Rationalists/Atheists: Don’t Too Readily Dismiss the Believer

scourge99 · 12-30-08, 11:20 PM

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Originally Posted by moe

Oh? what is this third option?

I don't know. There may not be one. How do you know there isn't one?

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Originally Posted by moe

Evolution has it's own trinity. Hard to prove one with out proving the other two.

On the contrary. They know they are flawed for the very same reasons I stated. Using that article I posted on Macro Evolution for Obvious Child,

They do not say new animal body plans do arise from simple genetic mutation, So why do they say Could instead of does? Later in the article.......

Which is exactly what I said isn't it? All the lab experiments concerning evolution have done is shown what humans can do in a lab with nature. But that does not mean that is what really happened in nature because it has never been observed So you see? No prize money for me because they already know all about it. And that is where the fossil record comes in. They HAVE to find transitional fossils in nature to support their work. And the fact that they clearly state that it has never been observed means that they do not have the fossils they need to prove squat. ALL of your "evolution is a fact data" has been produced by humans guiding the process in a lab.

Observation is the very first step in the scientific method. Evolutionist are claiming it is all a done deal and they have not even fulfilled the very first requirement of the scientific method. They are testing and predicting something that they have never actually seen.

I already gave you the hypothesis when you asked for it earlier. How to prove it? So far it has already been proved. Don't you understand that the lab work for both ideas involve the same thing? That is the whole thing with fruit flies virus and bacteria studies? Virus's generate rapidly. They try to observe the virus and see if there are any significant changes. And as they state Macro Evolution has never been observed. Most genetic changes are negative. Not positive. Now do you understand why I say there is faith involved in science? Especially Evolutionary science. There is no evidence of this in Nature and yet they believe it is true.

Moe

I'm not a biologist or familiar enough with evolution to defend it from such specific attacks. I will have to defer these criticisms to someone else.

moe · 12-31-08, 03:01 AM

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Doubt in Perspective : Inter-Varsity Press

If you have time to study the history of the philosophical arguments for the existence of God, you’ll know they are suggestive, but not conclusive. It’s pretty much the universal consensus within philosophy that rational argument doesn’t settle the question of God’s existence, one way or the other.

Boxes solve nothing and are a waste of time. That is why I do not even bother getting involved in such arguments. This is a summation of what I feel our conversation has produced so far. None of it is meant/intended to be insultive. It is very difficult to asses a persons attitude via letter correspondence. This is more for you to see where I am with this current conversation and if mistaken you can correct me.

To me, It is you who are inside the box and you seem to be afraid or unwilling to think outside of the box. You accused me of not knowing science. Now that I am presenting a few examples of the evidence that I have reviewed to reach my own personal views you turn around and now say you do not science and need to defer to someone who does know. So my question to you is if you yourself do not know then how did you come to a preconceived conclusion that I do not know either? You said that you have reviewed the evidence which led you to conclude that there is no evidence and when I present evidence you know little to nothing about it so what is this evidence you have reviewed? As for myself, I have spent years reviewing the evidence reading works done by both sides for and against and the thing that I have learned foremost is I really have only scratched the surface of the available evidence.

Can you explain electricity to me? As you probably know in the field it is often referred to as PFM. {Pure F....... Magic} When I was learning electricity I had a heck of a time because I wanted it all to make sense. There are many things that we can see touch feel etc but they still do not make sense. Can't see love. Yet we know it exists and is real. And sometimes it does not make sense either.

As to your six points of I believe I will add a seventh,

I believe because that is where the evidence I have reviewed and studied leads me to today. Tomorrow new evidence may lead me to completely reassess my views and even change my mind entirely.

As to the legal issue. If a person is on trial and claims that God or Jesus told them to do something that harmed another individual or property then even the bible tells us that person is either deceived or a liar. As to biblical claims being put on trial, That is another matter entirely. In fact several trial lawyers have done it.

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Why should I believe in Christ’s resurrection?
The late jurisprudential prodigy and international statesman Sir Lionel Luckhoo (of The Guinness Book of World Records fame for his unprecedented 245 consecutive defense murder trial acquittals) epitomized Christian enthusiasm and confidence in the strength of the case for the resurrection when he wrote, “I have spent more than 42 years as a defense trial lawyer appearing in many parts of the world and am still in active practice. I have been fortunate to secure a number of successes in jury trials and I say unequivocally the evidence for the Resurrection of Jesus Christ is so overwhelming that it compels acceptance by proof which leaves absolutely no room for doubt.”

Also the claim by some that Jesus never existed is not the view that is held by most professional historians who are actively engaged in the research.

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Historicity of Jesus - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Most scholars in the fields of biblical studies and history agree that Jesus was a Jewish teacher from Galilee who was regarded as a healer, was baptized by John the Baptist, was accused of sedition against the Roman Empire, and on the orders of Roman Governor Pontius Pilate was sentenced to death by crucifixion.

It is not so much the actual historicity of Jesus the man that is in dispute among professional historians. It is the the supernatural claims that Christians make today that are disputed.

In regards to the mud puddle and physical laws. My point is that a body of law [ie physical laws] generally point to some form of intelligence that established those laws.

Moe

scourge99 · 12-31-08, 12:33 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by moe

Boxes solve nothing and are a waste of time. That is why I do not even bother getting involved in such arguments. This is a summation of what I feel our conversation has produced so far. None of it is meant/intended to be insultive. It is very difficult to asses a persons attitude via letter correspondence. This is more for you to see where I am with this current conversation and if mistaken you can correct me.

As I have said before God is not disproven, just an unlikely answer.

Quote:

Originally Posted by moe

To me, It is you who are inside the box and you seem to be afraid or unwilling to think outside of the box. You accused me of not knowing science. Now that I am presenting a few examples of the evidence that I have reviewed to reach my own personal views you turn around and now say you do not science and need to defer to someone who does know. So my question to you is if you yourself do not know then how did you come to a preconceived conclusion that I do not know either? You said that you have reviewed the evidence which led you to conclude that there is no evidence and when I present evidence you know little to nothing about it so what is this evidence you have reviewed?

Once again disproving evolution or electricity or gravity or the big bang does nothing to affirm your beliefs; not A does not imply B.

