Whenever a Christian asks atheists a series of questions intended to stump, all the questions turn out to be rather shallow. For example: "if humans evolved from monkeys, why are there still monkeys?" We all had fun answering Ray's questions, now let's see how you fare amongst these inquiries.
1) How can there be something instead of nothing? (Not why, but how)?
2) You know you exist (I think therefore I am), but how can you be sure others exist?
3) Can an objective reality truly exist in an existence interpreted or conjured by the mind?
4) How can evolutionary theory account for pre-cellular organic material mutating into stable organisms given the fragile nature of nucleic acids?
5) If all possibilities occur in a quantum universe, will you ever die?
6) What do you believe is the biological basis for consciousness?
7) What is humanity's ultimate place in the universe millions of not billions of years from now?
8) Knowledge can be derived from a near infinite number of sources. Why do atheists tend to gravitate toward scientific reasoning? How can you ever be sure scientific reasoning is the best or only way to address a problem?
9) Why haven't we found intelligent life outside of the solar system yet?
10) Which came first, thought or intelligence?
------ EDIT ------
"Please don't answer "yes" or "no." Explain why.
I'm not going to give you definitions. I purposefully did not so you would have to figure things out like the meaning of 'intelligence' for yourself."
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Now this is something to get our teeth into; thanks Kaitlyn!
ReplyDeleteHmmm....
Nice subject, Kaitlyn:
ReplyDelete1) I only know that we're not capable of truly understanding "nothing" because we can't find evidence of it anywhere. That doesn't really answer the question, I know. But I think it's important to point out that it's very difficult for us to understand something that doesn't appear to exist :)
2) I don't know for sure. At the lowest level, I choose to believe this is not an illusion, and that my actions have meaning. In my defense, the world sure seems like a complicated place; I assume that delusions would not be able to provide such a diverse range of phenomena, especially phenomena that seem to allow us to understand them.
3) Yes
4) I don't know
5) Yes
6) I lack belief. "I don't know" is the best answer I have for now
7) I don't know. I'd like to think that we'll somehow leave more good stuff behind us than bad.
8) I can't speak for atheists. For me, the reason is that no other methodology I've encountered simultaneously provides a means to understand reality, and an embedded system of quality control. In other words, skepticism is valuable, but it becomes VERY valuable when coupled with an actual physical search for answers.
9) I don't know
10) Define both terms, and then I'll provide an answer
Please don't answer "yes" or "no." Explain why.
ReplyDeleteAnd I'm not going to give you definitions. I purposefully did not so you would have to figure out things like the meaning of intelligence for yourself.
Kaitlyn,
ReplyDelete"Whenever a Christian asks atheists a series of questions intended to stump, all the questions turn out to be rather shallow."
I sense you are struggling with this, as you should. I hear it resonate throughout your posts and comments.
The reason why is that so far, your journey seems to parallel my own, even to the age. You are long on questions and short on answers. I know the feeling.
The questions will always seem shallow because people of faith argue philosophy rather than science, ie, empirical evidence for making decisions. They eschew rationality for superstition.
The great philosophers did not argue against science, they merely posed the good hypothetical arguments of why this or that might turn out to be true. I love philosophy, by the way.
So, you find yourself at odds with a small sample of the population that pervert philosophy trying to use it as evidence or worse yet, proof, while the philosopher knows that his arguments end up as his educated guess of how the future will work. Real philosophers relish a contrary opinion.
Thus, the questions seem shallow to you, and they are because they have been conditioned to use shallow, un- falsibiable sophomoric philosophical arguments to engage you. It never turns out good for the rationalsit. The reason why is because you, or I could engage them with philosopical arguments all day, but they never can offer evidence for their supernatural/ philisophical miracles. It can never be a two sided argument with fundies. That is why they are called FUNDIES, after all!
Take care Kaitlynn!
OK, I dangled some modifiers, but if you read it twice......
ReplyDelete1) How can there be something instead of nothing?
ReplyDelete- I have no clue. Perhaps nothingness is unstable. Perhaps nothingness and something are like yin and yang. You cannot have nothingness without something to complete the balance.
2) You know you exist (I think therefore I am), but how can you be sure others exist?
- I am not 100% sure others exist, but I rely on Occam's Razor to deduce that others existing is the simplest and therefore most likely explanation for what I observe.
