Why do NeoAtheists deny the practice of atheism is a religion?<<MOD WARNING>>

We do not KNOW any of this. It’s all speculation.

 

We know more than you think. We know, for example, that the universe is (at least) four dimensional, three spatial dimensions and one time dimension. We know that the universe began with a Big Bang. We know that space-time is curved and not flat. We know that the universe is expanding and not contracting or remaining steady. We know approximately how old the universe is and how big the visible universe is. We know how big, how hot, and how far away the stars are. We know with a pretty good certainty what happens when stars die. We know that black holes (predicted by relativity) exist and bend and trap light. Considering that we can't get out there to study these things up close, we know a lot from simple observation and measurement.

 

This aspects go without saying, not sure why they cant comprehend it.

Again their arguments reach the level of absurd.

and again

Ironically the whole foundation of atheology that I have seen so far has been built on pure fallacies.

Its so obvious, this is not rocket science.

they do the same thing when they claim they are both atheist and agnostic.

Its as unreasonable, illogical and foolish as claiming a bucket of flour is a cake.

case in point below

recycle repeat and pretend their positions have not been demolished

They think spouting fallacies from atop a soapbox despite the fallacies being pointed out is 'showing' or 'covering', the topic.

I disagree with 98% of your post

Mixing constructs, space and time are totally unrelated constructs, time has nothing to do with measuring matter or the space it occupies. That does not say that I could not apply the dimension chocolate for instance for some reason and call it the 5th dimension.

We could insert time into a fractal and get all kinds of cool time curves.

Neither time nor space is curved, that is a cute play on words that is nothing more than internal jargon for how they 'fudged' the math to fit what they observe.

For anyone interested I highly recommend Kants discourse on space and time.

Immanuel Kant time and space

Kant – Space & Time (a priori) ... It can be read as a concise version of Kant's magnum opus, 'The Critique of Pure Reason'. In the part below, Kant argues that Space and Time are not real but ideal: that they exist in our minds rather than in 'reality'.
Kant – Space & Time (a priori) – Peter Sjöstedt-H

www.philosopher.eu/others-writings/kant-space-time-a-priori/

No we do not, purely assumption, for all you know there could be a big high pressure water hose effect, the inverse of a black hole pouring universe out of it beyond our ability to observe

We know that is the construct we applied to it nothing more.

The water hose effect.

Yes we can quantify that.

Also quantifiable

Same

We assume this is the case, it may be the drain to another part of the universe that some other earth is observing its expansion on the other side.

Not anything as much as we think we 'assume' however

 

That is not what I meant by ‘any of this’.

 

No. Einstein showed through the theory of relativity that time itself is a part of space-time, that the universe is four dimensional and time is not a separate entity from space. This is why speed and time are relative to each other, why the faster you go, the more time and space are compressed. This has been proven even at speeds reachable by earth vehicles, that time travels slower in a supersonic jet than it does at the earth's surface.

Actually, Einstein came up with the math first and we tested the theory against reality and found that it fit. We don't know the exact shape of the space-time universe, but we know it's closer to a sphere than it is to a cube.

With all due respect to Kant (okay, not that much respect), he was not a scientist. His opinion doesn't really count when it comes to the known universe. And I reject Kantian philosophy anyway. Ayn Rand was closer to the truth when she said "A is A." The universe is what it is and you can't pretend otherwise without crippling your ability to deal with reality.

The mechanism for how the Big Bang occurred isn't really at issue here. We could be some other universe's equivalent of an ever-expanding soap bubble, eventually destined to pop and disappear. That doesn't really change the origin story of the universe has having started as a super-condensed state of matter that blew up and has been expanding (according to our measurement of time) for 13.7 billion years.

Thanks to the written word, science is not limited to one generation, lost forever, and then rediscovered by a later generation. We build and build upon previous knowledge. Newton himself, the foundational pioneer of most of Western science, said that if had seen farther than anyone before him, it was because he stood on the shoulders of giants. Is our knowledge limited? Of course it is. No one person can know everything, and there is still a great deal we don't know, and the answer to every question prompts two new questions. But we still know a lot. When science and philosophy disagree, philosophy must give way. We no longer accept Aristotle's definition of the elements and we no longer accept Kant's definition of the universe.

