for God, but rather, we can only go as far to say it might be evidence for God.

Lennox touched on faith and how Christians do not believe in God by blind faith. He said that his faith is no delusion. It is rational and evidenced based--part objective, some comes from science, history, and part is subjective coming from experiences without going into detail possibly for lack of time.

Again, his evidence based faith is not on solid ground as none of said evidence demonstrates God, instead he's inferring God from certain aspects of the universe and his own subjective feelings.

I believe Lennox was more persuasive in their first round and responded well Dawkin's arguments.

I, not surprisingly, disagree. I felt that Lennox didn't say anything of any real consequence. For example, he spoke of Newton who upon completing his laws of motion, instead of then thinking that God is now redundant because of the explanation, had his wonder for God increased because of it. What counts here is why Newton took that line but Lennox didn't go into that. Newton thinking that tells us nothing about whether God exists or not, whether he's ultimately responsible for the universe or not.

 

[5wize]

@Whatsisface, here are my thoughts on the first thesis in the debate.

Thesis One: Faith is blind. Science is evidenced -based.

Dawkins set forth a strawman argument, imo, by saying that "Religion teaches us to be satisfied with not understanding." He praised science for actively seeking things our while religion teaches us that "God did it "therefore we don't need to work on it...there is no thrust to push us to try to understand, and religion stultifies. Dawkins gave the impression that Christians are not interested in the sciences. I found this insulting to Christians who work in the sciences. I've never heard anyone preach that we should not study science. Lennox made a good point when he stated that what divides him and Dawkins is not science as they both are committed to science, but it is their worldviews of Atheism vs Theism.

Dawkins surprised me by using a Christian argument by saying, "When you consider the beauty of the world, you wonder how it came to be what it tis...you are naturally overwhelmed with a feeling of awe, a feeling of admiration, and you almost feel the desire to worship something..." Then he goes on to say how science has now achieved an emancipation from that impulse to attribute these things to a creator.

Then he proceeded to use another argument that believers use (Heb 3:4) in that we look at the things around us and understand that they are manmade; houses, cars, chairs... and when we look at the natural world, we have the impulse to attribute those things to a creator. He follows with the grand statement, "It is a supreme achievement of the human intellect to realize that there is a better explanation for these things--that these things can come about by purely natural causes." He points to the theory of evolution as the better explanation. He admits that science doesn't have an explanation for the cosmos.

Lennox responded with the reason that men began scientific inquiries in the 16th-17th was that they expected to find laws in nature because they believed in a lawgiver. "Far from religion hindering science it was the driving force behind the rise of science in the first place." He referenced Whitehead's thesis. He also accused Dawkins of making a category mistake by confusing mechanism with agency. Instead of saying, "we have a mechanism that does X, Y, and Zed therefore no need for an agent", we should say that "the sophistication of the mechanism is evidence of the sheer wonder of the creative genius of God."
Lennox touched on faith and how Christians do not believe in God by blind faith. He said that his faith is no delusion. It is rational and evidenced based--part objective, some comes from science, history, and part is subjective coming from experiences without going into detail possibly for lack of time.

I believe Lennox was more persuasive in their first round and responded well Dawkin's arguments.

As atheists, we don't see how coarsely defined awe alone equates to an intelligence behind nature. This was the point behind Dawkin's comment:

"When you consider the beauty of the world, you wonder how it came to be what it tis...you are naturally overwhelmed with a feeling of awe, a feeling of admiration, and you almost feel the desire to worship something..."

We humans are very dull instruments given just our senses to assess this reality and the emotions that arise from experiencing those senses. If someone makes us feel good, we have a direct source of that feeling. If nature makes us feel good, we imagine the same type of source behind that as well without evidence of that tangible source. We just say that nature is the evidence of that type of source when nature might just well be that source. It's just what we do. We are very superficial pattern creating creatures.

And science doesn't give us the answer as to our meaning or origins either, and may never do that, because that might not even exist. But science did allow us to dispel old and coarse attempts that humans attempted at defining origin and meaning with much less information, far coarser information than what we possess now. What has been dispelled to my satisfaction is that this reality is some intelligent creation by a perfect personal mind that loves us dearly as the details under our very high level experience does not lend itself to such belief. For some reason ALL life seems geared for self survival and we have to hunt, harvest or war other life for that. That's the intrinsic design and it seems we created cultural gods to appease in order to gain some supernatural edge in performing that not to mention to protect us from how disease and malady prone we are - an appeasing that however well documented by prophets in scripture never ever seemed to work anyway, even to this day.