I'm sorry I am not a evolutionary Biologist who can answer your questions. If you'd like I can go Google the answers for you?I simply did not take enough college courses in Biology to understand the finer details of evolution where I can defend it from such specific criticisms that were copied and pasted from elsewhere. If you think my ignorance on the subject is indicative of evolution being false, so be it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by moe

Can you explain electricity to me? As you probably know in the field it is often referred to as PFM. {Pure F....... Magic} When I was learning electricity I had a heck of a time because I wanted it all to make sense. There are many things that we can see touch feel etc but they still do not make sense. Can't see love. Yet we know it exists and is real. And sometimes it does not make sense either.

Another poster on this forum has this same tactic. The debate goes something like this: What is time? Oh, you can't explain it right now with your precious science? Well then I guess that shows how much you know and how useless science is so somehow that means my beliefs must be right.

In other words, you have a belief. You believe your belief is right but you can't explain why. Therefore, instead of saying why your belief is right you attack another's belief mistakenly thinking this proves yours right. Do you not see the error in this line of thinking?

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Originally Posted by moe

As to your six points of I believe I will add a seventh,

I believe because that is where the evidence I have reviewed and studied leads me to today. Tomorrow new evidence may lead me to completely reassess my views and even change my mind entirely.

And why is that a fallacy unlike the others I mentioned? That seventh point is EXACTLY the mindset we all should have. Its the only one that makes sense.

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Originally Posted by moe

As to the legal issue. If a person is on trial and claims that God or Jesus told them to do something that harmed another individual or property then even the bible tells us that person is either deceived or a liar.

Perhaps for your sect this is true. The Bible is full of stories where God has commanded people to do queer things. How do you KNOW that he isn't still doing such today?

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Originally Posted by moe

As to biblical claims being put on trial, That is another matter entirely. In fact several trial lawyers have done it.

Is there anything within that mess of arguments you find particularly compelling? Tell me and we can start there. In the future I would prefer you be a bit more specific rather than simply referring such a large work. For example, as a matter of respect I wouldn't say "its been done before in the God Delusion. Go read that." Instead I would refer to some specific argument within the book rather than the whole book itself.

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Originally Posted by moe

Also the claim by some that Jesus never existed is not the view that is held by most professional historians who are actively engaged in the research.

It is not so much the actual historicity of Jesus the man that is in dispute among professional historians. It is the the supernatural claims that Christians make today that are disputed.

This is from a previous debate. Feel free to tackle one or more of the arguments.

"there isn't a single demonstrable eyewitness account of the life of Jesus, nor any credible historians writing of his existence either. We already know that the Gospels were written long after his death by people who never knew him, who borrowed heavily from each other and from other pagan sources. The only historian who ever supposedly wrote about Jesus as a person was Josephus and we know that's an early Christian forgery. All other historians wrote about the Christians and mentioned Jesus as a supposed object of their worship, they never mentioned him as an actual person. You simply have no sources whatsoever of direct eyewitnesses, every account is at least second or third hand."

"There isn't any substantial knowledge that Jesus ever existed either and it is irrelevant if anyone claims Spider-Man is real, it only matters if he factually is. People's claims mean nothing whatsoever to factual reality, it isn't about what you can claim, it's about what you can prove."

"First off, for the Bible, we don't even know if they were writing from eyewitnesses or simply from oral traditions handed down. We do know that a lot of the stories about Jesus in the Bible actually go back long, long before Jesus was supposedly born. A lot of the miracles are simply common mythic elements that appear in other pre-existing belief systems. Do you know just how many "saviors" out there were born of a virgin named some variant of "Mary", had wise men show up bearing gifts, got crucified and resurrected? Jesus is hardly original in any of those elements."

http://www.debatepolitics.com/1057735674-post165.html
"Jesus, like a long line of other saviors, were born of "Mary" or her variants because the name Mary descends from a root meaning "water", the source of mythic life. That's why you have Jesus springing from Mary, Buddha coming from Maia, Hermes being born of Maia, Agni from Maya, Adonis from Myrrha, Bacchus born of Myrrha, Sommona Cadom, the Siamese Savior from Maya Maria and Krishna, born of the Mariama.

Likewise, we have many, many cases of angelic annunciation of saviors and holy men. Jesus certainly isn't alone, even in the Bible, both Samson and Samuel were announced by angels in the Old Testament, but those are really late-comers to the angelic parade. Zoroaster, it was said, "The divine glory reveals to his mother his conception and touches her with great splendor... A preview of his ideal image was seen in the heavens and an ox foretold in human speech 'the relevation he would bring the world." Bodhisat announced to Maia, mother of Buddha, his coming and as Bodhisat is often shown holding a lotus, in ancient paintings, the Angel Gabriel is always shown holding a water lily, both symbols of life rising from the water element, in the mythic sense, the primordial waters which are, linguistically, "Mary".

We can trace a host of virgin births of saviors across the area, it was hardly an uncommon mythic element. In Babylon, we had the virtin Ishtar, in Libya was Neith, in Cilesia we had Ate, in Armenia, Anaites. Assyria had Ataigates and in Crete was Ariadne. Phrygia had Cybele and Phoenicia had Astarte. All of these and many more came sons who were race saviors. In fact, in Egypt, we have Isis, about whom he have extant inscriptions that read "Immaculate is our lady, Isis."

Magi from afar are again nothing new or unique to Jesus. At the birth of Socrates in 469 B.C., "Magi came from the east to offer gifts at Socrates' birth, also bringing gold, frankincense and myrrh". Krishna, born in 1200 B.C., had "angels, shepherds and the prophets attended, gold, frankincense and myrrh were brought to him." Let's not forget Confucious in 598 B.C., "Five wise men from a distance came to the house, celestial music was heard in the skies and angels attended the scene." The same can be said for Mithra, Zoroaster and Osiris."

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Originally Posted by moe

In regards to the mud puddle and physical laws. My point is that a body of law [ie physical laws] generally point to some form of intelligence that established those laws.

You still haven't connected the dots. You said "physical laws point to intelligence that established those laws because I say so." Why do you think so? Please state your reasoning. That is, I do not care that you believe this. I only care to know WHY you believe this.

Graffight · 12-31-08, 01:12 PM

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Originally Posted by scourge99

Perhaps for your sect this is true. The Bible is full of stories where God has commanded people to do queer things. How do you KNOW that he isn't still doing such today?

God never commanded anyone to do queer things. Moe wrote about this quite well on another post. God stopped all the rituals, and all that goofy mumbo jumbo in the OT...All that God asks of us now is to Love.

