runner
Where is your evidence in divine creation? All religious folk believe their God to be the one and only true supreme being - what makes you so sure your choice (by virtue only of your being born into this culture) is the right one. If you were born and raised in the Middle East you would no doubt be a strict Muslim, or in India a hindu etc.

Graham Y
You will not find data on how many atheists volunteer or start organisations. Just as you will not find any data on how many blondes do good works as compared to brunettes.

Charities are not built solely with the purpose of fostering atheism - atheism is not a religion. Charities are set up I would think on the basis to do good which can come from both theist and non-theist motivations.

Which ever way you want to take it, atheism is indespensable to Christian doctrine and the teachings of the Bible. Post-modern deconstruction isnt a piece of atheistic attack .it is essential to open Christian myths to the fresh and critical views of the present world view. Galileo and Copernicus, to mention just two, attempted to do this. You need to make religion relevant in the light of scientific developments to retain any credibility . The world view keeps changing as does the contemporary needs. These cannot be served by the residents of Nicea who are alive and well this day where they hide out in churches and cathedrals and dress in those crazy clothes and silly caps and hats and put on grave solemn looks to preserve their authority and relevance.

socratease

Quite so Socratease, "You need to make religion relevant in the light of scientific developments to retain any credibility . The world view keeps changing as does the contemporary needs".

And this is what happens, isn't it?

Religion becomes more secularised over time, allowing the really silly bits no one supports to be dropped off and ignored.

Things like saints hang around still, but stoning the sinner has fallen off the edge, at least in Christianity.

And even the Pope says he believes in evolution. Only people like Sen. Fielding don't, and most Christians do not want to sound like him.

So, if the process of secularisation tames the rough edges all the time, making an unlikely belief system more 'believable', at least by making it less fantastic and unbelievable, will the process ever be completed?

Will we ever be able to stand up, let go of the coffee table, and stagger forwards a few steps on our own?

It seems unlikely, at least with Rudd and Abbott slugging it out on our behalf, doesn't it?

Trav, one of runners points is that atheists advocate some sort of social Darwinism ie survival of the fittest is how we should live which shows a complete lack of understanding of atheists. 2. Evolution is accepted fact in the way that the theory of gravity is accepted fact. (1 opinion piece from the 80's does not counter the thousands upon thousands of accepted journalised research documents on the subject. Also, what creedence should a physicist hold on the subject? Would not a biologist be more appropriate for the task?) 3. Global warming scam? I'm three and zero so far so to blanket dismiss this person seems a fairly reasonable position.

Runner and his quotes again.

Please note that runner gives no more information than is included in the bibliography of the cheat-sheet he uses.

Looking elsewhere:
Max J. Whitten in Entomol. exp. appl. vol 53 pages 1-16. 1989.
"If we successfully combine the tools of molecular biology and genetics with the more traditional disciplines of physiology, ecology, taxonomy, and evolutionary biology, we can truly come to grips with a range of processes and phenomena concerning insects."

Given his extensive background in the emergence of insect resistance to pesticides, I am willing to take a chance on asking the man himself. Max Whitten is a contributor to this forum and I have emailed GrahamY to *please* if reasonable, bother the professor to give his personal opinion of the quote runner has supplied.

I am, of course, on tenterhooks.

Lipson clarifies his own position in a later issue in the same volume:
H. J. Lipson, "A physicist looks at evolution - a rejoinder", Physics Bulletin, December 1980, pg 337.
"Several people have given clear indications that they do not understand Darwin's theory. The Theory does not merely say that species have slowly evolved: that is obvious from the fossil record."

Rusty

Trav,

Your posts read like someone who has just finished reading Lee Stobels’ fallacious The Case for Christ, and now thinks they’re ready to take on all those Atheists.

<<If tooth fairies could reveal themselves personally to people if given a chance...>>

I like how your God reveals himself to people.

Someone like Dawkins continues to speak out against your invisible friend to the whole world, and not a peep. Yet some bozo who was indoctrinated as a small child gets has some special revelation that most others apparently don’t deserve?

Or some alcoholic, or wife-beater, or problem gambler, or convicted criminal, whose life has hit rock bottom, gets some special revelation that most others don’t?

This alleged God of yours can’t be very omnipotent or omnibenevolent if someone has to feel lost, or their life has to go down the tubes before he decides to reveal himself.

<<...and if there was good historical evidence of fairy miracles like there is for Jesus Resurrection, then you could begin to entertain the possibility of them being on par.>>

What evidence?

There are no contemporary writings from or about Jesus. There are no carpentry works from Jesus there is nothing to suggest that the alleged Jesus actually existed.

We have no idea of who wrote the Gospels Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, but we have a pretty good idea that none of them were written while Jesus was alive, and none of them were written by eye-witnesses nor did any of the authors actually meet Jesus. They’re all hearsay accounts. The Gospels about Jesus are essentially stories about stories that the authors heard.

I don’t know for sure that Socrates existed, but there are no outlandish claims about him, so I’m willing to take it at face-value that he did. But if you want to claim that Jesus performed miracles and was the son of a God, then that’s going to take some extraordinary evidence.

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

Although we do have first-hand accounts from alien abductees. Does this mean you hold them to be even MORE reliable?

Continued...