None of this seems designed well at all if we we were designed by a perfect god to glorify him by our very creation, a creation that some form of supernatural obedience is supposed to help us navigate better than those who don't. This is beyond just explaining away with a myth of a fallen man and woman in a fallen world.

 

[Caroljeen]

I will meet you half way on this one and acknowledge that of course there are Christians who are serious scientists, Francis Collins comes to mind as an example. Where I can see Dawkins has a point is when religion was a dominant force in society and saw scientific advances that went against church orthodoxy as heretical, Galileo comes to mind as an example who was eventually put under house arrest for the rest of his life and ordered not to teach that the Earth orbited the Sun. I do wonder whether this can be laid firmly at the feet religion or at the more unpleasant side of human nature, as the people in the church in power a the time might well have seen their power threatened. Or both.

Their wrong-headedness gives Christ a bad name. Jesus did not seek to rule over others but to serve in love. That was part of the example he left his disciples to follow. Jesus didn't come to condemn but to save. The church had no business cozying-up to politics.

Also, there are people today, creationists, who if they had the power would ban all mention of evolution which is a cornerstone of modern science.

I'm sure there are scientists who do or would do the same to the creationist's view.

There is also a perceived discrimination against Christians in the sciences in colleges/universities.

https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0226826

In all the history of science there have been things once thought supernatural that we now have natural explanations for, it's never been the other way round.

Such as?

Yes, I agree with him here.

I don't.

As an atheist going from not being able to see God's handiwork in creation to being able to recognize God's creative mind from microscopic life to the immenseness of the galaxies, I found the existence of God much more majestic. I don't feel confined or enslaved by being a Christian. I reject Dawkin's assertions that religion [true religion] shackles humans. It's just the opposite.

I think Dawkins likes to turn theistic arguments upside down and use them for his own atheistic purposes. The title of his book, The God Delusion, is another example. I've written a number of times that I believe atheists are deluded by the god of this world, Satan. It's part of the blindness that is covering their minds causing them not to see the reality of God. I could relate to the words in the song, Amazing Grace, "I was blind but now see." when I first became a Christian. It is wonderful to see God in the glory of his creation. It does give one a glimpse of what God is like.

I disagree with Lennox here in that you have to infer God from "the sophistication of the mechanism" as the mechanism doesn't show God to exist, so we don't know the mechanism is actual evidence for God, but rather, we can only go as far to say it might be evidence for God.

Would you also agree as Lennox asserted that the laws and constants that were discovered in nature by the early scientists who expected those natural laws to exist because they believed in a divine Lawgiver who created it? So naturally a lawgiver would structure his creation with laws instead of allowing complete randomness and chaos. Would you consider those to be scientific predictions that were proven by those early scientists?

Again, his evidence based faith is not on solid ground as none of said evidence demonstrates God, instead he's inferring God from certain aspects of the universe and his own subjective feelings.

Subjective experience doesn't always equate to feelings. This is not the only evidence that he bases his faith on. He mentioned history also.

I, not surprisingly, disagree. I felt that Lennox didn't say anything of any real consequence. For example, he spoke of Newton who upon completing his laws of motion, instead of then thinking that God is now redundant because of the explanation, had his wonder for God increased because of it. What counts here is why Newton took that line but Lennox didn't go into that. Newton thinking that tells us nothing about whether God exists or not, whether he's ultimately responsible for the universe or not.

I don't think Lennox used Newton as an example to explain the existence of God but as a contrast to what Dawkins said about not having to attribute this "wonder" to a Creator but instead the credit can be given to science which has emancipated man from that impulse to attribute these things to a creator.


I was thinking we can go two rounds and then move on to the Dawkin's next thesis, unless you prefer to move on now. I'm not looking to win a debate but to discuss and learn.

 

[Gus Bovona]

There is also a perceived discrimination against Christians in the sciences in colleges/universities.

Discrimination against Christians in the sciences in higher ed would be a very bad thing. The paper you linked to does not show that any exists, however.

