And when the sun eventually goes nova and destroys the solar system that is an indication of perfect order and something in control, right?
Actually, our sun doesn't have enough mass to go nova. It will swell beyond the orbit of the earth (I forget how far), and eventually collapse into a brown dwarf (I think) and die.
"I think what you are saying is that God is not just a concept. If that's the case, then I would ask you to support that claim."
No that is not what i'm saying. God or anything you like can be a concept, but what i'm saying is that i don't believe God was invented by humans, hence scriptures and religion.
Then that is what you are saying. You're saying that while there is a concept of God, God actually exists as more than merely an idea.
I don't believe God was invented either, that would mean the invention of the concept lead to his existance. I believe the idea of God is a creation of man, but that God doesn't actually exist (never did).
Not only do you believe, but you claim it as fact whether directly or indirectly. This being the case i am asking you to substantiate your claim, or else admit it is only a belief.
I believe the concept of God has been proven to be false, though all I was claiming as fact was that there's an idea of God which was created by humans. This does not mean that God was created by humans (which is nonsense).
"I believe what I say, and therefore am not lying."
Is this an informal adimision that you don't know whether God was invented, originally by humans, and you only believe it so?
This was a clarification that there was no lie because there was no intention of deciet. I believe my words, thus there is no lie in them. It is possible there are erros, but that would make them mistakes, not lies.
The he/she was referring to the "I've not encountered anyone else who would contest the issue" part of your reply.
Oops, I seem to have misread something somewhere.
You said "I'm not interested in what he/she thinks", but I didn't name anyone for there to be a "he/she". I said I've not encountered anyone else who would contest the idea (that there's a concept of God invented by man). You should have said you're not interested in what anyone else thinks.
"I did not claim God is a concept originated by man. I claimed the concept of God is originated by man."
Then prove it. Otherwise it is no different to someone saying the particular concept was not originated by man.
That's an absurd request, and would also be a complete waste of time.
Lets not lose sight of this discussion which is the claim that states God has being originally thought up by humans, hence scriptures and religions. What man has conceptualised since time immemorial is not my concern.
Not sure what you're saying here. How could that sentence lead to losing sight of the discussion, when it was an attempt to clarify what the discussion was about?
Are you kidding! This information was given some 500 years ago, or so.
Not only does that not indicate to me a claim that the universe is expanding, but even if it is there are any number of reasons they could have come to that conclusion. One may use false premises to reach a true conclusion using valid reasoning. Who knows what they were thinking. Perhaps aliens told them, as the Dogon tribe claims aliens gave them their astronomical knowledge. Or perhaps the knowledge was passed down from a more advanced people that previously populated earth or parts of it (Atlantis anyone?).
My point is that you claim the scriptures were inspired by God, and that's where the knowledge came from, but the Dogon had similar knowledge and you do not claim the same for them. If the Dogon didn't get their knowledge from God, then where from? And there's no reason the authors of the Qur'an couldn't have got it from the same source.
Expansion was discovered by Edwin Hubble in 1929.
"The writer wrote a work of fiction based on a true story, so where's the inspiration?"
Err... the true story!
Divine inspiration you nutter!
"Christianity is undoubtedly "a religion" but it is not the thing (religion) itself."
"That is exactly what it is."
Why so?
Because your definitions were wrong/flawed, as pointed out by the definitions I referenced on dictionary.com. Christianity
is a religion, and is what it is.
"Not the same thing, not relevant."
It's good enough to understand the point i'm making.
No, your analogy does not apply. The NYPD is a part (an arm) of the government. It's not the same, and isn't relevant because it doesn't really matter.
My point is that you/your mindset are prepared to claim something as fact without knowing whether it is fact (macroevolution comes to mind). When scrutinized the strong atheist can easily be seen as nothing more than a religious fanatic without the concept (as you put it) of God.
This quote makes me question whether you understand both the terms "religious" and "fanatic". I may not know it as fact absolutely, but I know it is likely true beyond a reasonable doubt, and until you give me a reason to doubt it, I'll continue to accept that it is likely true. Note, I'm not accepting it on faith as I haven't even fully accepted it, I merely acknowledge that it is likely true and doesn't matter so is not worth investigating until such time as it might actually matter. Further, I don't think you are adequately equipped to evaluate my mindset. You know what I've said, but not why I've said it.
Note: This was about the truth of the discoverer of pluto, remember, not whether God exists.
This group is no better than the institutionalised religions which seek to force everyone to accept their terms.
Hardly! Atheists don't force their beliefs on others. That is, very few generalities can be applied to atheists as a whole. While some might, most don't and it can't be said that it is something atheists do.
Good, i'm glad we have that out of the way.
OK then, lets get to it shall we?
About macroevolution:
[...]the same processes that cause within-species changes of the frequencies of alleles [Read: speciation] can be extrapolated to between species changes, so this argument fails unless some mechanism for preventing microevolution causing macroevolution is discovered. Since every step of the process has been demonstrated in genetics and the rest of biology, the argument against macroevolution fails.
There is no difference between microevolution and macroevolution except that genes between species usually diverge, while genes within species usually combine.