3) Can an objective reality truly exist in an existence interpreted or conjured by the mind?
- Yes and no. All of the reality becomes subjective as soon as it enters the mind. Reality itself is a product of the mind, and what we label as "objective" is its ability to share realities between observers.
On the flip side, Occam's Razor once again assists me in deducing that "stuff" exists outside of my mind. Something is there, and I'm going to call it "objective reality."
4) How can evolutionary theory account for pre-cellular organic material mutating into stable organisms given the fragile nature of nucleic acids?
- 99% mutations to these strands of DNA or RNA would have seriously impacted the molecule or torn it to shreds. Even once it started to form the basics of a cell, these molecules would have lacked repair mechanisms.
I am going to go out on a limb and say that early life must have begun deep in the ocean not because water is essential for life, but because all that water would have shielded early organic molecules from heavy amounts of radiation and chemical erosion.
5) If all possibilities occur in a quantum universe, will you ever die?
- No. Obviously you would die all the time, but there would also be an infinite number of "yous" that would continue to exist due to unlikely events forever and ever.
6) What do you believe is the biological basis for consciousness?
- Biological "memristors" which remember how often a charge between neurons occur, creating a neural network able to read signals as signals are sent.
7) What is humanity's ultimate place in the universe millions of not billions of years from now?
- I think we will no longer have a place in the universe, but rather we will live in our own universes better tailored to our need and desires.
8) Knowledge can be derived from a near infinite number of sources. Why do atheists tend to gravitate toward scientific reasoning? How can you ever be sure scientific reasoning is the best or only way to address a problem?
- Science has real and tangible results. Science also allows us to answer questions in a very matter-of-fact manor without any deep thought. In this sense, science gives us tools which we can use.
However, science can only answer matter-of-fact questions. If no such matter-of-fact answer exists, then science is an inappropriate approach to the problem.
9) Why haven't we found intelligent life outside of the solar system yet?
- An intelligent species would have had to evolve along side humans to be roughly in the same technological "zone" as we are. Even given the immense nature of the galaxy and universe, this seems extremely unlikely. 10,000 years from now, humans may have found ways to traverse not only through the universe, but through many universes.
We must also not project our ideas of intelligence onto aliens. Perhaps our fascination with finding other intelligence life forms is a fairly unique quality among intelligent beings.
10) Which came first, thought or intelligence?
- I say intelligence because I view intelligence as the overriding principal that drives thought and consciousness. However, as soon as intelligence emerge, moments later, thoughts would begin to bubble. So perhaps a more accurate answer would be, they both developed at the same time.
Kaitlynn,
ReplyDeleteYour most recent comment has totlly devistated my conet on philosophy.
Actually, you just presented all the arguments that were even made, for and against the existence of god, in the commons of every liberal arts college freshman campus in the USA.
Don't worry, you'll get over all of this.
/d
Please don't answer "yes" or "no." Explain why.
ReplyDeleteGimme a break, I was blogging while making dinner :)
Ahem:
3) Yes. If reality is objective (as you stated in your question), then by definition it exists outsoide the context of "the mind" or perception.
5) Yes. You will die and you will live forever at the same time. This is the definition of "all possibilities occur(ring)".
10) Sans definitions, I'm going to refer to all forms of intelligence and all forms of thought (that we know of today). Intelligence is required for thought. Do ants think? I don't know for sure, but I suspect either "no" or "not like we understand 'thought'". Based on this addmittedly limited point of view, ants are absolutely intelligent, but I'm not sure they're capable of what we refer to as thinking.
I really don't like that answer, as it would change drastically depending on the definitions applied.
---
Cop outs, maybe :)
---
Froggie mentioned being perpetually having questions without answers. In my 40 years of life, I've aquired some answers but many many more questions. Get used to feeling like you're in a world fulkl of unknowns.
In fact, I'm going to submit that the smarter you are, the less you'll "know"
Kaitlynn,
ReplyDeleteBy the way, I just printed out your comment and posted it on my son's bedroom door so he will be ready for this when he gets to aeronuatical school next year!
Good stuff, keep it coming.
Erg, I should really Preview before Publish-ing :p
ReplyDelete@froggie
ReplyDelete"The questions will always seem shallow because people of faith argue philosophy rather than science,"
Froggie, you underestimate the power of philosophy.