The paper reported on three studies. The first two only measured perceived bias, which doesn't say anything about actual bias. The third study seems to be flawed, in my lay opinion, because of this:

Recommendation letters contained the same general wording, but the evangelical condition applicant provided a letter from a mentor from Campus Crusade for Christ, which emphasized the student’s faith, while the recommendation letter from the latter condition came from a mentor from UNICEF that emphasized the student’s commitment to service. All other aspects of the application were identical including GRE scores and GPA.

Instead of bias against Christians, and difference in treatment can be explained by a greater documentation of the applicant's service commitment compared to (mere) faith. That factor was not held constant between the applicants, which a good study design would have included.

There may well be bias against Christians in higher ed, but the linked paper doesn't show it. Now, that's my lay opinion, and I couldn't work through the entire text, so grains of salt are necessary.

 

[Caroljeen]

As atheists, we don't see how coarsely defined awe alone equates to an intelligence behind nature. This was the point behind Dawkin's comment:

"When you consider the beauty of the world, you wonder how it came to be what it tis...you are naturally overwhelmed with a feeling of awe, a feeling of admiration, and you almost feel the desire to worship something..."

We humans are very dull instruments given just our senses to assess this reality and the emotions that arise from experiencing those senses. If someone makes us feel good, we have a direct source of that feeling. If nature makes us feel good, we imagine the same type of source behind that as well without evidence of that tangible source. We just say that nature is the evidence of that type of source when nature might just well be that source. It's just what we do. We are very superficial pattern creating creatures.

I don't think it is superficial to feel joy or awe because of something in the natural world around us. I felt those feelings as an atheist and later as a Christian. It's different as Christian because now I know that beauty or majesty I see inspires reverence toward the One who designed and made it. Why do we have to have a tangible source? Why can't it be an invisible source who makes himself known by what is created?

And science doesn't give us the answer as to our meaning or origins either, and may never do that, because that might not even exist. But science did allow us to dispel old and coarse attempts that humans attempted at defining origin and meaning with much less information, far coarser information than what we possess now. What has been dispelled to my satisfaction is that this reality is some intelligent creation by a perfect personal mind that loves us dearly as the details under our very high level experience does not lend itself to such belief.

My experience with the perfect personal Mind leads me to a different conclusion.

For some reason ALL life seems geared for self survival and we have to hunt, harvest or war other life for that.

It wasn't designed to be like that in the beginning.

That's the intrinsic design and it seems we created cultural gods to appease in order to gain some supernatural edge in performing that not to mention to protect us from how disease and malady prone we are - an appeasing that however well documented by prophets in scripture never ever seemed to work anyway, even to this day.

You neglect to acknowledge how sinful we are. How wayward we are from God and his original design.

None of this seems designed well at all if we we were designed by a perfect god to glorify him by our very creation, a creation that some form of supernatural obedience is supposed to help us navigate better than those who don't. This is beyond just explaining away with a myth of a fallen man and woman in a fallen world.

...with a god of this world who is fallen and unrecoverable as well. A god who despises us and takes delight in making us suffer. At least from God, we have an olive branch of redemption.

There is no promise that Christians can navigate this world better than others if we are obedient to our Creator. Christians suffer the same hardships and trials as non-Christians but we trust God that the afflictions of this world are temporary. We will enjoy an eternal life in a world that is incomparable to what we have here.

Did you feel liberated and emancipated when you stopped believing in God? Was being a Christian a burden to you? Dawkins takes the Christian motif of Christ setting us free from sin and the power of Satan and turns it around to people being slaves to religion.

 

[Caroljeen]

Discrimination against Christians in the sciences in higher ed would be a very bad thing.

I agree.

The paper you linked to does not show that any exists, however.

The paper reported on three studies. The first two only measured perceived bias, which doesn't say anything about actual bias. The third study seems to be flawed, in my lay opinion, because of this:



Instead of bias against Christians, and difference in treatment can be explained by a greater documentation of the applicant's service commitment compared to (mere) faith. That factor was not held constant between the applicants, which a good study design would have included.

There may well be bias against Christians in higher ed, but the linked paper doesn't show it. Now, that's my lay opinion, and I couldn't work through the entire text, so grains of salt are necessary.

Thank you for your lay opinion on the paper. Do you have any comments on the first part of the debate?

 

[Gus Bovona]

I agree.