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Originally Posted by MOE

I for one do not believe that the bible teaches a god. I have stated this before in passing in other threads and have given minor evidences why I believe this. Before I explain my position further, There are two ways accepted by all bible scholars to read the bible. One right and one wrong

The right way

EXEGESIS, i.e. Getting the meaning out of the bible as God intended the message to mean.

The wrong way

EISEGESIS, i.e. Reading into the bible what you have already decided to believe.

This is why there are so many differing views on Biblical interpretation all claiming to be literal. All including myself have difficulty following the first rule 100% of the time. So just because I say something does not mean that I have to be right or it must be true. It is only my point of view and all though I have tried hard to follow the exegetic method I could have very easily have unintentionally followed an eisegetic method.

In our Bible God many times identifies himself as the God of Abraham Jacob and Isaac. Why never the God of Adam Enoch and Noah?

In the beginning in what the bible refers to as the garden there is no worship, There are no doctrines, No churches no temples. Man and Woman are both naked. God and the couple talk face to face as parent to child or friend to friend.

At the fall it was man that changed. Not God

Ge 3:10 And he said, I heard thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself.

Man had some how opened an area of his mind that appears to be a negative region, doubt, unsure, guilt shame. He did not possess these feelings until after eating what ever it was he ate.
The Bible is full symbolic language with literal meaning, I believe the creation story is that type of writing. Internal evidence for this is, That is how Jesus taught. He used parables as a symbolic language to teach but they had a literal meaning.

From this point on man did not socially evolve. He devolved. No where in the Bible does it teach that God originated any kind of sacrificial system. It was the sons of Adam who are first recorded as offering a sacrifice and it is the first time we hear of it. Sacrifices did not start with God but with man.

Ge 4:4 And Abel, he also brought of the firstlings of his flock and of the fat thereof. And the LORD had respect unto Abel and to his offering:

From this time on comes a long gap where there is no communication with God at all

Ge 4:26 And to Seth, to him also there was born a son; and he called his name Enos: then began men to call upon the name of the LORD.

It was not until after Seth was born and was having his own children that the bible says man began calling for God. Notice that God is not calling for man after all this time but it is the other way around?

After this begins the rise of the various religions and idolatries. All of these beliefs were thought to bring the supplicant special favor and blessing if the right offering was presented. Again manmade. God never instituted any religious rituals etc. But one thing we do know for sure from the bible is God will not just communicate with anyone. Intentions and motivations have to be pure, The person needs to have a sense of justice and doing what is right. A person does not have to perfect, We see that with the stories of David. But God will not communicate with a person who is driven by hate lust greed etc.That is why Cain was cast out from the area where Adam and his original descendants dwelt.

Skipping to Abrahams day. Abraham was born and raised as a Pagan, He was taught to worshiped many gods. The bible confirms this.

Jos 24:2 And Joshua said unto all the people, Thus saith the LORD God of Israel, Your fathers dwelt on the other side of the flood in old time, even Terah, the father of Abraham, and the father of Nachor: and they served other gods.

But something left him empty worshiping idols and somehow he found the being we call God. The bible does not tell us what happened to Abraham that he abandon all his pagan beliefs. There are extra biblical stories but no actual internal evidence in the bible itself to know what happened to change him. It is actually at this time that God begins to become the God we hear of today. Not because he demanded that we view him as God but because man wanted a God. So he gave them one. God has done such things as that in the Bible. Israel demanded a king.

1sa 8:6 But the thing displeased Samuel, when they said, Give us a king to judge us. And Samuel prayed unto the LORD.

1sa 8:7 And the LORD said unto Samuel, Hearken unto the voice of the people in all that they say unto thee: for they have not rejected thee, but they have rejected me, that I should not reign over them.

They wanted a god they got a god and they wanted a king and they got a king

Back to my there is no god idea ,The process of God becoming God as we perceive him today evolves all through the Old Testament. But there are several places where God says he really does not want sacrifices but rather compassion mercy and Justice. He basically says I have given you what you want but you are not really giving me what I want. What does he want?

Isa 58:4 Behold, ye fast for strife and debate, and to smite with the fist of wickedness: ye shall not fast as ye do this day, to make your voice to be heard on high.
Isa 58:5 Is it such a fast that I have chosen ? a day for a man to afflict his soul? is it to bow down his head as a bulrush, and to spread sackcloth and ashes under him? wilt thou call this a fast, and an acceptable day to the LORD?
Isa 58:6 Is not this the fast that I have chosen ? to loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed go free, and that ye break every yoke?
Isa 58:7 Is it not to deal thy bread to the hungry, and that thou bring the poor that are cast out to thy house? when thou seest the naked, that thou cover him; and that thou hide not thyself from thine own flesh?

Heck of a thing for an evil tribal war god to say he requires from his supplicants eh?

That may lead the biblically uninformed to ask well what about all the do's and don'ts and sacrifices of the Mosaic law? That is because the Mosaic law was,

1, Designed to show the futility of such a system in its pointless cycle of never ending sacrifices and rituals that accomplish nothing. It was not a statement of support for religion. It was a statement against religion,

2 Most of the rituals and sacrifices in the Law were prophetic in nature pointing to Christ, Judaism of course does not accept this but I am speaking from the Christian point of view.
For us Christians Christ himself tells us the purpose of the law and even the rest of the OT

Lu 24:44 And he said unto them, These are the words which I spake unto you, while I was yet with you, that all things must be fulfilled, which were written in the law of Moses, and in the prophets, and in the psalms, concerning me.

From a Christian point of view the entire Old Testament points to Christ and the New Testament. In fact it was the entire reason for the creation of the nation of Israel. They are a living prophecy and witness to all nations of Gods desires and plans for all mankind.

A minor example of biblical prophecy involving the The Pass Over.

Ex 12:7 And they shall take of the blood, and strike it on the two side posts and on the upper door post of the houses, wherein they shall eat it.

If you look at a door way and think about where the blood would be located according to these instructions and run a line straight down and one straight across the side posts you can see that it represents a cross. The blood on the upper post would be from the head of Christ that was pierced with thorns and the blood on the two side posts would be the blood from where they nailed his hands. What is really interesting with this is that crucifixion would not be a known form of execution until hundreds of years into the future.

