"There's no use trying. One can't believe impossible things." "I dare say you haven't had much practice. ... Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast." - Alice & the Queen of Hearts (Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland) dark, i dare say you remind me more & more of Queen of Hearts
Faster: What, you mean I couldn't convince you in thirty seconds? Wow, I'm shocked, LOL. If you really thought I could convey a framework that took years to build within a single post, then you are not as quick on the draw as I thought. Maybe you'll actually search one day, that is all I can hope for. But if you don't, that's your problem not mine. So "sorry faster," you can't compel me to care about your opinion one way or another. Comparing christians to suicide bombers is also about as fair as comparing atheists to monsters like Hitler and Stalin, but I've come to expect as much from you. Commisso: I don't think you are grasping the concept of absolute truth. If it's true for me then it's true for you too, whether you like it or not. Of course, you clearly do not believe in absolute truth, which is why you are in camp #2 and I am not. You are arguing from your camp, just as faster is arguing from his. Why do I tell people my beliefs? One, because I am called to do so. Two, because there are serious ramifications to not getting right with God. If I'm right, then a lot of people are going to be seriously screwed if they don't get their ducks in a row. Pretty straight forward actually. Popular and pleasant? No. But I call 'em like I see 'em, straight down the line.
When you have a substantive rebuttal I look forward to hearing it In the meantime, off with your head by the way, you offhandedly mentioned a logical and substantive case against me just a few posts back, did you not? make it here and now (if you can), we'll see how airtight and waterproof it is p.s. i'm getting bored and would be happy to see this thread end, but as long as you are lobbing softballs i'll keep smackin' em back over your head. All day long.
"Faster: What, you mean I couldn't convince you in thirty seconds? Wow, I'm shocked, LOL. If you really thought I could convey a framework that took years to build within a single post, then you are not as quick on the draw as I thought. Maybe you'll actually search one day, that is all I can hope for. But if you don't, that's your problem not mine. So "sorry faster," you can't compel me to care about your opinion one way or another. Comparing christians to suicide bombers is also about as fair as comparing atheists to monsters like Hitler and Stalin, but I've come to expect as much from you." dark, your 'christians' have committed some pretty gross atrocities in the past all in the name of you know who... don't act as though you/they have no skeletons in YOUR/THEIR christian closets! don't YOU get too smug! lots of very bad things. oh yes! so don't you try casting aspersions on me just because i am an atheist. christians have committed a lot more very bad things than atheists have! yes that's right. you heard it right here. very very bad things in the name of .......HIM:-/
Robert Ingersoll: "When I became convinced that the Universe is natural - that all the ghosts and gods are myths, there entered into my brain, into my soul, into every drop of my blood, the sense, the feeling, of the joy of freedom. The walls of my prison crumbled and fell, the dungeon was flooded with light and all the bolts, and bars, and manacles became dust."
nice quote faster, still waiting for an argument. you'll notice that my ratio of quotes to arguments is nicely weighted to the argument side, i would expect the same of you. chew on this nugget, for example: The Mathematical Improbability of Life Forming by Chance The theory of evolution states that non-living matter, by means of random combinations of molecules, eventually gave rise to life. In this section, we will examine the mathematical probability of just such an occurrence. However, if you are unfamiliar with exponential notation, then you won't be as able to grasp as much in this section as someone who does. So, to make it easier for those of you who don't know it, a simple explanation and illustration should clear things up. An example of exponential notation is 3(2). It is pronounced, "Three to the second." This means 3 X 3, or 9. The exponent is the 2. 10(2) is 10 X 10, or 100. 2(3) equals 2 X 2 X 2, or 8. 