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Challenge; Can you argue a case you don't actually agree with?

Tim the plumber

Tim the plumber

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I'm currently off work because I've somehow pulled a muscle in my leg walking slowly back from the pub 2 weeks ago. So I'm bored.

Here is a thread where I would like to see the best arguments made for cases you don't actually believe in. I'll start I'm an atheist. I have a good argument for justifying God, or at least divine intervention in the development of humanity.

Can you see why it's wrong and can you do better with any other topic or the same?
 
If we look at the Earth we see a planet which is too lucky for words. It's just too good for life to be the result of blind chance. Like walking into 20 casinos and getting the million $ jackpot out of each slot machine after a 1$ gamble. Just not credible.

The Earth has the third biggest magnetic field in the solar system after the Sun and Jupiter which is almost a star in it's own right. Without it life would be very harh pressed to get at all advanced on the surface or anywhere near it.

Earth has a very unusual atmosphere. That is it does not have the slim to none of Mars or the Moon which are understandable levels of air or the also understandable result of lots of air like Venus or the gas giants. Having a thinish atmosphere this close to the star is difficult to understand just how that happened. If the air was a little thinner then there would be too little of it to stop the world from becoming too cold and just snowballing. If there was a little more of it the water in the oceans would be vaporized much more which would result, quickly in a positive feedback loop and we would be Venus II.

We have a lot of water. But not so much that there is little land for the development of lots of terrestrial ecco-systems. Lucky that.

We have fairly stable vulcanism. With a little more we would have too much CO2 dominated air and be Venus II or a little less and snowball. Lucky that.

The Earth Moon system is a double planet which is difficult to understand how that formed. The result of that is that the Earth wobbles. But it wobbles in a limited way. The other planets can wobble to such a degree that they sometimes end up with their poles pointing at the Sun. If this were ever to happen the the Earth all ecco-systems would be destroyed. The limited wobble is just enough to give us ice ages which are a very strong inducement to rapid evolution without blasting all the results of the last one. Lucky that.

The Moon also causes tides. These used to be more bigger than now. These tides make the task of life evolving out of the seas a lot easier than otherwise. Lucky that.

We have had a few big asteroid/meteor strikes which have killed the dominate life forms off and allowed new ones to flourish. Not too many though because Jupiter is out there hovering up most of them before they get to us. Both results are very lucky for us.

Given all this and plenty of other lucky things it is quite reasonable for the Earth to be the only planet in this galaxy which is capable of supporting decently advanced land life. There may well be life all over the place, I expect there is, but it is unlikely to be more impressive than a worm unless it's on a planet as lucky as Earth.
 
That's just to start with.

Us humans are freaks.

We have evolved from monkeys, we are Chimpanzee mark 4c or so. The chimps figure prominently in nature programs on the tele but they are not exactly numerous over the world. Not a particularly successful type of animal. Not like deers or even other monkeys.

Us humans seem to have gone through periods when we were extremely limited in range and population. We very nearly died out. Well what do you expect for an animal which lives by running around on the open plains with no natural weapons. Lions have big teeth and run faster than us. We got lucky so many times.

Once we finally got good enough to spread out over the world we were highly successful. We became the top predator everywhere. Marvelous what we can do with a sharp stick. Great you think, we are on the road to greatness. But that was at least 40,000 years ago. The first villages appeared 13,000 years ago. That's at least 27,000 years with no cultural progress of any significance. The development of civilization is a fluke.

13,000 years ago we started living in villages. Well a tiny number of us did. And again that was that for many thousands of years. Eventually this village/farming thing spread across lots of the world. The stone age lasted a long time however. In it some big things got built like Stone Henge. Great.

Eventually technology started to advance. Eventually. That means that it was not at all inevitable. We could have stayed in that culture for ever. We almost did.

Our technology has progressed since then, bronze, iron etc but there have been lots of periods and cultures which have stagnated. Even dropped huge advances. In China in 1000 AD the island of Hainan produced some 100,000 tonnes of iron. Then the emperor decided he did not like this and closed down the blast furnaces. Lucky for us Europeans that.

At some point this stream of super luck has to become compelling. I accept that it's not good enough to hold water in a scientific paper but it is definitely well beyond reasonable doubt in a court room sense. Something is guiding our development. Something is at least gardening us.
 
You're taking off work for a pulled muscle?
 
Tim the plumber said:
I'm currently off work because I've somehow pulled a muscle in my leg walking slowly back from the pub 2 weeks ago. So I'm bored.

Here is a thread where I would like to see the best arguments made for cases you don't actually believe in. I'll start I'm an atheist. I have a good argument for justifying God, or at least divine intervention in the development of humanity.

Can you see why it's wrong and can you do better with any other topic or the same?
Click to expand...

Of course I can - I'm an author. That's my job.

My argument for justifying God in this case: Because I feel he's real and I just know, deep down inside, that the bible is real too. [That's how I was raised - just because - defacto - no questioning. You were born into this truth and you cannot question it]
 
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Aunt Spiker said:
Of course I can - I'm an author. That's my job.

My argument for justifying God in this case: Because I feel he's real and I just know, deep down inside, that the bible is real too. [That's how I was raised - just because - defacto - no questioning. You were born into this truth and you cannot question it]
Click to expand...

