Three Claims of Uniformitarian Naturalism

SetiAlpha6:

It looks like you've given me a whole lot more excuses to avoid engaging with any of the substantive points and questions I put to you. This is a pattern I've noticed with you.

I'm wondering why you come to this forum. If it is not to discuss anything of substance, then why come? Are you just trying to virtue-signal to co-believers by repeatedly stating what you believe, without ever attempting to give any reasons for why you believe it? Are you here to evangelise, hoping that if you mention Jesus often enough some non-Christian might go and look him up, wondering what all the fuss is about?

In starting this thread, you tried to lay down a challenge to atheists, which you assumed they could not meet. In fact, your post was answered in detail by a number of different people. My own replies to your topic started almost exactly one month ago. They were detailed. In characteristic fashion, you ignored the vast majority of the substance, as well as most of the questions I put to you. Specifically, in my post #270 I answered the three specific claims you put in your opening post, one by one. Following that post, as you will recall, I responded in detail to a number of your other posts in the thread. You ignored most of my responses there, and most of the questions I put to you.

But then, just today, you posted #394, complaining that you still haven't seen the scientific proof of two of your statements from your opening post.

What happened? Did you forget all the previous responses to those claims? Did you forget how I told you that nobody has claimed to have proofs of those claims, and neither are they relied upon by atheists?

You tried to set up a straw man, saying, essentially: atheists believe these things, but none of them can prove them. Therefore, God.

Your straw man failed. First, as you have been told, those things are not articles of faith that atheists have. We don't need to assume they are true. We don't need to prove them. Moreover, even if we did need them and were unable to prove them, that does nothing at all to show that your God is real or your religion is correct. Besides, as I showed, you don't even understand those claims, as is evidenced in the way you expressed them in your opening post. You made several mistakes about what atheists require and what science requires. Since those claims are all vaguely related to the theory of evolution, it is fair to conclude that your understanding of the theory of evolution is lacking, too.

As far as I can tell, there's little point in trying to get you to think things through. All you want to do is to make excuses as to why you don't have to or don't want to. Meanwhile, you seem to find plenty of time to preach about your unsupported beliefs.

Are you done here? Do you actually want to discuss the topic you posted any further - along with the spin-off questions and points of discussion that have been put to you - or should I close the thread because you're unwilling to do anything other than post more proclamations of your faith in God?
 
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The questions are often excellent and appropriate, but not always.
How about you try answering some of the excellent questions I asked you? Then, if you still have time to spare, you can explain which of my questions are inappropriate, and why.

Reasons not to answer questions...

I don’t have time to answer them all, even if I wanted to.
Then concentrate on answering just a few of the more excellent ones.

Also, it will help if you can remember that people have responded to you. It will save a lot of time, since you won't be repeating yourself unnecessarily.

I believe that people not only should, but have to ultimately, answer their own questions anyway.
Maybe you should stop asking yourself questions and try listening to the questions other people are putting to you, for a change. Obviously, you're asking yourself the wrong questions. You need some outside help.

I do not believe that I am the best person to answer every question.
Nobody expects that. I would like to see you try, that's all. You know, put in more than the bare minimum effort. Drop the platitudes and actually think about things for a minute or two. This is a forum. It isn't TV. Veging out on the sofa is not supposed to be what you're here for.

I don’t always know the answer to a question.
Again, nobody expects you to have an answer to everything.

You'll find yourself in a much stronger position in debates if you admit that you don't know everything. There is a tendency around here for people to overstep the limits of what they can prove, or what they actually know. They almost always end up looking silly, making a bunch of claims they can't hope to support.

Sometimes people don’t actually want the answer because it is a threat to their lifestyle, and no I am not threatening anyone by stating that.
I don't ask questions unless I want answers.

Sometimes I don’t answer a question because I am concerned that the answer might hurt a person in some way or other.
Don't worry about me. I'll be fine, I assure you. Tell me what you really think. This act of pretending you love everybody is wearing thin anyway.

People have to decide things for themselves. I can only provide my view, I cannot provide ultimate truth.
Maybe I'm different from you, but I like to have reasons to holding a certain view. I ask you what you think about specific things and most of the time I get nothing back from you other than repetitious proclamations of your faith in God etc.