10(3) equals 10 X 10 X 10, or 1000. Notice that 10(2) has two zeros behind it, 10(3) has three zeroes behind it, and 10(4) would have four zeroes behind it, and so on. When a notation is in the negative like this, 3(-3) it means 1 divided by 3 X 3 X 3, or 1/27th. Now for a quick illustration of the advantage of the use of exponential notation. If you took a piece of paper 1/500th of an inch thick and tore it in half and put the two halves on top of one another, you would have two pieces of paper and a total of 2/500ths, or 1/250th of an inch. If you tore those in half you would have four pieces. If you tore those in half you would have eight pieces, and so on. Now, if you tore that original piece of paper, in that manner, a total of fifty times, how tall would the stack of paper be? Mathematically, the equation would be 2(50) pieces of paper times 1/500th of an inch. The answer would be in inches. After reading this sentence and before reading the answer, why don't you take a look at that equation one more time, think about it a little, and then guess how tall you think the stack would be. Go ahead and guess. Did you think about it and guess? The answer is very easy. There is only one problem; it isn't in inches; it is in miles, 35,539,769 miles 4154 feet 2.3808 inches to be exact. Amazing isn't it? This shows you that the surprise in the large answer rests in the exponential notation 2(50), which, incidentally, is equal to 1,125,899,906,842,624. That is one quadrillion, one hundred twenty-five trillion, eight hundred ninety-nine billion, nine hundred six million, eight hundred forty-two thousand, six hundred twenty-four; its easier to say 2(50) (two to the fiftieth). Another illustration is much simpler. The estimated number of atoms in the entire universe is approximately 10(79) atoms. This is a one with 79 zeros after it. That is a lot of atoms to be so easily numbered in one simple form. But that is the advantage of exponential notation. When the following people are quoted and they use this form of notation, you will now have a better idea of what they are saying. Evolution teaches that in the beginning, inanimate matter, through countless combinations and a great deal of time, arrived at the present highly complex forms of life found on the earth. Let's see what the experts have to say: ...anyone with even a nodding acquaintance with the Rubik cube will concede the near-impossibility of a solution being obtained by a blind person moving the cube faces at random. Now imagine 10(50) blind persons each with a scrambled Rubik cube, and try to conceive of the chance of them all simultaneously [emphasis original] arriving at the solved form. You then have the chance of arriving by random shuffling of just one of the many biopolymers on which life depends. The notion that not only the biopolymers but the operating programme of a living cell could be arrived at by chance in a primordial organic soup here on the earth is evidently nonsense of the highest order. This quote was from Sir Fred Hoyle, an honorary research professor at Manchester University and University College Cardiff. He was a University lecturer in Mathematics at Cambridge. He is a well known and well respected scientist. Chance development of life on earth, in his opinion, is "nonsense of the highest order." He also says in another work concerning biomolecules: ...one must contemplate not just a single shot at obtaining the enzyme, but a very large number of trials such as are supposed to have occurred in an organic soup early in the history of the Earth. The trouble is that there are about two thousand enzymes, and the chance of obtaining them all in a random trial is only one part in 10(20)(2000) = 10(40,000), an outrageously small probability that could not be faced even if the whole universe consisted of organic soup." To say the least, the probability of biopolymers and enzymes spontaneously forming are, in Hoyle's opinion, "outrageously small." Another writer sees "the probability of life having originated through random choice at any one of the 10(46) occasions is then about 10(-255). The smallness of this number means that it is virtually impossible that life has originated by a random association of molecules. The proposition that a living structure could have arisen in a single event through random association of molecules must be rejected." Some other scientists with similar views concerning biogenesis (beginnings of life) have equally unsupportive comments: "To get a cell by chance would require at least one hundred functional proteins to appear simultaneously in one place. That is one hundred simultaneous events each of an independent probability which could hardly be more than 10(-20) giving maximum combined probability of 10(-2000)." There are many such quotes available, but these few are representative of the immense mathematical improbability of life spontaneously forming anywhere on the earth. The odds are simply against it. It is impossible. Evolutionists, however, do not consider these extremely improbable odds as insurmountable. They often reply, "If the chance is so small then given enough time it will happened." Well, let's put that idea to a test. What are the odds of an organism forming which has only 100 parts (no living cell has that few) if for 30 billion years, which is a generous estimate of the age of the universe, there were 1 billion billion billion billion combinations of its parts every second? That would be 10(36) combinations per second. In other words, is that enough time? This is easy to figure out. Life is composed of DNA or "parts." The more parts an organism has, the more complicated it is. The simplest form of life is the virus. It has thousands of parts. For the sake of simplicity, let's invent a virus with only 100 parts. The odds of 100 parts coming together in the right order are 100! 