The Atheism Mega-Thread

Womble98

Well-Known Member
Joined
Jan 17, 2015
Messages
880
Reaction score
265
Points
63
Supports
AFC Wimbledon and Sporting Leyland
Belief in something that is based solely on faith rather than evidence?
That's a fatal misunderstanding of the Catholic belief system. Catholics would argue that their faith is based on evidence and logic. Things like the Cosmological, and ontological argument.
 

Ebeneezer Goode

Well-Known Member
Joined
Jan 17, 2015
Messages
3,657
Reaction score
1,541
Points
113
Supports
England
Those are both (easily refuted) arguments for an intelligent designer, not for Catholicism.
 

silkyman

Well-Known Member
Joined
Jan 20, 2015
Messages
4,099
Reaction score
1,068
Points
113
Supports
Macclesfield Town/Manchester City. It's complicated.
No religion is based on evidence and logic.
 

Jonny12

Andy Butler is a god
Joined
Aug 26, 2014
Messages
1,315
Reaction score
296
Points
83
Supports
Walsall FC
Twitter
@JonnyOwen12
If religions were based on evidence and logic they wouldn't be religions.
 

SUTSS

Survivor Champion 2015
Joined
Jan 17, 2015
Messages
3,067
Reaction score
1,027
Points
113
Supports
Norwich City
Just because you believe that you have come to a conclusion based on evidence and logic doesn't mean that you have.

It sounds like you went to a good school Raging Womble. There are good faith schools but it is not the faith that makes them good schools. Many more faith schools are bad. They divide communities from an early age, they don't teach proper sex education, they don't teach science properly, they don't look at their own, or even others, religion critically enough. There is nothing that faith can give a school that is good that a normal state school couldn't have.
 

Red

Well-Known Member
Joined
Jan 17, 2015
Messages
2,536
Reaction score
1,110
Points
113
Location
Chesterfield
Supports
Opposing the pedestrianisation of Norwich city centre!!!!
That is fucking good.
 

Womble98

Well-Known Member
Joined
Jan 17, 2015
Messages
880
Reaction score
265
Points
63
Supports
AFC Wimbledon and Sporting Leyland
Just because you believe that you have come to a conclusion based on evidence and logic doesn't mean that you have.

It sounds like you went to a good school Raging Womble. There are good faith schools but it is not the faith that makes them good schools. Many more faith schools are bad. They divide communities from an early age, they don't teach proper sex education, they don't teach science properly, they don't look at their own, or even others, religion critically enough. There is nothing that faith can give a school that is good that a normal state school couldn't have.
Every Catholicschool in this country will teach science in a proper way- the currently accepted beliefs by the scientific communities. If you think otherwise you clearly do not know much about Catholicism.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/educatio...pupils-outperforming-others-at-every-age.html

A better standard of education? There is of course the argument that this is because they are socially selective but that is not by design.
 

SUTSS

Survivor Champion 2015
Joined
Jan 17, 2015
Messages
3,067
Reaction score
1,027
Points
113
Supports
Norwich City
Faith schools tend to be in more middle class areas, that is why they perform better.

There has quite clearly been problems with teaching science in faith schools of all sorts. To deny that because you had a good experience is not consistent with the wider evidence.
 

Womble98

Well-Known Member
Joined
Jan 17, 2015
Messages
880
Reaction score
265
Points
63
Supports
AFC Wimbledon and Sporting Leyland
Faith schools tend to be in more middle class areas, that is why they perform better.

There has quite clearly been problems with teaching science in faith schools of all sorts. To deny that because you had a good experience is not consistent with the wider evidence.
Do you know the Catholic position on general scientific belief?
  1. Big Bang Theory- Accepted
  2. Evolution - Accepted
  3. Anything else?
 

Jonny12

Andy Butler is a god
Joined
Aug 26, 2014
Messages
1,315
Reaction score
296
Points
83
Supports
Walsall FC
Twitter
@JonnyOwen12
If they accept those scientific facts and teach them...

What's the point of it being a religious school?
 

Womble98

Well-Known Member
Joined
Jan 17, 2015
Messages
880
Reaction score
265
Points
63
Supports
AFC Wimbledon and Sporting Leyland
If they accept those scientific facts and teach them...