The people who put the blood on the posts were not spared because they were good perfect people but because they accepted the sacrifice that God required to spare them. This supports the Christian belief that we can not be saved by works but by the blood of Christ. We do not have to be perfect. But we do need to accept the sacrifice that God requires us to accept.

Thus the atheist who says we have no evidence or reason to believe is not really true, The bible is not supported by being historically or scientifically accurate but rather by being prophetically accurate. Unfortunately there has been a spate of poorly researched pie in the sky type prophecy books in the past 30 or so years aimed at the general public that have involved time settings[ time setting is something that the bible strictly forbids ] Raptures to spare wealthy at ease Christians from suffering any hardship during the tribulation period etc that have made a sham of biblical teaching and prophecy.

But back to the point of there is no God I could go into detail with the teachings of Christ himself and how he renounced the religious system etc and the teachings of Paul ie. We can now boldly enter the throne room of God and speak to him face to face. But just going to the very end of all things should suffice. As I stated earlier in the Garden there were no temples rituals etc so the bible says it shall be in the end when we are reunited face to face with God.

Re 21:22 And I saw no temple therein : for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple of it.

So as it was in the beginning so it shall be in the end. Face to Face with no religions temples etc. It always strikes me as strange that even many non believers can say there may be alien life superior to us or even believe in a spiritual dimension but mention a supreme being that is above all these things and all of a sudden you are a religious nut and a crack pot. I believe much of that feeling [not all] comes from the idea that aliens and departed spirits do not require anything from them. They make no demands on a person. But this supreme being does make demands and it has laid down rules and laws that they simply find unacceptable to them.

Moe

moe · 12-31-08, 03:52 PM

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Originally Posted by scourge99

As I have said before God is not disproven, just an unlikely answer.

Once again disproving evolution or electricity or gravity or the big bang does nothing to affirm your beliefs; not A does not imply B.

And again you misunderstand what I am saying. disprove electricity? Stick your finger in a 440 panel and then claim electricity does not exist. Jump out a second floor window and claim gravity does not exist. There is a beautiful fossil of a 155 million year old dragon fly. This thing was the size of a small eagle.

Odonata: Dragonflies and Damselflies scroll about halfway down the page. I do not want you accusing me trying to get you to read a book again.

There are no dragon flies today the size of eagles . The Dragon flies we have today are descended from this ancestor via Micro Evolution. It is not a matter of disproving the information. It is a matter of determining where the information actually points to. As to Macro Evolution there is nothing to disprove.

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Originally Posted by scourge99

I'm sorry I am not a evolutionary Biologist who can answer your questions.

What questions? I posted my answers and supported those answers. I am not trying to get you to answer questions I am trying to get you to think.

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Originally Posted by scourge99

Another poster on this forum has this same tactic. The debate goes something like this: What is time? Oh, you can't explain it right now with your precious science? Well then I guess that shows how much you know and how useless science is so somehow that means my beliefs must be right.

What the heck are you talking about??? Have I not supported practically every statement I have made USING science? I love science. It fascinates me and I no way see it as useless. Are you not aware that with out science to support my position that I have no argument?

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Originally Posted by scourge99

In other words, you have a belief. You believe your belief is right but you can't explain why. Therefore, instead of saying why your belief is right you attack another's belief mistakenly thinking this proves yours right. Do you not see the error in this line of thinking?

I have been trying to explain my reasons for believing to you and Obvious Child for what, Almost 15 pages now? Now evolution is a belief and I am attacking it?? In a court room you have two opposing sides reviewing interpreting and presenting the same body of evidence. Is this an attack? In science you have scientists working in the same field studying the same evidence and they come to completely different conclusions. They write papers concerning their own views as to where they believe the evidence points and submit them to scientific journals pointing out what they believe to be flaws in each others work. Is that an attack? No, that is intelligent debate and learning.

An attack is the crap you see between groups like AIG and Talk Origins where they go after people rather than evidence. I have not attacked any one. I have simply presented the evidence as I see it, I have not said scientists are dumb. You are stupid to believe this or that. I have not questioned the source of any persons credentials. I have not made claims that the people doing the research are not qualified. And I have repeatedly stated I CAN BE WRONG!.

To my recollection the only thing that could be considered as even close to an attack is my statements concerning Haekel and von Zietman. And the only reason I posted that was because you claim science is more trust worthy than other disciplines. My ONLY point there was to show that scientists are not some holy priesthood of people born with out an anus. They are fallible corruptible capable of bias human beings just like everybody else.

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Originally Posted by scourge99

And why is that a fallacy unlike the others I mentioned? That seventh point is EXACTLY the mindset we all should have. Its the only one that makes sense.

Dude, I posted that as a description of myself, That statement is WHY I believe what I believe.

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Originally Posted by scourge99

Perhaps for your sect this is true. The Bible is full of stories where God has commanded people to do queer things. How do you KNOW that he isn't still doing such today?

What do mean "my Sect"? I did not write the bible.

Mt 7:16 Ye shall know them by their fruits . Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles?
Mt 7:17 Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit.

Ro 12:17 Recompense to no man evil for evil. Provide things honest in the sight of all men.

1jo 4:20 If a man say , I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar: for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen ?

Just a couple of examples of what the bible says concerning someone who uses a God made me do it defense.

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Originally Posted by scourge99

Is there anything within that mess of arguments you find particularly compelling? Tell me and we can start there. In the future I would prefer you be a bit more specific rather than simply referring such a large work. For example, as a matter of respect I wouldn't say "its been done before in the God Delusion. Go read that." Instead I would refer to some specific argument within the book rather than the whole book itself.

That was simply a link to the same page I got the quote from and besides that yes God forbid that you actually read a book dealing with a subject before you make such a blanket statement on a public forum. If you have trouble finding a quote all you have to do is copy the quote from the post, Open the website link, Go to edit on the windows toolbar, open find on this page and paste the quote into the popup tool, click next and it will take you right to the quote. And I have read the God Delusion. So what is your point with that? My copy is at home but I am not at home but if at a future time you want to discuss that we can

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Originally Posted by scourge99

This is from a previous debate. Feel free to tackle one or more of the arguments.

WOW! Not sure what this person is using as their source but it is seriously flawed. Ok I will have to deal with all this stuff in a separate post. And I am not going to go point by point because it would take a hundred pages to do it. I will pick certain points out of each argument and deal with those. And even at that it is going to be a long post.

