Are atheists smarter and better educated than Christians?

[wuggle]

Ok wait, I don't think I've ever responded to you in this thread???

 

You didn't and I apologise, it was M30 who misquoted my response to your response to someone else.

 

again apologies.

[wuggle]

....I've been talking about evolution!

 

I thought you were denying evolution ??

[TheFinalWord]

You didn't and I apologise, it was M30 who misquoted my response to your response to someone else.

 

again apologies.

 

No problem A lot of times these posts get mixed up and I can't remember who said what either. You seem like a very smart lady and I always would want you to feel respected, even if we don't agree on something. Cheers!

[M30USA]

I thought you were denying evolution ??

 

If evolution happened, then it's my theory that it was directed and engineered by God or angels, so as to give the appearance of progressing by chance/mutation.

[wuggle]

...You seem like a very smart lady...

 

Shame I'm not a woman

[wuggle]

If evolution happened, then it's my theory that it was directed and engineered by God or angels, so as to give the appearance of progressing by chance/mutation.

 

so you disagree with all the tutors and fellow students on your "master of science" course ??

[M30USA]

so you disagree with all the tutors and fellow students on your "master of science" course ??

 

I was taught evolution. Evolution has made its way not only into biology courses, but even philosophy, economics, politics, etc. You can't get away from it.

 

Look...

 

Any real scientist will admit that TRUE SCIENCE is merely observation. Nothing more. We observe the universe. Once you start hypothesizing, you are dealing with THEORY based on the observations. Einstein said science can never answer WHY, only HOW.

[TheFinalWord]

Shame I'm not a woman

 

LOL my bad

[M30USA]

True, we start out with observation and then hypothesize, testing our hypotheses by the scientific method. Just make sure to know when the SM can and cannot be used, as well as its limitations.

[Lobouspo]

i would encourage you to read it before suggesting it. even though it is religious, and therefore wrong, it seems to suggest that the earth and the universe are in fact billions of years old, as we know, and that evolution is real, as we also know. it's nothing more than attempt to spin it and maintain theism despite overwhelming evidence against.

 

it also very blatantly rejects the 'intelligent design' political movement.[/quote

i have read it and Collins is a proponent of theistic evolution. The whole gist of the book is that Collins uses science to argue for the existence of God. Where did I say that I took everything in the Bible literally? And what makes you smarter than Francis Collins?

[M30USA]

I'm going to interject my own little theory. I will admit that I don't stand too strongly behind this, so don't expect me to vigorously defend it, but...

 

The intelligent design argument is not, in fact, a Christian idea. It may be stapled onto Christianity and supported by many Christians, but there are numerous reasons why it's not exclusively Christian.

 

Watson, the codiscoverer of DNA, could be classified as an "intelligent design" theorist. And he was an atheist. He admitted upon discovering DNA that it was designed and placed here by "aliens". Hmmm...

 

Intelligent design? God? Aliens? Hmmm...how is one to tell the difference? Hmmm...

 

I cannot even begin to spell out the enormous implications of this. We have all the major world religions awaiting the return of SOMEONE. This person/people allegedly created the world and will return to us someday.

 

Hypothetically, if this did happen, how would one even begin to decipher who the "good guys" and the "bad guys" are? The Bible tells us holy angels carry out God's will and possibly even assisted with creation. We are also told by the Bible that the evil angels intend to deceive us.

 

Could these satanic angels possibly plan some kind of deception and play off the "intelligent design" idea? What if they tried to convince us that, yes, we really did create you! How COULD you tell the difference between the good and the bad? This is where wisdom comes in. If such an event happens (and it may not), we would seriously be in desparate need of truth and mercy from God to not let us get deceived.

[TheFinalWord]

You claim to be educated, yet your come up with such obviously wrong nonsense. I am beginning to seriously question your motives and your honesty.

 

I don't think it's dishonesty as much as I think we have here a lot of lay people trying to grasp topics of which they have no expertise or training. That would be totally fine, except these lay arguments are often touted as some sort of gold standard and an acceptable means by which to lay bare the back of others with equally lay understanding and explanations.