What's the point of it being a religious school?
They argue these beliefs don't contradict Catholicism. The man who first proposed the Big Bang, Lemaitre was a Catholic.
 

SUTSS

Survivor Champion 2015
Joined
Jan 17, 2015
Messages
3,067
Reaction score
1,027
Points
113
Supports
Norwich City
It is theistic evolution though. And again you bring it back to your specific experience of a specific school rather than the wider problems with faith schools.
 

Womble98

Well-Known Member
Joined
Jan 17, 2015
Messages
880
Reaction score
265
Points
63
Supports
AFC Wimbledon and Sporting Leyland
Science and Religion are not compatible.
Why? Many argue they are. Some of the worlds greatest thinkers thought they were perfectly compatible.
 

SUTSS

Survivor Champion 2015
Joined
Jan 17, 2015
Messages
3,067
Reaction score
1,027
Points
113
Supports
Norwich City
How does human evolution fit in with the fall of man and original sin? (I'm genuinely interested in what the Catholic response to this would be (if you've come across it at any point))
 

Womble98

Well-Known Member
Joined
Jan 17, 2015
Messages
880
Reaction score
265
Points
63
Supports
AFC Wimbledon and Sporting Leyland
...and many do not.
That is an utterly pathetic attempt to justify your position. May as well have not commented.

@SUTTS, not entirely sure myself. Traditionally, the Augustinian view was that we are all descendants from Adam and thus we carry original sin as part of a genetic defect.

To quote someone else who is quoting someone else (quoteception)
The best answer I've heard is that the Fall did indeed happen after human beings arose. It did not occur in the poetic way Genesis gives us, but rather through a turning away from God in some rather profound way.
 

Jonny12

Andy Butler is a god
Joined
Aug 26, 2014
Messages
1,315
Reaction score
296
Points
83
Supports
Walsall FC
Twitter
@JonnyOwen12
That is an utterly pathetic attempt to justify your position. May as well have not commented.

@SUTTS, not entirely sure myself. Traditionally, the Augustinian view was that we are all descendants from Adam and thus we carry original sin as part of a genetic defect.

To quote someone else who is quoting someone else (quoteception)
It was just as pathetic as yours originally. Exact same amount of effort, content, sources and relevance.
 

Womble98

Well-Known Member
Joined
Jan 17, 2015
Messages
880
Reaction score
265
Points
63
Supports
AFC Wimbledon and Sporting Leyland
It was just as pathetic as yours originally. Exact same amount of effort, content, sources and relevance.
You made the statement in the first place. You make a statement, you rationalise it.
 

Jonny12

Andy Butler is a god
Joined
Aug 26, 2014
Messages
1,315
Reaction score
296
Points
83
Supports
Walsall FC
Twitter
@JonnyOwen12
You made the statement in the first place. You make a statement, you rationalise it.

Religion and Science are not compatible, it's either one or the other. Religion says, one thing, Science disproves it - religion then back pedals and incorporates the new fact in whatever way they can. Fact is it doesn't make sense, no matter how they try to rationalize it.
 

Womble98

Well-Known Member
Joined
Jan 17, 2015
Messages
880
Reaction score
265
Points
63
Supports
AFC Wimbledon and Sporting Leyland

Religion and Science are not compatible, it's either one or the other. Religion says, one thing, Science disproves it - religion then back pedals and incorporates the new fact in whatever way they can. Fact is it doesn't make sense, no matter how they try to rationalize it.

Bit long, I can't imagine you will want to watch it all, but he is undeniably a very intelligent man, a professor of Mathematics at Oxford. It is not the scientific problems with religion that turns me away from it.
 

Jonny12

Andy Butler is a god
Joined
Aug 26, 2014
Messages
1,315
Reaction score
296
Points
83
Supports
Walsall FC
Twitter
@JonnyOwen12

Bit long, I can't imagine you will want to watch it all, but he is undeniably a very intelligent man, a professor of Mathematics at Oxford. It is not the scientific problems with religion that turns me away from it.
I'll give it a watch tonight mate, I'm really interested in this subject as it's close to me.
 

silkyman

Well-Known Member
Joined
Jan 20, 2015
Messages
4,099
Reaction score
1,068
Points
113
Supports
Macclesfield Town/Manchester City. It's complicated.
They argue these beliefs don't contradict Catholicism. The man who first proposed the Big Bang, Lemaitre was a Catholic.

