Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Ryan McCauley on February 9, 2012 at 4:21pm

I would hope a conclusion isn't made off of a debate.
Torches and oil? Really? So oil produces oxygen? Last I checked fire needs oxygen no matter how flammable.
And any archeologist can say anything, like the ones that found the ark, or other crap like that.
And no one knows how the pyramids were built for sure, and why for that matter.
I know a killer whale exist even though ive never seen one, just like the lack of credible evidence that you have a dog, doesn't mean shit once you see the dog. So I could give you tons of unexplainable things revolving around aliens along with millions of personal encounters, arts stories, tribes that believe their from space, dogon people, maps of the world that are unexplainable.
Along with the discoveries of extremaphobes, proves that we know very little about life.
Not to mention the bacteria in meteorites and blue berries and past oceans on mars.
And again why the hell would people be drawing classic alien figures on cave walls from forever ago.
I dont know, I think their is plenty of evidence, problem is it goes against your "religion of atheism."

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Permalink Reply by Dave G on February 9, 2012 at 4:42pm

This may be news to you, Ryan, but the atmosphere has oxygen in it. This is what allows torches to burn. Shocking, I know.

And yes, if the dog was seen, that would be evidence that the dog exists. Got any evidence of your aliens? We're waiting.

No doubt you could provide tons of stories of alien encounters. I can provide tons of stories about encounters with bigfoot. In neither case are personal ancedotes considered to be evidence. Anyone, as you say, can say anything. It's evidence that matters.

You seem to have a strong disdain for sciencce and knowledge, particularly when it disagrees with what you want to believe. Sadly, reality does not care about what you want to be true, only what is.

You mention the bacteria found in meteorites. If you read up on the subject, you'd find that that claim is highly speculative and is not widely acccepted as the science behind the claim is not strong. The scale difference between the patterns in the meteorite and the Earth bacteria they were being compared against is far larger than reasonable and similar patterns can be caused by non-biological means. This does not mean that they are not fossilized traces of bacteria, just that the evidence is not strong enough to justify the claim that they are.

Looking back over the posts, I think that it is less that you have a disdain for science than it is that you seem to have both a much lower bar for standards of evidence in regards to what is possible/likely and an irrationally high standard for what is known. You seem to be willing to accept anything as evidence for what might be but require a 100% certainty for what is known.

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Permalink Reply by Willson Stoner on February 9, 2012 at 5:06pm

Ryan, unexplainable things are not evidence. Things that explain the unexplainable are evidence. As for the phrase "religion of atheism", I wouldn't go there if I were you.

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Permalink Reply by Ryan McCauley on February 9, 2012 at 5:06pm

Let me start by sayin sorry for being a jerk, I know I come off like that but its for two reasons. First I belive in scratching the surface to expose the root, because the root of peoples thinking is were you learn the most. And second I feel that by being brash and rough I can pull comments out of people that normally wouldnt speak up.

I agree that I need proof before I will say something is real. Problem is I like to try and stay as open minded as possible for things not proven, so that it keeps dreams alive and persuades me to explore new aspects of science and discover what others said was impossible.

The main reason I stick up for ancient aliens, is because I never knew about the nazca lines, or pacu pichu whatever its called, etc. and to get to see these cool things without your normal negative theist aspects of the discoveries is awesome.

Now another reason I have my panties in a bunch, is because of the atheist that are actually allowed on tv are idiots.

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Permalink Reply by Ryan McCauley on February 9, 2012 at 5:34pm

Your comment about atheism as a religion came in after my last post. I wanted to say sorry but I really wanna hear why its not. I Know its not, but its a huge arguement by where I live and so I was hoping to hear more replies to that one. See another reason I usually attack is because you can get those fast passionate less time to think responses that are more like debating in real life, with a ton of time and a wikipedia to instantly source.
I live in UTAH, ahh! So these things come up a lot. Fortunetly there is a handful of suppressed youth here wantin a chance.

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Permalink Reply by Dave G on February 9, 2012 at 5:41pm

The simplest reason that atheism is not a religion is that at its core, atheism is nothing more than someone saying "I don't accept your claim that there is a god/gods". Nothing more. No teachings, no rules to follow or rituals to perform, no mandated beliefs or official dogma. It's really no different than not believing in leprechauns or pixies.

You don't even have to reject the claim for good reasons. While many of us reject the claim that a god exists due to the lack of evidence, there are those who disbelieve for irrational reasons. The Raelians are an excellent example. They don't believe in gods because they believe that all of the myths about gods were caused by visiting aliens who genetically engineered humans. There's no evidence for that either, of course. So, technically they are an atheistic religion, but the religion does not come from their atheism but from the beliefs, rituals, dogmas and such of their alien-worship.

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Permalink Reply by Ryan McCauley on February 9, 2012 at 5:59pm

Ok, makes sense to me but a often hear that it is a religion because as much as people need god not to exist in order for their, belief structure to be true. I wish I could remember the arguement better.?.? Dang.

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Permalink Reply by Dave G on February 9, 2012 at 6:16pm

It's a fairly common straw man put forth by those people who have difficulty accepting a different type of worldview than a religious one. They assume that everyone has to be religious about something, and try to turn 'not believing on God' into a faith position when it's no different than their non-belief in flying pigs.

It's also often combined with the claim that all atheists claim to be 100% certain that there is no god, which cannot be proven. While gnostic atheists do exist, they're a definite minority. Much more common are atheists who do not claim certainty.

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