A question for athiests

Sorry rosborne. I got a little side tracked there in another thread.

"I'm not qualified to help you with most of what you wrote. I know how science currently understands the Universe and I know what works for me, but I don't know the path you've traveled or what might be blocking your way ahead."

You are more than qualified to help because you already have! And I am grateful for that! I enjoy hearing what works for you. I find it interesting and intriguing. None of us really know what obstacles are to come in our lives. But they do happen, and regardless of what they may be we just have to determine ourselves to continue forward. Overcoming obstacles is like fertilizing the garden in your heart. It might stink when its first put down, but in the end something beautiful happens and suddenly you realize you have grown as a person.

"For me it comes from simply observing and understanding the natural world without judging it. I don't need to go to church to see it, I don't need to hear it from someone else. It doesn't ask for money and it doesn't ask me to believe things which don't make any sense. We are born with it and it is the first way we perceive the world. We carry it with us all the time and as long as it isn't blocked by the rubble of false assumptions and religious dogma, it is refreshed every time we stop and look around."

This is the perfect example of that. I love what you said here and how you said it. It is truly a beautiful and inspiring!

"Know when to let go of the things which no longer serve you".

This is exactly the path that I am on and will continue on for the rest of my life, if that is what it takes!

Evolution!

On the contrary, all of the atheists I know have an excellent understanding of science. Yours might be a skewed observation due to small sample size.

Bullshit meter pegged. Or maybe you aren't including the ones you 'know' on a2k?

Who pissed in your Wheaties? What kind of discussion is this? What kind of fresh hell is this?

My statement stands. FWIW, I have some wonderful friends who are atheists who are scientifically astute in real life as well as on the A2k forum.

That's pretty funny. Theists accusing atheists of science illiteracy when they're the ones believing in the invisible, undetectable, magical and supernatural crap.

This bullshit is coming from a guy who says that those who don't think like him lead gray lives, and then says "welcome to heaven." Oh yeah, anyone who thinks he lives in heaven is qualified to judge the scientific literacy of others.

OK, since you verified that you included those on a2k in 'all of the atheists you know', are you prepared to defend the one here who accused me of using 'Creationist math' when I used the standard formula for calculating the odds of a specific series of events happening? (in the ID thread)

That was so falling down ridiculous any self respecting atheist should have cringed. Are there some atheists who know their science? Of course. But you said ALL of them which I assume includes the above mentioned science illiterate.

Oh come on Set, I'm dissapointed in you. Anyone who uses hyperbole as much as you do should be able to recognize it.

And this after I specifically excluded your own sweet self from being an inhabitant of that 'gray hell'.

Once again, no one seized of the delusions you display is in any position to judge the scientific literacy of others, god boy.

Ah, right, so you're saying that anyone who thinks God exists cannot possibly have any scientific knowledge.

What an idiotic position, and so easily disproved. I think I've grossly overestimated you.

You certainly seem to grossly overestimate your own intelligence. No, i didn't say that people who believe in god cannot possibly have any scientific knowledge--that's about as blatant a straw man fallacy as you could come up with. Someone who believes in an invisible, omnipotent, omniscient friend in the sky is not, however, in a position to whine about the scientific literacy of others--that's what i was saying.

Your opinion of my intelligence is a matter of indifference to me.

So if you are not saying people who believe in God can't have scientific knowledge, that implies they CAN. And if they can, then they ARE in a position to judge the scientific literacy of others.

If you don't see the truth in that, by what logic do you disqualify believers in God from judging scientific literacy? And what magical quality do you attribute to atheists that enables them to be superior to theists in scientific matters?

Or is all you can do is yell "You're delusional!"

Anyone whose understanding of cosmology or history in general includes "and then a miracle happened" has a fundamental flaw in their understanding of science. Same for anyone who tries to use that for which there is no evidence as a causal explanation for physical phenomena. Science is evidence-based reasoning.

A reasonably science literate person would not reach a conclusion about physical phenomena based on faith. A reasonably science literate person would know that without evidence, the hypothesis is null. Hypotheses are based on demonstrable evidence, not the other way around. And a reasonably science literate person would not try to weasel with the definition of evidence in order to try to squeeze in faith-based reasoning.

And that is exactly what science says. They just label them with pseudo scientific names like 'big bang' and 'abiogenesis'.

If you understand basic science and the definition of "miracle," there's nothing miraculous about either the Big Bang or abiogenesis. I understand how strongly you desire for that to be true, but your desire for it to be so doesn't make it so.

You might also consider reviewing the definition of "pseudoscience."

Once again, you're leaning on a straw man for what passes for logic at your house. I have neither said that believers in god cannot judge scientific literacy, nor that atheists are superior to theists in scientific matters. I am specifically pointing out your judgmental claptrap--that those who don't think as you do lead "gray lives," and that atheists as a class lack scientific literacy. You haven't displayed any special scientific understanding, and you judge others as leading lesser lives than you do yourself because they don't subscribe to your delusions. There are millions and millions of theists in the United States alone who don't judge others as lesser beings of lesser understanding and bleak lives because they don't subscribe to their preferred beliefs. There are millions and millions of theists who don't insist upon supernatural agency in the explanation of the naturalistic world. Those who do, however, are hardly in a position to sneer at others for an alleged lack of scientific literacy.

(You've used that "gray world" BS more than once. You must think that's some kind of clever literary stroke on your part. Then being called on it, you fall back on that feeble playground tactic of saying your were only joking. What a sad performance.)

By the way, since this doesn't seem to have sunk in with you--i'm not the one who started this hare, with a blanket condemnation of an entire class of people, that was you. I'm merely pointing out people who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones.

Leadfoot...telling people like Setanta and FBM that their blind guesses about REALITY are no more based in science, reason, and logic than any other blind guesses...

...is not going anywhere.

They are committed to supposing THEY are the personification of science, reason, and logic.

They most assuredly are not.

You've certainly got that part right.

But the notion that you can get that across to them...or get them to acknowledge it in any meaningful way...is a loser.

It ain't gonna happen.

They are more close -minded as anyone they rail against.