 

Atheism continues to remain, by definition not a religion.

 

??? I didn't make anything personal... I am simply showing you that lack of belief is impossible. To assert "I lack belief" is ITSELF asserting a belief. [ie, you BELIEVE that you lack belief]. That position that neo-Atheism is asserting is self refuting. That's all I meant by that comment of mine.

Yup, I remember from the other times you have said this.

Worship is not a requirement of religion. I have made this case numerous times, even within my last comment.

???

They can be created by ANYONE, not just biblical scholars.

Not science, but rather, a religion. That theory follows the same logical framework that Christianity does.

Christianity argues that "Jesus Christ exists and is who he says he is". That is the initial circular argument of Christianity; the fundamental assumption. All other arguments are dependent upon the truth of that initial circular argument. Same goes for evolution. Evolution argues that "current life is the result of mutations of more primitive life forms". That is the initial circular argument of Evolution; the fundamental assumption. All other arguments are dependent upon the truth of that initial circular argument.

Just like we can't prove that Jesus was the Word of God present at the creation of the universe, we can't prove that current life is the result of mutations of more primitive life forms. In both cases, we don't have a time machine to go back in time [before the existence of modern humans] to see what actually happened. We simply have faith that those things indeed happened.

Evolution is based on faith.

The belief that God does not exist works the same way.

I reject your conclusion because I reject your premise. Atheism IS a belief. Atheism is the acceptance of an argument as a truth, specifically "gods do not exist". Yes, Atheists reject the Theistic belief, but they also have a belief of their own (of which Theists reject).

I'm not making this argument at all... My argument is that there are three possible positions one can take:
[1] I believe [insert particular god(s) here] exists.
[2] I believe [insert particular god(s) here] does not exist.
[3] I believe that the particular nature of god(s), if they exist, cannot be described.

[1] THEIST
[2] ATHEIST
[3] AGNOSTIC

No, you don't. You can simply believe that there isn't a god present.

Yes, one does.

A theory does not require any evidence; a theory supports itself. To claim there is zero evidence supporting God's existence is pure ignorance. Life itself is evidence, the Bible is evidence, billions of Christians is evidence, etc...

Already addressed earlier.

Yup, it's evidence. I agree.

Sure, but evidence is not proof.

Correct.

Correct.

Correct. But evidence is NOT proof.

Evidence need not be tangible. Evidence is simply any statement which supports an argument.

 

The point is whether there is a falsification of evolution. Claiming we haven't found a complete fossil record from dinosaurs to present is obvious, impossible and irrelevant.

Yes, we have bacteria and some others, too. There is nothing in evolution that requires that successful species will disappear. For example, if a portion of the members of a species get isolated from the rest they can change over time in order to better survive in their new separate environment. As noted earlier, humans are evolving very slowly right now. There are ideas of why that is true.

Again, there aren't any species that are not transitional. Evolution occurs in small increments over time. You can't pick one of those increments and suggest it is a transition, but the others aren't.

Scientific theory (as thoroughly tested as possible by multiple independent efforts and reviewed by experts) are the very best truth that scientific method has to offer, since humans can't prove truth in the natural sciences. However, let's remember that the theory of evolution has earned its place as a foundation of all biology, including paleontology. Surely no theory has been tested as much as has this theory, as it is a basic tool in all biological fields.

 

Since space time in this universe began with the big bang, it is nothing but conjecture (science fiction as opposed to science) since we will never be able to observe what came before. Its okay to speculate and suggest, but no amount of science is going to get beyond the physical beginning of the universe we exist in.

Not to mention that the question "what came before" doesn't change anything we have observed and come to understand about our universe, at this point.