Thank you for your lay opinion on the paper. Do you have any comments on the first part of the debate?

I saw that debate a few years ago, I think, and did not think Lennox made his case, but I don’t have the details. I also don’t have time right now to listen to it again; whenI do, I’ll comment on it here.

 

[King Charisma]

There is also a perceived discrimination against Christians in the sciences in colleges/universities.

https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0226826

This isn't a bias, it's just how science works. Creationists in particular like to complain that their "papers" are rejected by peer review journals. What they fail to realize is that science requires actual work and evidence. A "paper" filled with bible verses and arguments like "dogs don't give birth to monkeys" isn't going to pass peer review because there's simply nothing to review. That doesn't stop Christians from feeling entitled to academic respect though. Dunning Kruger and all that.

 

[5wize]

I don't think it is superficial to feel joy or awe because of something in the natural world around us.

I didn't mean to imply that our feelings were superficial. The point was that feelings of awe are triggered by a very superficial sensory assessment of things.

I felt those feelings as an atheist and later as a Christian. It's different as Christian because now I know that beauty or majesty I see inspires reverence toward the One who designed and made it. Why do we have to have a tangible source? Why can't it be an invisible source who makes himself known by what is created?

Why does there have to be a source at all? What stops things from just being what they are?

My experience with the perfect personal Mind leads me to a different conclusion.

How does that personal perfect mind manifest in your life? Physically, emotionally, intellectually? How so in each case?

,

It wasn't designed to be like that in the beginning.

It must have been. If there is a designer, what we are experiencing must be a potentiality of the design. It might not be what he wanted given our free will, but I don't see how the twists and turns of potentialities of our current outcome were not part of the design. If it weren't we would not be in this particular situation at all. The design would have led elsewhere.

You neglect to acknowledge how sinful we are. How wayward we are from God and his original design.

How can sinful not be part of the design if we were the design?

...with a god of this world who is fallen and unrecoverable as well. A god who despises us and takes delight in making us suffer. At least from God, we have an olive branch of redemption.

Why doesn't god give himself, and us a chance and crush him?

There is no promise that Christians can navigate this world better than others if we are obedient to our Creator. Christians suffer the same hardships and trials as non-Christians but we trust God that the afflictions of this world are temporary. We will enjoy an eternal life in a world that is incomparable to what we have here.

What is wrong with just peaceful rest? Nothingness, like before you were born?

Did you feel liberated and emancipated when you stopped believing in God?

No. I felt sad.

Was being a Christian a burden to you?

Yes. I looked at the rest of what I thought at the time was His creation not participating in this message, the muslim, the Buddhist, the
Jew, the other 2/3rds of creation, and I could no longer accept the eliteness of Christianity... the only way. Made no sense.

Dawkins takes the Christian motif of Christ setting us free from sin and the power of Satan and turns it around to people being slaves to religion.

 

[Whatsisface]

Their wrong-headedness gives Christ a bad name. Jesus did not seek to rule over others but to serve in love. That was part of the example he left his disciples to follow. Jesus didn't come to condemn but to save. The church had no business cozying-up to politics.

Ok.

I'm sure there are scientists who do or would do the same to the creationist's view.

Not if there was any good reason to think it true, which there isn't. I think where they really do try to shut it down, and have been successful, is when creationists try to get creationism taught in schools alongside evolution in the science classroom. The major problem with this there is no science backing creationism up.

For an example see the Kitzmiller v Dover trial. I cannot copy and paste from the conclusion, but this should get you to the right page.

Conclusion of Kitzmiller v Dover trial.

There is also a perceived discrimination against Christians in the sciences in colleges/universities.

https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0226826

I read some of that and agree with Gus, it doesn't show an actual discrimination but a perceived discrimination.

Such as?

Lightening, epilepsy(possession), unfortunate natural events as punishment or from evil spirits, the passage of the sun across the sky, etc etc.

As an atheist going from not being able to see God's handiwork in creation to being able to recognize God's creative mind from microscopic life to the immenseness of the galaxies, I found the existence of God much more majestic. I don't feel confined or enslaved by being a Christian. I reject Dawkin's assertions that religion [true religion] shackles humans. It's just the opposite.

The reason atheists don't see God in creation is because there is no evidence for such. To me, this is the key point in the difference between atheists and the religious, how we view evidence.