Philosophy is science's bitch. Everything is based on philosophical assumptions. That assumption you made the empiricism is valid is a philosophical assumption. Philosophy is one of the most important things in the world.
", empirical evidence for making decisions. They eschew rationality for superstition."
Again, rationality would have no basis without philosophy
"So, you find yourself at odds with a small sample of the population that pervert philosophy trying to use it as evidence or worse yet, proof,"
Evidence and proof could not exist without philosophy
" It never turns out good for the rationalsit. The reason why is because you, or I could engage them with philosopical arguments all day, but they never can offer evidence for their supernatural/ philisophical miracles."
Have you been looking around here lately?
When scmike pointed out that atheists cannot account for the very logic they use to argue against god?
When I presented a historical argument for the resurrection of Jesus using facts accept by almost all New testamnet scholarship?
(the only response I have gotten so far is a bunch of ad-hoc postulating from Maragon inolving mass hallucinations and grave robbers)
"It can never be a two sided argument with fundies. That is why they are called FUNDIES, after all!"
Then why talk to fundies? why not talk to chrisians who are knowlegeable?
"(the only response I have gotten so far is a bunch of ad-hoc postulating from Maragon inolving mass hallucinations and grave robbers)"
ReplyDeleteWhich you never were able to respond to, sweetie.
Gimee a break maragon- I'll probaly have time to give a full critique this weekend. It takes a lot of time to do reasearch so I can make sure my facts are right.
ReplyDelete"Gimee a break maragon- I'll probaly have time to give a full critique this weekend. It takes a lot of time to do reasearch so I can make sure my facts are right."
ReplyDeleteWhile doing that research please account for the fact that you assume your entire premise, unproved.
The bible is not considered an accurate historical document by any unbiased source.
You are activating my thinking circuits! Noooooooo...
ReplyDelete"1) How can there be something instead of nothing? (Not why, but how)?"
"Nothing" (in the "not-even-space-and-time" sense) is an incomprehensible concept, because in our universe, in order for nothing to exist, there has to be something in which it can exist.
Therefore, I conclude that the reason "something" exists because it is impossible for it not to.
Oh crap, I answered the "Why" question. I'm not sure I understand the "how" question. It doesn't seem to make logical sense...
2) You know you exist (I think therefore I am), but how can you be sure others exist?
I cannot. We might be in a matrix-style simulation, or a very elaborate drug-induced hallucenation, or something completely esoteric. But it really doesn't matter, because if we are the simulation/hallucenation is so well built that it is indistinguishable from reality, so we might as well accept it.
"3) Can an objective reality truly exist in an existence interpreted or conjured by the mind?"
Taking the definition of "Objective" as not influenced by personal feelings, interpretations, or prejudice; based on facts; unbiased... yes, it can exist in an existence interpreted by the mind. It could not exist in one conjured by the mind, as the mind would overlay it's own opinions and bias's upon it.
4) How can evolutionary theory account for pre-cellular organic material mutating into stable organisms given the fragile nature of nucleic acids?
Evolutionary theory is seperate from Abiogenesis. They are not even in the same field: Abiogenesis is chemisty, evolution (in the strictest sense) is biology.
The original "life" needed only one feature: the ability to reproduce. Reproducing molecules and compounds are surprisingly easy to form, and robust, and would have had no competition on early earth. The easiest to understand explanation I have seen, although it is contained within an anti-creationist article, is here.
5) If all possibilities occur in a quantum universe, will you ever die?
I'm really not sure what you mean by this. I don't believe in the "parallel universe/trousers of time" theory, if that's what you mean, although I deem it likely there exists more than one universe.
6) What do you believe is the biological basis for consciousness?
Consciousness is a process, not a "thing" (classifying processes as things is a very human trait: think about all the names we have for humans at different ages, even though they're all the same thing at a different point in the aging process). "Consciousness" is simply the label we give to the ongoing process of gathering, analysing and storing all information available to us via our senses.
7) What is humanity's ultimate place in the universe millions of not billions of years from now?