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Originally Posted by scourge99

You still haven't connected the dots.

No. You haven't connected the dots. And NOBODY else can connect them for you. I can only present the arguments and samples of the evidence I use to support my arguments. And that is all anybody atheist or believer can do when presenting their arguments. Connecting or not connecting the dots is up to the reader.

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Originally Posted by scourge99

You said "physical laws point to intelligence that established those laws because I say so." Why do you think so? Please state your reasoning. That is, I do not care that you believe this. I only care to know WHY you believe this.

Because I am an engineer and I understand systems and their components and how they work. Even a simple head tank system needs to be designed and installed according to a specific design for it to work properly. Complex systems just do not arise and organize themselves and start to function all on their own. And there is nothing in science that teaches that these things do occur. In fact hard known science teaches the opposite. Again even our simplest systems need to be properly designed to work. The many systems we have that insure life and the continuance of life are far far more complicated than even the most complex systems man has ever devised.

From Universal constants to earth based systems such as insects scavengers and various microbes functioning as an environmental sanitation system the mathematical probability of all these systems working in compatibility and the laws that guide them arising by random chance and being focused towards producing and sustaining life is nil. Every where and I mean every where we look whether it be through a telescope or a microscope we see nothing but complex systems working in harmony to produce and sustain life.

If I were to walk on board a ship and say" Gee Chief how many millions of years did it take for all this stuff to come together and start running all by itself ?" You can rest assured he is not going to let me any where near his engine room. Would you? I would be lucky if he would even trust me with a sponge and a bucket to scrub bulkheads.

Simple common sense tells you after a certain amount of seeming coincidences that you are no longer looking at something that is coincidental. Francis Collins was the head of the Human Genome Project. He is a born again Christian and believes in Jesus Christ.

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Collins: Why this scientist believes in God - CNN.com
As the director of the Human Genome Project, I have led a consortium of scientists to read out the 3.1 billion letters of the human genome, our own DNA instruction book. As a believer, I see DNA, the information molecule of all living things, as God's language, and the elegance and complexity of our own bodies and the rest of nature as a reflection of God's plan.

Collins believes in full blown Evolution. Theistic Evolution. As much as Micheal Behe is lauded as the darling of the ID camp he believes in common descent.

Quote:

Darwin Under the Microscope: Behe, Michael
I want to be explicit about what I am, and am not, questioning. The word "evolution" carries many associations. Usually it means common descent -- the idea that all organisms living and dead are related by common ancestry. I have no quarrel with the idea of common descent, and continue to think it explains similarities among species. By itself, however, common descent doesn't explain the vast differences among species.

It not a matter of rejecting the evidence it is a matter of interpreting the evidence that leads to different conclusions concerning Evolution and Intelligent Design

Moe

scourge99 · 12-31-08, 04:12 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Graffight

God never commanded anyone to do queer things.

No nothing strange at all...

BibleGateway.com - Passage*Lookup: Deuteronomy 21;

Quote:

A Rebellious Son
18 If a man has a stubborn and rebellious son who does not obey his father and mother and will not listen to them when they discipline him, 19 his father and mother shall take hold of him and bring him to the elders at the gate of his town. 20 They shall say to the elders, "This son of ours is stubborn and rebellious. He will not obey us. He is a profligate and a drunkard." 21 Then all the men of his town shall stone him to death. You must purge the evil from among you. All Israel will hear of it and be afraid.

BibleGateway.com - Passage*Lookup: Numbers 31;

Quote:

17 Now kill all the boys. And kill every woman who has slept with a man, 18 but save for yourselves every girl who has never slept with a man.

19 "All of you who have killed anyone or touched anyone who was killed must stay outside the camp seven days. On the third and seventh days you must purify yourselves and your captives. 20 Purify every garment as well as everything made of leather, goat hair or wood."

21 Then Eleazar the priest said to the soldiers who had gone into battle, "This is the requirement of the law that the LORD gave Moses: 22 Gold, silver, bronze, iron, tin, lead 23 and anything else that can withstand fire must be put through the fire, and then it will be clean. But it must also be purified with the water of cleansing. And whatever cannot withstand fire must be put through that water. 24 On the seventh day wash your clothes and you will be clean. Then you may come into the camp."
Dividing the Spoils

BibleGateway.com - Passage*Lookup: Hosea 13;

Quote:

16 The people of Samaria must bear their guilt,
because they have rebelled against their God.
They will fall by the sword;
their little ones will be dashed to the ground,
their pregnant women ripped open."

That is just what I scrounged up in the last 5 minutes.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Graffight

Moe wrote about this quite well on another post.

Please highlight what you think in that post is pertinent to the debate. I saw little if anything that was pertinent to the above and below quotations.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Graffight

God stopped all the rituals, and all that goofy mumbo jumbo in the OT...All that God asks of us now is to Love.

Oh of course. He was just "stopping" people by killing children and ripping open the stomachs of mothers and stoning insubordinate children.

And the Nazi's were just "cleaning up" the gene pool. If they would have claimed to be commanded by God it would have been ok.

scourge99 · 12-31-08, 05:30 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by moe

And again you misunderstand what I am saying. disprove electricity? Stick your finger in a 440 panel and then claim electricity does not exist. Jump out a second floor window and claim gravity does not exist. There is a beautiful fossil of a 155 million year old dragon fly. This thing was the size of a small eagle.

Odonata: Dragonflies and Damselflies scroll about halfway down the page. I do not want you accusing me trying to get you to read a book again.

There are no dragon flies today the size of eagles . The Dragon flies we have today are descended from this ancestor via Micro Evolution. It is not a matter of disproving the information. It is a matter of determining where the information actually points to. As to Macro Evolution there is nothing to disprove.

And you believe the evidence points to intelligent design because....

That is the problem. You find some flaws or oversights in some scientific theories and you believe its affirms your beliefs. Wrong. You need to PROVE why your beliefs are affirmed. You keep dodging this repeatedly and instead attack theories in some attempt to think it proves your theory. Sorry it doesn't work that way. (Note: you start to describe your rationale near the end of this page).

And I didn't mean to imply that you believe that when you stick your finger in a socket you wouldn't feel something. Electricity is defined by the physical theoretical properties attached to it from scientific experiments. If you don't think electricity is how scientists have defined in then stop calling it electricity or gravity.