Yes, but that's not going to cut it on the internet. Also a bit weak for an author.
 
How could an omnipotent god screw planet Earth up so bad that he had to send his son, Jesus Christ to try to straighten out the mess?

Explain that, if you can. :roll:
 
Tim the plumber said:
I'm currently off work because I've somehow pulled a muscle in my leg walking slowly back from the pub 2 weeks ago. So I'm bored.

Here is a thread where I would like to see the best arguments made for cases you don't actually believe in. I'll start I'm an atheist. I have a good argument for justifying God, or at least divine intervention in the development of humanity.

Can you see why it's wrong and can you do better with any other topic or the same?
Click to expand...

Even if I could, I really don't want to give the other side any good ideas....
 
Why would a loving God create such horrible diseases like Parkinson's and cancers which slowly eat you alive? There is no good answer unless this God guy is one mean and evil SOB who enjoys watching us suffer.
 
shrubnose said:
How could an omnipotent god screw planet Earth up so bad that he had to send his son, Jesus Christ to try to straighten out the mess?

Explain that, if you can. :roll:
Click to expand...
I am not Christian....
but I can provide an argument for you. I LOVE devil's advocate.

I'm pretty sure it's Free will... God chooses not to interfere with free will... and we messed it up ourselves.
 
lifeisshort said:
Why would a loving God create such horrible diseases like Parkinson's and cancers which slowly eat you alive? There is no good answer unless this God guy is one mean and evil SOB who enjoys watching us suffer.
Click to expand...
I am not Christian....
but I can provide an argument for you. I LOVE devil's advocate.
Maybe because God places us in a world with free will... and world that makes sense. Diseases occur for their own viral/bacterial preservation...cancer's can be caused by your environment and genetic make-up.... if God altered one thing...wouldn't it not make sense anymore? "Magic" would exist and if magic existed, then free will would no longer exist.

It seems as though God placed you in a world of free will anarchy. We are capable of hate/love/sin anything really, within the bounds of the laws of the universe that allow us to exist.
 
Ok how about this!
banana.jpg
 
celticwar17 said:
I am not Christian....
but I can provide an argument for you. I LOVE devil's advocate.
Maybe because God places us in a world with free will... and world that makes sense. Diseases occur for their own viral/bacterial preservation...cancer's can be caused by your environment and genetic make-up.... if God altered one thing...wouldn't it not make sense anymore? "Magic" would exist and if magic existed, then free will would no longer exist.

It seems as though God placed you in a world of free will anarchy. We are capable of hate/love/sin anything really, within the bounds of the laws of the universe that allow us to exist.
Click to expand...
The old free will argument works for mans inhumanity to man but fails miserably on gods inhumanity to man. Next
 
shrubnose said:
How could an omnipotent god screw planet Earth up so bad that he had to send his son, Jesus Christ to try to straighten out the mess?

Explain that, if you can. :roll:
Click to expand...

Humans failed, not God.
 
lifeisshort said:
Why would a loving God create such horrible diseases like Parkinson's and cancers which slowly eat you alive? There is no good answer unless this God guy is one mean and evil SOB who enjoys watching us suffer.
Click to expand...

Diseases like Parkinson's are not created. These diseases are mutations of what are good, normally functioning processes. In the case of Parkinson's, the disease is caused by a triplet repeat expansion in a normal functioning gene; that is, normal function is impaired and the original function of the protein gets wrecked.
 
lifeisshort said:
The old free will argument works for mans inhumanity to man but fails miserably on gods inhumanity to man. Next
Click to expand...

And God's inhumanity to man is what, exactly?
 
phattonez said:
And God's inhumanity to man is what, exactly?
Click to expand...

Creating diseases and or mutations that cause man to die long agonizing deaths. Why "create" such suffering? Don't Christians believe god created everything?
 
lifeisshort said:
Creating diseases and or mutations that cause man to die long agonizing deaths. Why "create" such suffering? Don't Christians believe god created everything?
Click to expand...

Mutations aren't created (at least not in nature). Mutations come about randomly through errors in replication.
 
phattonez said:
Mutations aren't created (at least not in nature). Mutations come about randomly through errors in replication.
Click to expand...

Supposedly god created everything and that means everything including the ability to mutate. You can't say he,she,it created the good stuff but not the bad or can you?
 
lifeisshort said:
Creating diseases and or mutations that cause man to die long agonizing deaths. Why "create" such suffering? Don't Christians believe god created everything?
Click to expand...

Without suffering, we would have no chance to practice compassion
 
lifeisshort said:
Supposedly god created everything and that means everything including the ability to mutate. You can't say he,she,it created the good stuff but not the bad or can you?
Click to expand...

Knives can be used for plenty of good, and can also be used for evil. Does that mean that the maker of the knife made something evil?
 
phattonez said:
Humans failed, not God.
Click to expand...
Click to expand...



Who made those humans and failed to stop them from failing, if not God?

An omnipotent God is responsible for everything that happens or doesn't happen anytime, anywhere in our vast universe. Or He's not omnipotent and isn't really God.

Pretty frickin' simple.
 
Why would I want to argue for something I don't agree with?
 
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