I'll never know, which is a shame: I feel like I'm being told to stop reading the story half way through. Maybe we'll blow each other up within the nexxt 100 years, maybe we'll leave mysterious ruins on uninhabited planets millions of miles away to confuse future races, maybe we'll just get really pissed off and make a reality bomb out of 27 planets to destroy the whole multiverse. I'd love to see how it ends, but I'm fairly certain I won't.
8) Knowledge can be derived from a near infinite number of sources. Why do atheists tend to gravitate toward scientific reasoning? How can you ever be sure scientific reasoning is the best or only way to address a problem?
For me, because science is the only method which is based solely off of reality, and because it is self-correcting. All the other methods involve either invoking some unfalsible external source, failing to apply quality control, or failing to update when new evidence comes to light.
9) Why haven't we found intelligent life outside of the solar system yet?
Because the universe is freaking big, and extra-solar planets are pretty difficult to detect, especially small ones at the right distance from the star. Plus, the life would have to be broadcasting radio signals for us to even know they were there, and our SETI equipment would have to be pointed in the right direction. Finally, even if every single extra-solar planet supported unintelligent life, we are still at the point where we wouldn't know about it. There are several moons and planets in our own system which still might well support life.
10) Which came first, thought or intelligence?
Intelligence: Capacity for learning, reasoning, understanding, and similar forms of mental activity;
Thought: the product of mental activity;
(Dictionary.com)
Definately thought: animals had brains (and thus mental activity) long before they had the capacity for learning.
When I presented a historical argument for the resurrection of Jesus using facts accept by almost all New testamnet scholarship?
ReplyDelete(the only response I have gotten so far is a bunch of ad-hoc postulating from Maragon inolving mass hallucinations and grave robbers)
To be fair, you should note that I have also responded to your argument.
@Maragon
ReplyDeleteI didn't base my case on the overall reliablity of the New testament documents but just on those minimal facts accepted all across NT scholarship. This was deliberate as biblical reliability is a big subject.
"I didn't base my case on the overall reliablity of the New testament documents but just on those minimal facts accepted all across NT scholarship. This was deliberate as biblical reliability is a big subject."
ReplyDeleteYou have yet to show these 'facts' as accepted by anyone who isn't a theologian, a "new testament scholar" or a small minority of conservative, fundamentalist christian historians.
I love how you scoff at grave robbing or large groups of people being fooled when what you're postulating is that a DEAD BODY GOT UP AND WALKED AROUND.
One of these things is far stupider than the other.
Do you deny the fact that graverobbing was an exceedingly common practice?
Maragon I clearly gave you the names of non-christian and atheist scholars (and even some from the far-left group called the Jesus seminar) who publish work on the histoorical Jesus and agreed with most of the 5 facts Maragon. Don't pretend I didn't
ReplyDelete"Maragon I clearly gave you the names of non-christian and atheist scholars (and even some from the far-left group called the Jesus seminar) who publish work on the histoorical Jesus and agreed with most of the 5 facts Maragon. Don't pretend I didn't"
ReplyDeleteNo, you didn't.
Perhaps you're thinking of one of the other atheists you've been trying to pull this argument on.
@ Free
ReplyDeleteYou mean like when you made up facts like "1st Corinthians was written 2-5 years after Jesus' death'. You mean like those 'facts'?
http://raytractors.blogspot.com/2008/10/where-is-disconnect.html?showComment=1224303600000#c7457845187674930511
ReplyDelete@ free
ReplyDeleteHabermas himself seems to have a very elastic concept of how many historians actually agree with him.
He goes from 'it's the consensus of historians..., to most historians think..., to some historians agree...'
They can't all be correct. If only some historians think 'A' then it cannot be the consensus! Clear?
My answer to two is that you can't, it's impossible to know for sure. All we have for interpreting the universe is our own fallible senses. In the context I trust mine to tell me that there is in fact a universe around me, I have a body, ect. But my perceptions don't mean shit!
ReplyDelete--I read Descartes' Meditations, he claimed he could prove god's existence...he left me at I think, therefore I am!
7. None, humanity won't be around millions of billions of years from now...I'd be surprised if we don't all kill each others in the next hundred years.
ReplyDelete9. Who says there is life outside of our solar system?
10. I would say thought, you can think and perceive without having intelligence...just look at AC, they seem to at least be attempting thought (as warped as it may be) but falling completely short of intelligence.
Hey Mr"FreeThinker":
ReplyDeleteMrFreeThinker said...