 

For example, one guy has a thread "Where did the bible steal it's stories" and then states he has no expertise. In this thread, this same fellow espouses science and then uses that type of logic in framing a question. Equally, you have religious saying evolution is just a theory, which actually gives it greater credence.

 

I am surprised at how so many on here look at science as this untainted source of truth. Yes, the methodology itself is very pure and should be respected; however, the reality is the science itself is quite often controlled by academic politics and grant funding from individuals with political agendas. Even the peer-review process is quite biases; I know this first hand. So the concept is pure, but just like Christianity, the humans employing the methods are not. Science, however pure in and of itself, is subject to the golden rule just like everything in life: He who has the gold makes the rules.

 

Now this is among the experts. When you start having lay people interpret scientific evidence from fields in which they have no formal training you get all kinds of wild conjecture.

[StrangeBehaviors]

Leaning towards Non-Facebook users are smarter than Facebook users.

[123321]

Intelligent design? God? Aliens? Hmmm...how is one to tell the difference? Hmmm...

 

You realize that just pushes the question back a notch rather than answering it right?

[Lobouspo]

And what makes Collins smarter than Stephen Hawking (who is not religious)? IQ points? Number of papers published?

 

This is why appeals to authority reek of fail.

 

Smart people are generally only smart at certain things, and can be quite foolish at the remaining areas of knowledge in which they do not specialise.

 

Appealing to the opinion of an authority figure on a topic for which they are not a recognised authority (he is neither a theologian or a philosopher) is double

 

By all means, discuss his arguments and let them be evaluated on their merits, but responding to everybody who disagrees with you with "So you think you're smarter than this guy?" is just ridiculous.

 

Actually Hawking himself was quoted by Ian Barbour and acknowledged that "the odds against a universe like ours emerging out of something like the Big Bang are enormous. I think there are clearly religious implications." Thats besides the point though. My point was the shrill athiests that post here use science and Darwinism as their argument against God and accuse us believers of being a bunch of stupid idiots who believe in fairy tales. I bring up Collins because he is clearly a brilliant mind in the scientific field who argues that science actually proves the existence of God and that science and religion complement one another not contradict one another.

[anne1707]

Shame I'm not a woman

 

My image of you as a crazy cat lady are now forever shattered. Thanks.

 

Thanks! Now I can picture Wuggle in an old floral dress, wearing 3 cardigans and surrounded by a dozen or more cats.

 

Not a good image to have of your husband!

[M30USA]

atheists are smarter. what's you master of science in. bible pushing?

 

You guessed it.

 

Very illuminating and contributory post.

[Lobouspo]

None of you athiests were able to rebut Collins' scientific argument on the existence of God, and you are so obtuse, that you cannot even acknowledge that he is way smarter than all of you. I guess you gotta be pretty stupid to map the human genome!! LMAO at all of you...

[Lobouspo]

I threw you the invitation to put forth which of Collins' arguments you find so convincing. Your failure to do so does not equate to a failure on our part to address them.

 

Thanks for all the insults too. Excellent form.

 

My apologies, I do tend to get a little passionate over this issue. Anyway, here it goes...in a debate with Collins renown athiest Richard Dawkins admitted the most difficult argument for non-believers is explaining the fine tuning of the universe. If the constants of the universe were set at something that was just a fraction off, one part in a billion, the whole thing just would not work. For example, the constants of matter and energy such as strong and weak nuclear forces, gravity, and the speed of light, have to be so precise during the Big Bang for life as we know it to exist.

 

To get the universe with all its potential for complexities or any kind of life form, everything has to be precisely defined on this knife edge of improbability. In other words, for life as we know it to exist totally defies the law of probability. Its like combining all the lotteries held in the history of the world, with one jackpot, and only one person being allowed to buy a ticket, and that person who buys the one ticket hits the jackpot.

 

So that begs the question, if you are an athiest, either it is just an extremely lucky break and the odds are so remote, or you have to go to the multiverse hypothesis, which says that there probably is an almost infinite number of parallel universes that have different values of those constants.....So since you and I are living and breathing and going back and forth in a spirited debate, we must have hit the jackpot in that huge lottery I was talking about. So my conclusion and Collins' conclusing is that the hand of a creator is at work who set these complicated parameters just so, because God was interested is something more than just random particles.