If you had your hand on the purse strings, would you finance research into why the universe exists if you thought God created it in a way inexplicable to us?

I think Dawkins likes to turn theistic arguments upside down and use them for his own atheistic purposes. The title of his book, The God Delusion, is another example. I've written a number of times that I believe atheists are deluded by the god of this world, Satan. It's part of the blindness that is covering their minds causing them not to see the reality of God. I could relate to the words in the song, Amazing Grace, "I was blind but now see." when I first became a Christian. It is wonderful to see God in the glory of his creation. It does give one a glimpse of what God is like.

When you bring demonic deception to the table then all bets are off. You cannot show you are not being deceived.

Would you also agree as Lennox asserted that the laws and constants that were discovered in nature by the early scientists who expected those natural laws to exist because they believed in a divine Lawgiver who created it? So naturally a lawgiver would structure his creation with laws instead of allowing complete randomness and chaos. Would you consider those to be scientific predictions that were proven by those early scientists?

No, because there are other reasons that the universe has laws that Lennox is ignoring. One would be the absence of a God that could interfere with the workings of said universe's properties.

Another would be that a universe with consistent laws would be the only kind of universe that creatures such as us could find themselves in.What we are debating is how/why that universe exists. Is it natural or supernatural.

Subjective experience doesn't always equate to feelings. This is not the only evidence that he bases his faith on. He mentioned history also.

History doesn't prove Jesus rose from the dead. Historical documents alone cannot prove the supernatural.

I don't think Lennox used Newton as an example to explain the existence of God but as a contrast to what Dawkins said about not having to attribute this "wonder" to a Creator but instead the credit can be given to science which has emancipated man from that impulse to attribute these things to a creator.

Ok. But I think Dawkins has a point here. At one time we were completely in the dark as to what was going on, ie, why do we and universe exists and those reasons were given to supernatural explanations. Now we know so much more, although e can't explain everything, we know that there are natural explanations for things giving some foundation for thinking that maybe the whole thing has a natural explanation.

I was thinking we can go two rounds and then move on to the Dawkin's next thesis, unless you prefer to move on now. I'm not looking to win a debate but to discuss and learn.

Ok, fine. if you want to reply to this post do so, and I'll reply to yours but we can then move on.

 

[stiggy wiggy]

As atheists, we don't see how coarsely defined awe alone equates to an intelligence behind nature. This was the point behind Dawkin's comment:

"When you consider the beauty of the world, you wonder how it came to be what it tis...you are naturally overwhelmed with a feeling of awe, a feeling of admiration, and you almost feel the desire to worship something..."

We humans are very dull instruments given just our senses to assess this reality and the emotions that arise from experiencing those senses. If someone makes us feel good, we have a direct source of that feeling. If nature makes us feel good, we imagine the same type of source behind that as well without evidence of that tangible source. We just say that nature is the evidence of that type of source when nature might just well be that source. It's just what we do. We are very superficial pattern creating creatures.

And science doesn't give us the answer as to our meaning or origins either, and may never do that, because that might not even exist. But science did allow us to dispel old and coarse attempts that humans attempted at defining origin and meaning with much less information, far coarser information than what we possess now. What has been dispelled to my satisfaction is that this reality is some intelligent creation by a perfect personal mind that loves us dearly as the details under our very high level experience does not lend itself to such belief. For some reason ALL life seems geared for self survival and we have to hunt, harvest or war other life for that. That's the intrinsic design and it seems we created cultural gods to appease in order to gain some supernatural edge in performing that not to mention to protect us from how disease and malady prone we are - an appeasing that however well documented by prophets in scripture never ever seemed to work anyway, even to this day.

None of this seems designed well at all if we we were designed by a perfect god to glorify him by our very creation, a creation that some form of supernatural obedience is supposed to help us navigate better than those who don't. This is beyond just explaining away with a myth of a fallen man and woman in a fallen world.

In other words you're not just a glass half empty kind of a guy, but a 'the whole dang glass is empty" sort of anti-naturalistic misanthrope. Poor miserable boy, your great great grandfathers had to hunt and harvest, both of which those more shallow than you often do even today for fun and recreation, those superficial philistines. And you may, Nature forbid, STILL have to hunt through a parking lot for a grocery shopping cart in which to carry away stuff harvested for you by a small group of others.