Oh and Adam,Allah doesn't have the unchanging nature needed to ground logic.
October 18, 2008 1:00 AM
Adam Nardoli said...
Allah is "Samad". It's also one of His 99 names. It means "UNCHANGING"
October 18, 2008 1:48 AM
LOL!!
9) Why haven't we found intelligent life outside of the solar system yet?
ReplyDeleteI think the universe is so big that there has to be other life somewhere (or some time). I also think that the universe is so big that we will NEVER find intelligent life.
1) How can there be something instead of nothing? (Not why, but how)?
ReplyDeleteMy small mind doesn't understand the concept of nothing. It simply didn't evolve that way. Sorry.
2) You know you exist (I think therefore I am), but how can you be sure others exist?
I can't be sure. But it's just more fun trusting my senses. That's what they are there for anyway.
3) Can an objective reality truly exist in an existence interpreted or conjured by the mind?
No. Our minds are based on experience we achieved with our limited senses.
4) How can evolutionary theory account for pre-cellular organic material mutating into stable organisms given the fragile nature of nucleic acids?
That's not evolution but abiogenesis. Anyway. DNA is surprisingly stable if you want to extract it from cells. It survives salting, desalting, drying, dilution in alcohol... Sometimes the bigger problem is how to destroy it.
5) If all possibilities occur in a quantum universe, will you ever die?
My dead is one of these possibilities
6) What do you believe is the biological basis for consciousness?
Several brain regions are essential for the development of consciousness. This is a highly complex topic and still not fully understood, but what we know is too much for writing it down here. There is a whole chapter about that in any book about Neuroscience.
7) What is humanity's ultimate place in the universe millions of not billions of years from now?
Call me a pessimist, but I don't believe we will be still there then.
8) Knowledge can be derived from a near infinite number of sources. Why do atheists tend to gravitate toward scientific reasoning? How can you ever be sure scientific reasoning is the best or only way to address a problem?
Science is just a more controlled version of the way children learn.
I don't think every problem is best solved by science. The subjective problems of your subjective life might be better solved by intuition sometimes. (Do I like this guy? My dopamine level rises each time I see him, so it seems as if I do - I don't think so...)
9) Why haven't we found intelligent life outside of the solar system yet?
Maybe we are the first? We have an endless universe to search and just started a couple of years ago...
10) Which came first, thought or intelligence?
If I define intelligence as the ability to make the right decision it came a long time before thoughts. On the other hand AC is a wonderful example of people thinking without intelligence
quasar,
ReplyDeleteyou don't need brains for learning. All you need are two nerve cells. C. elegans doesn't have a proper brain, but it already learns (Okay it's not really smart...)
"
ReplyDeleteAllah is "Samad". It's also one of His 99 names. It means "UNCHANGING""
FALSE
الصمد As-Samad The Self Sufficient, The Impregnable,
The Eternally Besought of All, The Everlasting
@ Free
ReplyDeleteYou wrote "As-Samad The Self Sufficient, The Impregnable,
The Eternally Besought of All, The Everlasting."
Ahh free. Everlasting is a synonym for unchanging."
Somebody didn't do eough homework. :D
Not its not- something can last forever but still change
ReplyDelete@ Mark
ReplyDeleteYou wrote "The Bible proves itself to be supernatural with a quick study of it's prophecies."
Ok let's examine a few of those prophecies that 'prove' the bible shall we?
Amos 7:14,17 predicted that Uzziah [one of Amaziah's son's] would die by the sword. Did he? He did not!
2 Chr 26:21 says that he died from leperesy.
How about another prophecy?
2 Kings 22:20 predicts that king Josiah would die in peace.
BUT
2 kings 23:29,30 says that he was killed in a battle [hardly a peacefuldeath as predicted].
Oh, oh here's a goodie.
Jer 34:4,5 predicts that Zedekiah "shall not die by the sword: but shall die in peace..."
BUT
Jer 52:10,11 syas that the king of Babylon had all the sons of zedekiah put to death, then had Zedekiah blinded, chained & cast into a prison until Zedkiah's death. [Yep sounds like a peaceful death to me :D]
Was it prophecies like those you meant when you wrote "The Bible proves itself to be supernatural with a quick study of it's prophecies?"