 

There is a concept in evolutionary biology called "punctuated equilibrium" which directly addresses the issues raised by xwsmithx. It doesn't preclude gradual change, but it does explain the rapid changes observed in the fossil record.

https://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/article/side_0_0/punctuated_01

 

I don't think that negates the radiation.

 

See, you can't even see that your entire statement here is based on faith and not reason. Nothing you say here is backed up in fact, and much of what you say, like the transitional statement, is actually contradicted by fact. But because you believe in the theory, nothing will disprove it for you, not facts, not evidence, and certainly not rational argument. As an atheist myself, I have no good explanation for the origin of life, the alteration of life, or the persistence of life in the face of the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics, but as a former believer, I know the holes and flaws in the theory of evolution and they haven't gone away for me.

 

I think my posts are already way too long.

But, you addressed this point in short order - thanks.

 

I reject that is false dichotomy.

 

No, I pointed out that all modern biology accepts the theory of evolution.

Depending on ME to give YOU facts that make you believe evolution is the mistake. Trying to step through the various aspects of evolution in a post is somewhat ridiculous.

btw, the laws of thermodynamics are not an argument against evolution.

 

Fact is the theory of evolution can be falsified, so anti-evolutionists are presenting a false argument about falsifiablity.

https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Falsifiability_of_evolution

 

"Bullshit", as in, "viewpoints which differ from my own"?

 

Perhaps he meant only when the other viewpoint is predicated on "bullshit" or IOW based upon fallacy, illogic, misrepresentation, semantic contortion all the while ignoring basic scientific knowledge and other acknowledged facts. just guessin'.

 

???? Fallacy Fallacy.

Explaining why an argument is self refuting is NOT a false dichotomy...

 

Actually it explains nothing, it only describes the process without explaining how or why it occurs. It's essentially irrelevant to the theory of evolution, which actually does attempt to explain the process, but fails (in my book) because of all the reasons I listed in my previous post, plus the fact that it cannot explain what Darwin called "the black box", what's going on inside. I actually learned the difference from the term inertia. Inertia is the name we give the phenomenon that an object at rest tends to remain at rest unless acted upon by an outside force and an object in motion tends to remain in motion unless acted upon by an outside force, but it doesn't explain why that is so. It is only a name, a description of the phenomenon, without offering any explanation. "Punctuated equilibrium" is the same kind of thing, an attempt to justify evolution by giving a name to the phenomenon of sudden and rapid change in kinds, numbers, and categories of species after millions of years of stability, but wholly failing to actually explain why it happens.

 

Inversion Fallacy.

 

Heh, someone pointed this out to me, I was not aware of these two people, but if two organisms with identical DNA presenting different external traits prove evolution wrong, consider evolution disproved.

Britain’s only identical black and white twins revealed

"Despite their contrasting skin tones, the pair came from the same egg and are genetically identical."

"A sample of Libby’s placenta confirmed the twins are 100 per cent genetically identical, despite them looking nothing alike."



https://www.thesun.co.uk/archives/n...nly-identical-black-and-white-twins-revealed/

 

Are you seriously suggesting that human beings are greater entropy than rocks? We violate the 2nd law of thermodynamics every time we place a few blocks in a row, and create more order than existed before, never mind when we build a skyscraper. Life does the same thing, creating more and greater order than existed before. The 2nd law of thermodynamics absolutely is an argument against evolution because life itself is an example of order, and the higher and more complex life gets, the more ordered it becomes. But the 2nd law of thermodynamics says entropy (disorder) always increases.

 

No I value succinctness over diarrhea of the mouth. It is agony trying to read gibberish renting out a thousand words that could be stated in a sentence.

I do not envy composition teachers.

 

The linchpin to your argument is that not believing in something is the same as believing in not something.

That idea is what I call a false dichotomy. You don't have to believe in no gods because there's no evidence for any god. It doesn't require belief.

For instance I don't have to believe that there are no unicorns to not believe unicorns exist. They're just simply isn't any evidence suggesting unicorns exist. I absolutely would have to believe unicorns exist in order to believe they exist.

The false dichotomy is you saying that it does.