Actually, all your complaining about your poor design reminds me of some ingrate bellyaching about the design of his Mercedes due to his need to gas it up every so often. Even if the world WERE the plastic bubble you require, you'd probably gripe about the imperfect shape of the bubble not pleasing your aesthetic taste to the fullest.

ETA: Dear Mods: You justifiably deleted my previous response and told me to tone down my rhetoric. I modified my reply considerably and hope the tone at least, if not the content, meets with your approval. I admit, I was a bit rude.

 

[5wize]

In other words you're not just a glass half empty kind of a guy, but a 'the whole dang glass is empty" sort of anti-naturalistic misanthrope. Poor miserable boy, your great great grandfathers had to hunt and harvest, both of which those more shallow than you often do even today for fun and recreation, those superficial philistines. And you may, Nature forbid, STILL have to hunt through a parking lot for a grocery shopping cart in which to carry away stuff harvested for you by a small group of others.

Actually, all your complaining about your poor design reminds me of some ingrate bellyaching about the design of his Mercedes due to his need to gas it up every so often. Even if the world WERE the plastic bubble you require, you'd probably gripe about the imperfect shape of the bubble not pleasing your aesthetic taste to the fullest.

ETA: Dear Mods: You justifiably deleted my previous response and told me to tone down my rhetoric. I modified my reply considerably and hope the tone at least, if not the content, meets with your approval. I admit, I was a bit rude.

Dang, sorry I missed it, because this one here ^^^ is just goofy. I never complained, griped, felt miserable, lamented having to buy food, or became a misanthrope in the least with regards to what I pointed out above. I'm just saying that for a god that values life, he comes across more like the slave owner in Django Unchained that forced his slaves into fight contests to the death for their own survival. Misanthrope? Hell, I'm playing the hand dealt very well in my opinion. Bourbon and cigars here, brother. My point is that the nature of things does not support your childish fuzzy-wuzzy wuz a bear view of some god that holds life as sacred or threaded with any supernaturally meted justice at all.

 

[stiggy wiggy]

. Bourbon and cigars, brother

Ooooooh, what an aesthete. A connoisseur. Do you own a Hugh Hefner bathrobe? No? Are you sure. Have you not OBSERVED it NOT hanging in your closet?

My point is that the nature of things does not support your childish fuzzy-fuzzy wuz a bear view of god at all.

Make up your mind. Which role do you want to play? Joe Namath circa 1969 or H.L. Mencken, circa 1926?

 

[5wize]

Ooooooh, what an aesthete. A connoisseur. Do you own a Hugh Hefner bathrobe? No? Are you sure. Have you not OBSERVED it NOT hanging in your closet?



Make up your mind. Which role do you want to play? Joe Namath circa 1969 or H.L. Mencken, circa 1926?

You are exhausted again. It's getting quicker. Time to gather the family? Spend whatever cells you have left on them maybe? You won't see them in heaven. Take the time now.

 

[stiggy wiggy]

You are exhausted again.

I'm your Huckleberry.

It's getting quicker.

N-E-S-T-L-E-S,
Nestles' makes the very best.

Time to gather the family?

Done. We're all here.

Spend whatever cells you have left on them maybe? You won't see them in heaven.

I think I will. Well, maybe not Uncle Stan. There was that incident in Mississippi. When you see him down there, tell him I'm thinking of him and will see him after the millennial kingdom.

 

[Caroljeen]

This isn't a bias, it's just how science works. Creationists in particular like to complain that their "papers" are rejected by peer review journals. What they fail to realize is that science requires actual work and evidence. A "paper" filled with bible verses and arguments like "dogs don't give birth to monkeys" isn't going to pass peer review because there's simply nothing to review. That doesn't stop Christians from feeling entitled to academic respect though. Dunning Kruger and all that.

This sounds like a caricature.

 

[Temujin]

This sounds like a caricature.

It does. And yet there is a real live example posting on the Evolution boards. It's almost impossible to caricature the goofiness of some honestly held positions.

 

[5wize]

Done. We're all here.

Good. Share some of your inane postings with them. Good opportunity for an intervention once they become aware of your problem.

 

[stiggy wiggy]

Good. Share some of your inane postings with them.

I did. They all want to know who the guy is that observes things not happening. They want to talk to you and ask how on earth you do that.