How did Rolly Pollies Evolve?

[DaleCutler]

@Mercer

I’m far more inclined to take Rumraket’s testimony as to what he believes.

That would be a syllogism. Of course you are.

[DaleCutler]

@Mercer

DaleCutler:

But it is merely your fallacy of incredulity demanding that God does not exist…

I think that’s a misrepresentation of the view of every atheist I’ve ever met.

Of course you do.

[DaleCutler]

@Mercer

Dale, if you have to misrepresent the views of others to support your own, there’s probably something wrong with your position.

Now that you’ve concluded that I have misrepresented others, I would expect you to make that subsequent suggestion.

Being dismissive of God at the beginning in big bang cosmology is a fallacy of incredulity – “I cannot imagine and/or refuse to believe that God was the Beginner, so something else has to be true.”

[swamidass (S. Joshua Swamidass)]

@DaleCutler

I agree. But it is merely your fallacy of incredulity demanding that God does not exist, and that Christians are all deluding themselves. A pretty decent book is The Case for a Creator .

With all due respect, the “Case for a Creator” has major problems with it. Keep in mind you are recommending a journalist’s book to a group of scientists. That is not going to get very far at all. I say this to you as a Christian that agrees God created us.

[T_aquaticus]

@swamidass

With all due respect, the “Case for a Creator” has major problems with it. Keep in mind you are recommending a journalist’s book to a group of scientists. That is not going to get very far at all. I say this to you as a Christian that agrees God created us.

I will second this suggestion. This book may be popular with christian non-scientists, but it fails as a book on science. I would also suggest that it’s journalistic integrity is seriously questionable, but that is for another discussion. St. Augustine has some good advice on this front:

Usually, even a non-Christian knows something about the earth, the heavens, and the other elements of this world, about the motion and orbit of the stars and even their size and relative positions, about the predictable eclipses of the sun and moon, the cycles of the years and the seasons, about the kinds of animals, shrubs, stones, and so forth, and this knowledge he holds to as being certain from reason and experience. Now, it is a disgraceful and dangerous thing for an infidel to hear a Christian, presumably giving the meaning of Holy Scripture, talking non-sense on these topics; and we should take all means to prevent such an embarrassing situation, in which people show up vast ignorance in a Christian and laugh it to scorn. The shame is not so much that an ignorant individual is derided, but that people outside the household of the faith think our sacred writers held such opinions, and, to the great loss of those for whose salvation we toil, the writers of our Scripture are criticized and rejected as unlearned men. If they find a Christian mistaken in a field which they themselves know well and hear him maintaining his foolish opinions about our books, how are they going to believe those books in matters concerning the resurrection of the dead, the hope of eternal life, and the kingdom of heaven, when they think their pages are full of falsehoods on facts which they themselves have learnt from experience and the light of reason? Reckless and incompetent expounders of holy Scripture bring untold trouble and sorrow on their wiser brethren when they are caught in one of their mischievous false opinions and are taken to task by those who are not bound by the authority of our sacred books. For then, to defend their utterly foolish and obviously untrue statements, they will try to call upon Holy Scripture for proof and even recite from memory many passages which they think support their position, although “they understand neither what they say nor the things about which they make assertion.”
-St. Augustine

[swamidass (S. Joshua Swamidass)]

@Mercer

But it is merely your fallacy of incredulity demanding that God does not exist…

I think that’s a misrepresentation of the view of every atheist I’ve ever met.

@mercer, put some skin in the game? Do you believe in God? Why or why not?

[Mercer (John Mercer)]

@DaleCutler

Being dismissive of God at the beginning in big bang cosmology is a fallacy of incredulity – “I cannot imagine and/or refuse to believe that God was the Beginner, so something else has to be true.”

You’re still misrepresenting, and you’re going even further by manufacturing a false quotation. You shouldn’t have to do this if you are secure in your own position.

@swamidass

@mercer, put some skin in the game? Do you believe in God? Why or why not?