100! means 100 factorial, or 100 x 99 x 98 x 97...all the way down to 5 x 4 x 3 x 2 x 1. Let me illustrate. If you have two wooden blocks, how many ways can you arrange them in a straight line? The answer is 2!, or 2 x 1 = 2. If you had three blocks, it would be 3! or 3 x 2 x 1 = 6 combinations. If you had 4 it would be 4! or 4 x 3 x 2 x 1 = 24 combinations. The higher the number of parts the higher the possible combinations. Our virus, technically can be put together in non-straight lines so there would be many many more ways of combining it. But, we are being gracious here. 100 parts can combine in 9.3325832 x 10(157) different possible ways. A cell, however, cannot be thrown together just any old way. Life is a delicate balance and only a very delicate combination will result in it. The problem is to see if 30 billion years is long enough for 100 parts to randomly combine at one billion billion billion billion per second, and the result be life. The equation is simple. 30 billion years equals 3 x 10(10) years. One billion billion billion billion equals 1 x 10(36). 30 billion years of seconds equals 3 x 10(10) x 365 (days) x 24 (hours) x 60 (minutes) x 60 (seconds). This equals 9.4608 x 10(17) seconds. We take the total number of seconds, 9.4608 x 10(17), and multiply it by the number of combinations per second which is one billion billion billion billion or 1 x 10(36). The equation would be 9.4608 x 10(17) seconds times 1 x 10(36) combinations per second. This equals 9.4608 x 10(53) combinations. This means there are still approximately 10(104) combinations left to perform. This is not nearly enough time to allow a simple cell with only 100 parts to pop into life. The probability of the cell forming is zero. If we were to look at cells with hundreds of more parts, which would be more realistic, the odds against its forming are multiplied exponentially. Yet, evolutionists maintain that the spontaneous formation of life on the earth is a fact. How can they believe that? It seems to me they have less evidence to go on than we Christians do in believing in Jesus.
DARK YOUR ARGUMENTS THUS FAR ARE VERY VERY weak. you talk like you got this BIG STICK but all you show us is a little twig. i ask for your best and all you give me are platitudes and cliches. have you anything else? ..or are you just a bag of hot air? WHERE"S THE BEEF!! i ask for a QUARTER POUNDER and you give me a happy meal. (without the prize) "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence." -Carl Sagan WHERE'S YOUR EVIDENCE????
read what i said again, i think you missed my point. i was specifically NOT playing the deranged murderer card, and was objecting to the fact that you were trying to cause guilt by association by casting my lot with brainwashed fanatics. imposters and flakes have done bad things in the name of all belief systems. plenty of christians are off base or devious or otherwise not true followers of Christ. They are falsely named, bad apples cause stereotypes. I have nothing to do with the popular perception of Christianity and God doesn't have much to do w/ it either for that matter. I still don't see an argument on your end, except for a weak attempt at guilt by association. yaawwwwnnn....
First off Dark I am not arguing anything, like I said before faith is not to be found in words... I only keep asking you questions along the lines of why you feel that your way is the absolute way and ultimately better than all others... Not once did I ever argue that any of your statements are false or that any of my "beliefs" are true... Secondly please do not insult my intelligence as I have a pretty firm grasp of what absolute truth implies... Every post you have made thus far has been in VAIN... You are extremeley arrogant and extremely delusional (IMO)... I keep asking you these questions soley because your posts amuse me... So I have not come to your ABSOLUTE TRUTH! I guess this means I am headed for ETERNAL DAMNATION and I am a BAD BAD person... cmon bro get a life... you once said in another post that the one thing that sets us apart from animals and ultimately in your opinion makes us better than them is the fact that we are self-conscious and can view ourselves apart from reality and reflect upon it... and while this may be true, this gift is also AN ENOURMOUS burden and is repsonsible for the delusions and extreme arrogance that you have resorted to on this thread... but to each his own EDIT: "Two, because there are serious ramifications to not getting right with God." Oh I get it now... your posts are pure acts of benevolence... I see now! you just wanted to save us from the depths of hell... better to steer them your way now than to see them suffer eternal damnation Divine Comedy style... and all this time I am thinking this arrogant prick just wants to feel himself :eek: I just figured it would be easier for you to just go in the corner and masterbate in order to avoid a headache... I now see the error in my ways, I sincerely apologize Dark! and I retract all prior posts...