Take one example: you say you believe that God heals people miraculously. But why? Is it just your gut feeling that this is what happens? Is it because if you can't explain why somebody was healed then you just assume it must have been God, because God is the plug that fills all holes in your knowledge? Is it because you can't admit you don't know how or why the healing happened, so you need to put God into the picture as an ignorance substitute? Is it because you've read lots of religious stories about God healing people and you've never bothered to check whether there's reliable evidence for any of them? Is it just faith?

I agree with some of your comments!
Which ones?

You Rock!!!
I wish I could say the same about you, but you don't come across as very genuine to me. I guess it's possible that you're as naive and foolish as you make out, but it seems unlikely given your selective avoidance of all the hard questions.
 
I gave you a reference for 1400 miracles and will leave it there, for your consideration, if you wish.

I could also post an additional list of 150 miracles, written over thousands of years by the many different authors of the individual books of the Bible, if you wish.
What you're doing there is what is known in the trade as the "Gish Gallop".

When Miracle #1 is debunked by the skeptic, you say "Oh, but there's still another 1399 miracles that you haven't disproven! Until you disprove every one of them, you haven't shown there are no miracles." And when those 1399 are disproven, you say "I have a new list of 150 miracles. You have to disprove those, too!"

Here's how it is supposed to work:

You choose your best miracle from the 1550 miracles you have mentioned. Give us all the details and we'll talk about it. If this is your best case, and you can't establish that the alleged miracle ever happened, then it will be safe to assume that you probably won't do any better with the other 1549 miracles.

So, do your homework. You've read up on those 1550 miracles, I assume. Pick your best one. Line up your ducks and prove to us that this was a legitimate God-given miracle. If you can establish a reasonable case that your favorite miracle happened, then we might start to take this whole miracle claim of yours more seriously.

I should mention, too, that you have a track record of failure in proving miracles. Case in point is the miraculous cure of your father, which you admitted you could not prove had anything to do with your God. But maybe you can do better with one of the 1550 miracles you refer to.

I can wait while you conduct any research you require.
 
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If we are looking so far back in time, and can’t actually see it as it is today, how do we know that the Andromeda Galaxy still even exists today.
The short answer is: we can't; we have to wait until the light from Andromeda has had time to get here.

The longer answer is that it's hard to destroy an entire galaxy in just 2.5 million years, so it's very likely that it's still there.

See what I did there? An honest, straightforward answer to the question you asked. I didn't pretend you didn't ask it. I didn't change the subject. And I certainly didn't say "Each person has to find his own answers to that. I believe that it's still there, but I'm not going to tell you why."

Yes, I personally do believe that Jesus performed real miracles.
Really, who cares what you believe?

The question we all want to know the answer to is: can you establish, using evidence, that Jesus performed miracles?

We don't really have to wait with bated breath for your answer to that, though, do we? The answer is obviously no, you can't. If you could, somebody else would have got to it before you. For that matter, you can't even establish with reasonable certainty that the biblical Jesus was a historical rather than a fictional figure.
 
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The short answer is: we can't; we have to wait until the light from Andromeda has had time to get here.

The longer answer is that it's hard to destroy an entire galaxy in just 2.5 million years, so it's very likely that it's still there.

See what I did there? An honest, straightforward answer to the question you asked. I didn't pretend you didn't ask it. I didn't change the subject. And I certainly didn't say "Each person has to find his own answers to that. I believe that it's still there, but I'm not going to tell you why."


Really, who cares what you believe?

The question we all want to know the answer to is: can you establish, using evidence, that Jesus performed miracles?

We don't really have to wait with bated breath for your answer to that, though, do we? The answer is obviously no, you can't. If you could, somebody else would have got to it before you. For that matter, you can't even establish with reasonable certainty that the biblical Jesus was a historical rather than a fictional figure.

James,

Please prove Scientifically or otherwise that Jesus Christ, arguably the most influential single individual the world has ever known, was in your own words, a “fictional figure”.

Prove Jesus Christ never existed.
That is the Claim you are clearly making.
 
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James,

Please prove that Jesus Christ, arguably the most influential single individual the world has ever known, was a “fictional figure”.

Prove He never existed.
I have not made the claim that he never existed.

Understand?

If you claim to know that Jesus Christ was a real person, then you should be able to prove it. Can you?
 
Alex,

So far, James and I and others, apparently seem to agree that the philosophy of Naturalism is unproven and possibly may even be unprovable. And there was also even a hint in your own writings that you might also be close to this opinion as well.

So are we all on the same page with this item at least?

Can we all agree on this?
 
So far, it appears to me that...