I don't see how so many failed prophecies prove that the bible was divinely inspired.
Perhaps you could explain Mark.
@ free
ReplyDeleteThat is as maybe but the words Unchanging & Everlasting are synonyms according to Dictionary.com.
Therefore the word samad could have either meaning.
You haven't proved your point free.
However perhaps you know Arabic. Do you free? If not I'm afraid the discussion is moot.
@ Mark
ReplyDeleteYou're becoming increasingly difficult to understand.
You say that you know God, but NOT justthrough the bible or through a feeling. So exactly in what sense do you claim that God has revealed Himself to you.
& why is it that you can't make a mistake about suc revelation.
Please don't reply wih some trite gobldegook about howyou can make a mistake but god can't. Need I point out that we are writing about your experiences of god not His of you.
@ Mark
ReplyDeleteI believe I know the bible - probably a darn sight betterthan you do.
I not only read it several times [when I was a fundie christian] but I've also studied the history of the area at the time it was written. Therefore I'm able to put it into a histoical context.
That was the problem. I found numerous failed prophecies, babarities comitted on God's orders, and verses which were clearly written by greedy or lustful men who used the phrase 'Thus saith the Lord' to justify their excesses.
When I started to xaine the bible through logic I found tht it just didn't make logical sense.
1) How can there be something instead of nothing? (Not why, but how)?
ReplyDeleteWell if matter and energy cannot be created or destroyed. Then how can there not be?
2) You know you exist (I think therefore I am), but how can you be sure others exist?
Well in honesty, we can't. What we do know though is that our senses seem to be telling us the truth. Also outside confirmation of facts help to decide that we are not imagining everything. Of course you can respond by saying the outside confirmation is just your imagination. If we lived under that premise then why do anything or uphold any law our life would be meaningless and lead to nihilism.
3) Can an objective reality truly exist in an existence interpreted or conjured by the mind?
This goes back to your last question. If you can't trust your senses then you can't trust anything and you really can't live.
4) How can evolutionary theory account for pre-cellular organic material mutating into stable organisms given the fragile nature of nucleic acids?
It can't. This is more a question of abiogenesis. Which is still in it's infancy. There are lots of neat hypotheses out there on it though.
5) If all possibilities occur in a quantum universe, will you ever die?
I would say yes and no. The reason is that all things are possible on the quantum scale. That is the level of atoms, from my understanding of these things. Thus it depends also on your definition of die. Technically all your atoms will be reused in other lifeforms too, so in a way you are living forever.
6) What do you believe is the biological basis for consciousness?
The brain. The ability to recognize and extend your actions and their effects on grand levels. To think and realize what or who you are. Really to think period.
7) What is humanity's ultimate place in the universe millions of not billions of years from now?
I would say extinct, I would be surprised if not.
8) Knowledge can be derived from a near infinite number of sources. Why do atheists tend to gravitate toward scientific reasoning? How can you ever be sure scientific reasoning is the best or only way to address a problem?
Reliance on the past. It has proven to be the most reliable so far. That is not to say it will always be but so far it is. It's techniques are set up to remove bias as best possible, and I have seen nothing that has done better.
9) Why haven't we found intelligent life outside of the solar system yet?
The vastness of space and the fact there may not be any. I believe there is definitely life but to say intelligent life, it is a very long shot. It took a long time for intelligent life to evolve here and it has only happened one time.
10) Which came first, thought or intelligence?
I would think a base thought first and that evolved into what we would call intelligence, but I believe the two are linked together also.
Chris Mackey wrote: I think the universe is so big that there has to be other life somewhere (or some time). I also think that the universe is so big that we will NEVER find intelligent life.
ReplyDeleteGiven our experiences on this planet and with the universe in general, I think it's safe to say I lack belief in "intelligent life"
I'd like to submit that it was horribly misguided to submit 10 Raytractors topics as a single questionairre :)
ReplyDeleteBlogger MrFreeThinker said...
ReplyDelete"
Allah is "Samad". It's also one of His 99 names. It means "UNCHANGING""
FALSE
الصمد As-Samad The Self Sufficient, The Impregnable,
The Eternally Besought of All, The Everlasting
False? Samad means a many things. Including "Unchanging". It is also said "his nature is unchanging" If you learnt the language and read the Qur'an you see.