Oh, is this just a game? Yes, but there’s not much evidence for doing so.

[swamidass (S. Joshua Swamidass)]

@Mercer

@mercer, put some skin in the game? Do you believe in God? Why or why not?

Oh, is this just a game? Yes, but there’s not much evidence for doing so.

Not a game =), just an idiom. Can you tell us why you believe there is a God? Yes, I understand you don’t see much scientific evidence, but there must be “personal” evidence of some sort. Right? What tips you towards that belief?

[John_Harshman]

@Dan_Eastwood

Is there any point in letting this continue?

No, I don’t think so. Dale has released a flood of irrationality that contributes nothing to the discussion and should embarrass any Christians who are paying attention.

[DaleCutler]

@John_Harshman

Dale has released a flood of irrationality that contributes nothing to the discussion and should embarrass any Christians who are paying attention.

Calling you on your fallacy of incredulity is not a flood of irrationality.

[DaleCutler]

And this by an agnostic:

“The claim that ocean water [or pick your favorite flavor of prebiotic soup] will in time produce Manhattan seems to me sufficiently extraordinary to require extraordinary evidence.”

That evidence has not been forthcoming.

http://voxday.blogspot.com/2018/08/evolution-evaluated.html

[John_Harshman]

Please euthanize this unfortunate thread.

[DaleCutler]

The misfortune is not where you perceive.

[DaleCutler]

Edit and learn: //system 3 mins — Automatically removed quote of whole previous post.//

[DaleCutler]

@T_aquaticus

St. Augustine has some good advice on this front

I am familiar with the quote, and it’s way more applicable to YECs and flat and stationary earth proponents.

How about Wallace?

[DaleCutler]

@Rumraket

And then you die. Purposeless.

All the more reason to make one so you don’t waste this one short life you get in vain hope you will be granted another, longer life just because you don’t like that you one day will die.

Of course, you are speaking from your own mistaken presuppositions. You presume omniscience in saying that this physical cosmos is all that there is.

[DaleCutler]

@Rumraket

Some times the reality of life isn’t what we want. But we also can’t just wish or believe us to another life. No amount of believing or merely wanting or wishing something really hard will magically make it come true.

I don’t suppose that you have considered the possibility that yours is the wishful thinking and that you have merely presumed that you have fairly considered all or enough of the relevant evidence, in effect presuming omniscience.

Epistemologically speaking, the only source that ultimate truth can come from is an infallible source of truth. Christians have that.

[DaleCutler]

@Rumraket

I almost get the feeling you’re somehow trying to say that God and an afterlife has to exist, because you just can’t stand to think about it otherwise. Needless to say, your feelings don’t dictate reality. It’s not how you want it to be? Tough, do something about it. Thoughts and prayers will not get you change, but taking action just might.

No, they don’t have to exist, but I take it on good Authority and I trust other credible testimony that they do, including my own experience. (Unbelievers are too quick to dismiss ‘religious experiences’, and mine happen to fit one of most prominent M.O.s of the Perpetrator. God-mockers love that characterization, I’m sure. )

Maybe you failed to read Request and Articulate Reply.

God is not a vending machine that people can plug their prayer quarters into and get automated delivery of the product of their choice, but God is personal.

And people were praying for me:

New Job.docx - Google Drive

[Patrick]

@DaleCutler

And people were praying for me:

New Job revF.docx - Google Drive

Are kidding me. Are you attributing prayers as the reason for a hiring decision? At a secular hospital with a ton of government rules and regulations. Oy vey

[DaleCutler]

@Patrick

Are kidding me. Are you attributing prayers as the reason for a hiring decision? At a secular hospital with a ton of government rules and regulations. Oy vey

“Are you kidding me.” “Are you attributing prayers.” Are you pretending to be omniscient. There are more dimensions to reality than you are willing to admit, because the dogmas of your faith forbid it. Oh vey. Maybe your thinking is schlock and you are handing out schmutz. Capice?