Claim 1
Nature is all that exists

Is not actually held by anyone here, because it is unproven and is likely unprovable.

Can we all agree on this one?
 
Claim 2
Everything can, and indeed must, be explained by time plus chance plus the laws of nature working on matter.

Seems like no one actually holds this view here either, again because it is also unproven and unprovable, unscientific, etc.

Can we all agree on this one now?
 
Claim 4
Jesus never existed.

Best I can tell, so far, no one here holds this claim, because it would be unscientific to do so, it is unproven and is likely unprovable as well.

Can we agree on this one?
 
Claim 5
Miracles do not exist.

Last one for the moment...

Same problems proving this claim.
So I am going to go out on a long limb and say that no one here would say this or actually hold this because it would be unscientific to do so, just like all of the others.

So perhaps, we can all agree, that no one should hold or make any of these Claims.

Is that correct?
 
Claim 5
Miracles do not exist.

Last one for the moment...

Same problems proving this claim.
So I am going to go out on a long limb and say that no one here would say this or actually hold this because it would be unscientific to do so, just like all of the others.
Incorrect.
Claiming that "miracles do not exist" IS the scientific conclusion - although does depend on how one is defining "miracle".
Miracles, to me, require something to operate contrary to the laws of nature.
In science nothing operates contrary to those laws.
Thus miracles do not exist, from a scientific point of view.

Again, if you have a different definition of what a miracle is then mileage may vary.
 
We can all agree, that no one should hold or make any of these Claims.

Is that correct?

Who made all of those claims exactly? You're stating they are claims made, so you have to show us who made those claims, why did they make them and what, if anything, refutes those claims?

Once you present that information, we can proceed and if you don't, then we can pile this thread on all your other threads considered as religious trolling.
 
Who made all of those claims exactly? You're stating they are claims made, so you have to show us who made those claims, why did they make them and what, if anything, refutes those claims?

Once you present that information, we can proceed and if you don't, then we can pile this thread on all your other threads considered as religious trolling.

Ok, so I will add you to the list of folks who do not hold any of these Claims.

Unless you tell me otherwise...

Thank You
 
Claim 6
Absence of Evidence is not Evidence of Absence

Does anyone here hold this Claim?

Just asking.
 
Ok, so I will add you to the list of folks who do not hold any of these Claims.

Unless you tell me otherwise...

Thank You

So, you actually don't have any evidence showing anyone made those claims? You're just making them up as you go along because you are a liar and a fraud and all you do is troll and preach?
 
Incorrect.
Claiming that "miracles do not exist" IS the scientific conclusion - although does depend on how one is defining "miracle".
Miracles, to me, require something to operate contrary to the laws of nature.
In science nothing operates contrary to those laws.
Thus miracles do not exist, from a scientific point of view.

Again, if you have a different definition of what a miracle is then mileage may vary.

Isn’t the Claim that “miracles don’t exist” an unproven assumption, based on circular reasoning though?

Science sets up experiments that disallow any other answers, other than Natural causes, and then basically kinda sorta Claims that no other causes exist, right?

Doesn’t that look like a rigged system of investigation to you?

It does to me.

It eliminates any possible competitive causes by its own design and structure. And then Claims no other causes exist.
 
So, you actually don't have any evidence showing anyone made those claims? You're just making them up as you go along because you are a liar and a fraud and all you do is troll and preach?

Ok, let’s go with the idea that no one here made these Claims. I tried to mostly say that, I just couldn’t say that for sure about Alex.

Hopefully Alex does not hold these Claims either.

I am very cool with that!

And I can certainly be wrong as well.
 
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As to number one...we would need to define "nature" I expect nature is all there is... so sure why not say that nature is all that exists if that also says the supernatural does not exist...I say there is no supernatural and that it is just made up nonsense and if anyone wishes to claim there is a supernatural anything perhaps they should make that claim supported with very powerful and compelling evidence or recognise they have nothing but make believe.

This does appear to be an example of you Alex agreeing to, holding to, or even proclaiming Claim 1, so this is a bit confusing?

To me this is only a faith statement of personal belief, without Empirical foundation.

Do you agree with my view of your statement?
What am I missing besides a brain?
 
The assumptions of science?
  • All phenomena have natural causes. .

Ok, prove this one Scientifically please.

People seem to want to use this “assumption” to describe all of existence, which seems to be overstepping the boundaries of knowledge.

You guys all know I am right on this, don’t you?
 
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