Quote:

Originally Posted by moe

What questions? I posted my answers and supported those answers. I am not trying to get you to answer questions I am trying to get you to think.

Its not about thinking when you pose a hyper specific problem of a theory.

For example: why is a run time insert operation on a n-ary tree faster than an insert on a red-black tree where the red-black tree has a depth greater than 100?

You probably don't know the answer because you have no background knowledge into dynamic data structures and computer programming. Its got nothing to do with your ability to think, it has to do with your knowledge in the particular field. With that said, when you highlight a supposed problem within the theory of evolution I do not know the answer intrinsically. I can go Goggle it or research it just like you can try to go Google or research the question I asked. But when the subject is highly complex and requires deep understandings I highly doubt you could answer my question just like I cannot answer yours.

Quote:

Originally Posted by moe

What the heck are you talking about??? Have I not supported practically every statement I have made USING science? I love science. It fascinates me and I no way see it as useless. Are you not aware that with out science to support my position that I have no argument?

Then please connect the dots on why you believe. Or is it an argument from ignorance?

Quote:

Originally Posted by moe

I have been trying to explain my reasons for believing to you and Obvious Child for what, Almost 15 pages now? Now evolution is a belief and I am attacking it??

Don't sidetrack yourself with my use of the word "attack". My point was that you didn't seem to have a reason for all that typing and how it tied in to your beliefs. However, you finally told me your point below.

Quote:

Originally Posted by moe

My ONLY point there was to show that scientists are not some holy priesthood of people born with out an anus. They are fallible corruptible capable of bias human beings just like everybody else.

And I didn't say they were. I merely said that its much more probable that something that can and is verified independently is more reliable and accurate than something which cannot be. Do you disagree?

For example, which of the following would you believe:

1) I caught a 10' fish but I can't prove it to you.
2) I caught a 10' fish. I also have a pictures, bones, and a video tape of me catching it if you want to verify it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by moe

What do mean "my Sect"?

sect definition | Dictionary.com

"Christians" run quite the gamut from Catholics, to Mormons, to Baptists, to Episcopalians, to Quakers. Differences arise due to interpretations, hierarchy, rituals, and worship.

For example, one sect may believe a passage is literal while others believe it is metaphorical.

Quote:

Originally Posted by moe

Mt 7:16 Ye shall know them by their fruits . Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles?

How is this useful for determining who has or hasn't been commanded by God?

Quote:

Originally Posted by moe

Mt 7:17 Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit.

How are you going to "check my fruit" exactly?

Quote:

Originally Posted by moe

Ro 12:17 Recompense to no man evil for evil. Provide things honest in the sight of all men.

If I believe I am doing God's will then how can it be evil? Obviously I wouldn't think I'm wrong if I claim I am doing it for God.

Quote:

Originally Posted by moe

Just a couple of examples of what the bible says concerning someone who uses a God made me do it defense.

Yes those were very useful in determining who is and who isn't doing God's will.

Quote:

Originally Posted by moe

That was simply a link to the same page I got the quote from

My point exactly. All you quoted was "Hi. I'm a lawyer who has won many cases and I believe the case for Christianity is strong. You should believe me."

I said, "tell me what you think from that guy is so compelling and we can discuss it because I'm not wasting my time dismantling every argument he makes."

Quote:

Originally Posted by moe

WOW! Not sure what this person is using as their source but it is seriously flawed. Ok I will have to deal with all this stuff in a separate post. And I am not going to go point by point because it would take a hundred pages to do it. I will pick certain points out of each argument and deal with those. And even at that it is going to be a long post.

That's perfectly acceptable.

Quote:

Originally Posted by moe

No. You haven't connected the dots. And NOBODY else can connect them for you. I can only present the arguments and samples of the evidence I use to support my arguments. And that is all anybody atheist or believer can do when presenting their arguments. Connecting or not connecting the dots is up to the reader.

I've been asking from the start how your dots have connected up. So far I have no clue why you actually believe the Bible is true or that God exists. We've pretty much solidified the fact that proving God via science has not been done and there is no evidence for it (though you still claim ID is supported but you continue to be vague or simply ignore my questions about HOW believe it is supported until the post below.)

Quote:

Originally Posted by moe

Complex systems just do not arise and organize themselves and start to function all on their own. And there is nothing in science that teaches that these things do occur. In fact hard known science teaches the opposite. Again even our simplest systems need to be properly designed to work. The many systems we have that insure life and the continuance of life are far far more complicated than even the most complex systems man has ever devised.

From Universal constants to earth based systems such as insects scavengers and various microbes functioning as an environmental sanitation system the mathematical probability of all these systems working in compatibility and the laws that guide them arising by random chance and being focused towards producing and sustaining life is nil. Every where and I mean every where we look whether it be through a telescope or a microscope we see nothing but complex systems working in harmony to produce and sustain life.

If I were to walk on board a ship and say" Gee Chief how many millions of years did it take for all this stuff to come together and start running all by itself ?" You can rest assured he is not going to let me any where near his engine room. Would you? I would be lucky if he would even trust me with a sponge and a bucket to scrub bulkheads.

Simple common sense tells you after a certain amount of seeming coincidences that you are no longer looking at something that is coincidental. Francis Collins was the head of the Human Genome Project. He is a born again Christian and believes in Jesus Christ.

Collins believes in full blown Evolution. Theistic Evolution. As much as Micheal Behe is lauded as the darling of the ID camp he believes in common descent.

Let me get this straight. Your belief is that everything is created because you know that everything observed today could not or is so unlikely to have occurred how it is today without an intelligent creator?

In other words, you are telling me that you KNOW that the universe is impossible (or unlikely) without an intelligent God.

In case your arguments goes down this path and you missed the discussion earlier: http://www.debatepolitics.com/1057860189-post114.html

Quote:

Originally Posted by moe

It not a matter of rejecting the evidence it is a matter of interpreting the evidence that leads to different conclusions concerning Evolution and Intelligent Design

Its also about believing only what is necessary and sometimes "I don't know" is the best answer as opposed to "Zeus did it".

moe · 12-31-08, 08:27 PM

Quote:

Let me get this straight. Your belief is that everything is created because you know that everything observed today could not or is so unlikely to have occurred how it is today without an intelligent creator?

In other words, you are telling me that you KNOW that the universe is impossible (or unlikely) without an intelligent God.