[123321]

So that begs the question, if you are an athiest, either it is just an extremely lucky break and the odds are so remote, or you have to go to the multiverse hypothesis, which says that there probably is an almost infinite number of parallel universes that have different values of those constants.....So since you and I are living and breathing and going back and forth in a spirited debate, we must have hit the jackpot in that huge lottery I was talking about. So my conclusion and Collins' conclusing is that the hand of a creator is at work who set these complicated parameters just so, because God was interested is something more than just random particles.

 

I understand what you are saying except the begging the question part, are you saying that because the Universe had to be just so for us to exist that therefore because we exist is circular or how is it begging the question?

[Lobouspo]

I understand what you are saying except the begging the question part, are you saying that because the Universe had to be just so for us to exist that therefore because we exist is circular or how is it begging the question?

 

Yeah maybe I did not articulate it the best way, but my gist is our very existence defies the law of probability, hence my lottery analogy. I mean I would say the more we learn about science and the universe, the more miraculous our very existence is.

[123321]

Yeah maybe I did not articulate it the best way, but my gist is our very existence defies the law of probability, hence my lottery analogy. I mean I would say the more we learn about science and the universe, the more miraculous our very existence is.

 

I understand the slim odds argument, I don't see the begging of the question. Can you explain that part?

[Lobouspo]

I understand the slim odds argument, I don't see the begging of the question. Can you explain that part?

 

So the begging the question part is A) Our existence is so improbable which defies the law of probability and reason that there must be a creator behind it, or you have this multiverse hypothesis which basically states there are billions or an infinite number of universes that cannot sustain life as we know it, and we just happen to be the one or one of the few that did. That there are other universes does not explain why they exist, so this leaves two options: either there is some unknown universe creating mechanism, or they just came into being without any rational explanation. So an athiest may say, "Yeah all this came to be for no reason." If this the argument though, scientific pursuit becomes pointless, things can come into existence out of nothing for no reason, so there is no reason to assume any particular thing will have a cause. I mean if your walking the jungles of Africa and on your journey you discover an exquisitely made Rolex watch under a tree, you know it justs not part of nature that came to be, someone made and fine tuned that beautiful watch to what it is. I would submit that the complexities of our universe are like a finely tuned Rolex, but much more complicated and awesome.

[123321]

So the begging the question part is A) Our existence is so improbable which defies the law of probability and reason that there must be a creator behind it, or you have this multiverse hypothesis which basically states there are billions or an infinite number of universes that cannot sustain life as we know it, and we just happen to be the one or one of the few that did. That there are other universes does not explain why they exist, so this leaves two options: either there is some unknown universe creating mechanism, or they just came into being without any rational explanation. So an athiest may say, "Yeah all this came to be for no reason." If this the argument though, scientific pursuit becomes pointless, things can come into existence out of nothing for no reason, so there is no reason to assume any particular thing will have a cause. I mean if your walking the jungles of Africa and on your journey you discover an exquisitely made Rolex watch under a tree, you know it justs not part of nature that came to be, someone made and fine tuned that beautiful watch to what it is. I would submit that the complexities of our universe are like a finely tuned Rolex, but much more complicated and awesome.

 

Absolutely and I agree, however I don't see the logical circularity where the conclusion is used as proof of the argument for the conclusion, which is what begging the question means. All I see is a set of unlikely circumstances which might tend to make one wonder which explanation is really most likely.

 

The only circularity I could see was the whole "we exist because of these unlikely factors, which allow us to exist" thing, but I don't see any clear question begging there. Pondering it.

[Lobouspo]

Absolutely and I agree, however I don't see the logical circularity where the conclusion is used as proof of the argument for the conclusion, which is what begging the question means. All I see is a set of unlikely circumstances which might tend to make one wonder which explanation is really most likely.

 

The only circularity I could see was the whole "we exist because of these unlikely factors, which allow us to exist" thing, but I don't see any clear question begging there. Pondering it.

 

Touche 123321, I do tend to get a little abstract and scatterbrained with this stuff!!