I am not saying I KNOW any thing. NO BODY KNOWS today. That is my beef with evolutionists. they claim they DO KNOW. Its a done deal. THIS IS how it happened. Just do not press us for any real details. As for me what I am saying is my present belief is the current evidence points to an intelligent design. The key phrase is current evidence. That is why you always see me state I MAY BE WRONG. I do keep abreast as much as I can of new developments in various fields. Something could come up tomorrow that cancels everything I believe to be true today. That is where my faith comes in. As I stated in another post. Where the evidence stops faith begins. My faith is based on many more things than just a simple disagreement over evolution. Christian Theistic Evolution accepts evolution in it's entirety. I used to basically fall into that group.

If my only evidence was this is what my pastor told me to believe then you would be right. And in fact I do not have a pastor. I am a denomination of 1. In fact when I am home we run a home church were a few of us who are as tired of the religious BS as we are the Atheists BS gather together. But I have taken the time and the effort to investigate both sides. I used to think like every body else. Evolution did it. cool. That really had no effect on my faith at all. Because there is a verse in the bible that states with God all things are possible. So he used evolution. So what big deal.

So in my younger days whenever God would up come in a conversation and I stated I believed I automatically received the oh you poor child looks and a lecture on Evolution. I could not understand why people thought one has to cancel out the other.

So I started looking into these things for myself. I started noticing things did not really jibe. I have always been a very good reader with high comprehension levels. It did not take long before I was able to shake up the wise ones with very simple basic questions regarding their own beliefs. Then I dove in head first and have been doing all of my own studying cross referencing etc in multiple areas. If somebody is going BS me, I prefer that it be me who BS"s myself rather some slicked down preacher or a pseudo intellectual atheist.

As to your array question You are correct that it is something I do not really know about. But this I do know. If you just sit around and wait for this array to simply design organize and start functioning all by itself, It ain't gonna happen. Or if you went to a different place and was messing with their system and it appeared to be better faster etc and you asked them how they set it up and they replied to you we did not set it up. We just came in one day and there it was. You would think they were nuts.

Moe

moe · 01-01-09, 01:31 AM

Quote:

"there isn't a single demonstrable eyewitness account of the life of Jesus, nor any credible historians writing of his existence either. We already know that the Gospels were written long after his death by people who never knew him, who borrowed heavily from each other and from other pagan sources. The only historian who ever supposedly wrote about Jesus as a person was Josephus and we know that's an early Christian forgery. All other historians wrote about the Christians and mentioned Jesus as a supposed object of their worship, they never mentioned him as an actual person. You simply have no sources whatsoever of direct eyewitnesses, every account is at least second or third hand."

"There isn't any substantial knowledge that Jesus ever existed either and it is irrelevant if anyone claims Spider-Man is real, it only matters if he factually is. People's claims mean nothing whatsoever to factual reality, it isn't about what you can claim, it's about what you can prove."

First off, for the Bible, we don't even know if they were writing from eyewitnesses or simply from oral traditions handed down.

These arguments seem familiar to me and if I remember correctly they appeared in Misquoting Jesus by Bart D. Ehrman. I have seen this in bits and pieces in others places but this seems to be fairly in line with Ehrman's charges. Ehrman although a highly educated scholar uses the most narrowest of methods to make his claims against the NT. He intentionally ignores other reputable sources that most critical scholars accept as valid for obvious reasons that I will show shortly. Plus again the Tubingen School of criticism held the same views so these could be coming from a site or book that still holds to the outdated Tubingen criticisms.

First it needs to be realized that the NT was not written the day after the ascension of Christ. It is true that the original transcripts of the NT were written over a period of time. But all of the original manuscripts of the 27 books of NT were all finished before 100 ad. John the last apostle died just before 100 ad. The writers of the NT never realized that their letters and testimonies would be gathered into a collection and called the New Testament. It was never their intent to write a New Testament.

Quote:

We already know that the Gospels were written long after his death by people who never knew him, who borrowed heavily from each other and from other pagan sources.

History does not support the above claim. Papias Bishop of Hierapolis published a 5 volume work in about 130 ad in which he discusses the origin and authorship of the gospels. This is less than 40 years after the death of the last apostle. There is very little left of Papias writings but we have do writings of Irenaeus and Eusebius who did have access to Papias 's writings and they discuss the contents of those writings

Quote:

Papias of Hierapolis - People and Nations :: American Bible Society
Papias, along with Ignatius and Polycarp, was considered among the disciples of John, perhaps even his scribe. He later became bishop of Hierapolis in Asia Minor.................

Most of what we learn about Papias comes from Eusebius and Irenaeus. Eusebius is critical of Papias, whereas Irenaeus uses Papias to support his own millennial teaching of chiliasm - the literal 1000-year reign of Christ on earth. But Papias is also interesting because of what he has to say concerning the origin and authorship of the Gospels. He speaks of an original Aramaic version of the Gospel of Matthew, which existed before the Greek one. He also mentions Peter as the main source for Mark's information regarding the Gospel of Mark. It is Eusebius' reading of the Papias Preface, however, which has provided the most controversy. The controversy concerns the authorship of the Fourth Gospel and of Revelation.

Eusebius asserted, on the basis of the Papias quote given above, that there were two Johns at Ephesus: one known as John the apostle who wrote the Gospel, and the other John the elder who is referred to in 2nd and 3rd John and who also wrote the Revelation (See Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History 3.39.1-8).

It would be rather difficult for Papias to publish a historical work about the origins of the gospels in 130 ad if they were truly in fact written long after the resurrection of Jesus by people who never knew Jesus. Considering that Papias states that there was Aramaic version of the Gospel of Matthew before there was Greek version then it can not be doubted that it was written at a time when people who were eye witnesses to the events spoken of in these gospels were still alive. Thus they were accurate eye witness accounts

In fact the entire NT is considered to be by far the most historically substantiated ancient document we posses.

Quote:

Manuscript evidence for superior New Testament reliability
Almost all biblical scholars agree that the New Testament documents were all written before the close of the first century. If Jesus was crucified in 30 A.D., then that means that the entire New Testament was completed within 70 years. This is important because it means there were plenty of people around when the New Testament documents were penned who could have contested the writings. In other words, those who wrote the documents knew that if they were inaccurate, plenty of people would have pointed it out. But, we have absolutely no ancient documents contemporary with the first century that contest the New Testament texts.

Quote:

We do know that a lot of the stories about Jesus in the Bible actually go back long, long before Jesus was supposedly born. A lot of the miracles are simply common mythic elements that appear in other pre-existing belief systems. Do you know just how many "saviors" out there were born of a virgin named some variant of "Mary", had wise men show up bearing gifts, got crucified and resurrected? Jesus is hardly original in any of those elements."

"Jesus, like a long line of other saviors, were born of "Mary" or her variants because the name Mary descends from a root meaning "water", the source of mythic life. That's why you have Jesus springing from Mary, Buddha coming from Maia, Hermes being born of Maia, Agni from Maya, Adonis from Myrrha, Bacchus born of Myrrha, Sommona Cadom, the Siamese Savior from Maya Maria and Krishna, born of the Mariama.

Likewise, we have many, many cases of angelic annunciation of saviors and holy men. Jesus certainly isn't alone, even in the Bible, both Samson and Samuel were announced by angels in the Old Testament, but those are really late-comers to the angelic parade. Zoroaster, it was said, "The divine glory reveals to his mother his conception and touches her with great splendor... A preview of his ideal image was seen in the heavens and an ox foretold in human speech 'the relevation he would bring the world." Bodhisat announced to Maia, mother of Buddha, his coming and as Bodhisat is often shown holding a lotus, in ancient paintings, the Angel Gabriel is always shown holding a water lily, both symbols of life rising from the water element, in the mythic sense, the primordial waters which are, linguistically, "Mary".

We can trace a host of virgin births of saviors across the area, it was hardly an uncommon mythic element. In Babylon, we had the virtin Ishtar, in Libya was Neith, in Cilesia we had Ate, in Armenia, Anaites. Assyria had Ataigates and in Crete was Ariadne. Phrygia had Cybele and Phoenicia had Astarte. All of these and many more came sons who were race saviors. In fact, in Egypt, we have Isis, about whom he have extant inscriptions that read "Immaculate is our lady, Isis."

Magi from afar are again nothing new or unique to Jesus. At the birth of Socrates in 469 B.C., "Magi came from the east to offer gifts at Socrates' birth, also bringing gold, frankincense and myrrh". Krishna, born in 1200 B.C., had "angels, shepherds and the prophets attended, gold, frankincense and myrrh were brought to him." Let's not forget Confucious in 598 B.C., "Five wise men from a distance came to the house, celestial music was heard in the skies and angels attended the scene." The same can be said for Mithra, Zoroaster and Osiris."

Considering this is a long and involved accusation I think I am going to let this guy deal with these so called Christians stole from pagans arguments. He actually wrote a whole book on this topic.

Link to Bio and credentials of Professor Nash

Quote:

Biblical Training
Dr. Nash was for 27 years a professor of philosophy and department head at a large state university in the mid-South. Nash has also taught at Syracuse University, Fuller Theological Seminary (visiting professor), Trinity Evangelical Divinity School (visiting professor), Houghton College, and Barrington College. Nash is a graduate of Barrington College (B.A.), Brown University (M.A.) and received his Ph.D. in philosophy from Syracuse University. He did post-graduate work at Stanford University under a research grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities. He has published more than thirty books, ...............

Link to an article by Dr. Nash concerning Christians stole from pagans arguments.

Quote:

New Testament and Paganism

Liberal efforts to undermine the uniqueness of the Christian revelation via claims of a pagan religious influence collapse quickly once a full account of the information is available. It is clear that the liberal arguments exhibit astoundingly bad scholarship. Indeed, this conclusion may be too generous. According to one writer, a more accurate account of these bad arguments would describe them as "prejudiced irresponsibility."[23] But in order to become completely informed on these matters, wise readers will work through material cited in the brief bibliography.

Moe

scourge99 · 01-01-09, 11:08 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by moe

I am not saying I KNOW any thing. NO BODY KNOWS today. That is my beef with evolutionists. they claim they DO KNOW. Its a done deal. THIS IS how it happened. Just do not press us for any real details.

Since there is no such thing as an "evolutionist" then who cares? There is no such thing as an "evolutionist" just like there is no such thing as an "assault weapon".

However, many people believe that the THEORY of evolution is true. If someone wants to believe a theory is a fact and not a theory then that is their problem that they do not understand what a theory is.

Quote:

Originally Posted by moe

As for me what I am saying is my present belief is the current evidence points to an intelligent design. The key phrase is current evidence. That is why you always see me state I MAY BE WRONG. I do keep abreast as much as I can of new developments in various fields. Something could come up tomorrow that cancels everything I believe to be true today. That is where my faith comes in. As I stated in another post. Where the evidence stops faith begins. My faith is based on many more things than just a simple disagreement over evolution. Christian Theistic Evolution accepts evolution in it's entirety. I used to basically fall into that group.

I don't see how evolution is the cornerstone of a disbelief in God thus such beliefs are unaffected by evolutions truth or falsehood.

Quote:

Originally Posted by moe

If my only evidence was this is what my pastor told me to believe then you would be right. And in fact I do not have a pastor. I am a denomination of 1. In fact when I am home we run a home church were a few of us who are as tired of the religious BS as we are the Atheists BS gather together. But I have taken the time and the effort to investigate both sides. I used to think like every body else. Evolution did it. cool. That really had no effect on my faith at all. Because there is a verse in the bible that states with God all things are possible. So he used evolution. So what big deal.

So in my younger days whenever God would up come in a conversation and I stated I believed I automatically received the oh you poor child looks and a lecture on Evolution. I could not understand why people thought one has to cancel out the other.

I agree. Evolution should have little or no effect on such beliefs.

Quote:

Originally Posted by moe

As to your array question You are correct that it is something I do not really know about. But this I do know. If you just sit around and wait for this array to simply design organize and start functioning all by itself, It ain't gonna happen. Or if you went to a different place and was messing with their system and it appeared to be better faster etc and you asked them how they set it up and they replied to you we did not set it up. We just came in one day and there it was. You would think they were nuts.

I agree. But what I think is nuts is that someone else tells me X setup the array but they can't show evidence why they have such a belief because its based purely on unverifiable testimony and an explanation that is substantiated with nothing more than a logically sound explanation.

Thus, my question to you again: In other words, you are telling me that you believe that the universe is impossible (or unlikely) without an intelligent God.

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