Why is that relevant?

Jesus was Jewish. Most scientists in history would have had some religious affiliation.
 

Womble98

Well-Known Member
Joined
Jan 17, 2015
Messages
880
Reaction score
265
Points
63
Supports
AFC Wimbledon and Sporting Leyland
Why is that relevant?

Jesus was Jewish. Most scientists in history would have had some religious affiliation.
It is hardly likely he would have remained a Catholic if he didn't think his theory was applicable to it. Hardly rocket science...
 

silkyman

Well-Known Member
Joined
Jan 20, 2015
Messages
4,099
Reaction score
1,068
Points
113
Supports
Macclesfield Town/Manchester City. It's complicated.

Religion and Science are not compatible, it's either one or the other. Religion says, one thing, Science disproves it - religion then back pedals and incorporates the new fact in whatever way they can. Fact is it doesn't make sense, no matter how they try to rationalize it.

'The God of the Gaps'

Go back a few millennia and everything, the rain, the sun, thunder and lightening, volcanos, everything was the work of one God or another.

The more science has developed, the less we have 'needed' God to answer the questions of why things happen. We're right back to the very first billionths of a second when it comes to the creation of the universe and we're starting to learn how the first organic compounds came about to eventually form life. (The rest of evolution from then on, we've pretty much got down and only the most hardline bible thumpers disagree)

In all of human history, human inquisitiveness and scientific endeavour, we've gone from everything having to be attributed to 'God' for a simple explanation to their being almost nowhere left to hide.

And in all of that history, not once has the research come up with 'It was God'. Not. Once. Thousands of years of human invention and exploration, all of it finding another thing that we didn't need God to do.

So where is God in this model? If a deity isn't needed to make things happen, what possible reason would there be for its exsistence?
 

Womble98

Well-Known Member
Joined
Jan 17, 2015
Messages
880
Reaction score
265
Points
63
Supports
AFC Wimbledon and Sporting Leyland
'The God of the Gaps'

Go back a few millennia and everything, the rain, the sun, thunder and lightening, volcanos, everything was the work of one God or another.

The more science has developed, the less we have 'needed' God to answer the questions of why things happen. We're right back to the very first billionths of a second when it comes to the creation of the universe and we're starting to learn how the first organic compounds came about to eventually form life. (The rest of evolution from then on, we've pretty much got down and only the most hardline bible thumpers disagree)

In all of human history, human inquisitiveness and scientific endeavour, we've gone from everything having to be attributed to 'God' for a simple explanation to their being almost nowhere left to hide.

And in all of that history, not once has the research come up with 'It was God'. Not. Once. Thousands of years of human invention and exploration, all of it finding another thing that we didn't need God to do.

So where is God in this model? If a deity isn't needed to make things happen, what possible reason would there be for its exsistence?
To create the universe everything, unless you accept that everything has always existed which is questionable as it goes against every thing we know from experience.
 

silkyman

Well-Known Member
Joined
Jan 20, 2015
Messages
4,099
Reaction score
1,068
Points
113
Supports
Macclesfield Town/Manchester City. It's complicated.
It is hardly likely he would have remained a Catholic if he didn't think his theory was applicable to it. Hardly rocket science...

Something ingrained since childhood can be hard to shake off, even if you do have a scientific theory about something that doesn't quite fit. But you say it's now accepted along with evolution, so how can anyone be Catholic? There's been plenty of proven scientific facts that don't quite tally.
 

silkyman

Well-Known Member
Joined
Jan 20, 2015
Messages
4,099
Reaction score
1,068
Points
113
Supports
Macclesfield Town/Manchester City. It's complicated.
To create the universe everything, unless you accept that everything has always existed which is questionable as it goes against every thing we know from experience.

So where did God come from?

You can't claim he was always there, or suddenly came to be from nowhere and instantly decry the idea of anything else doing that. The universe at its formation was far simpler than any being that could have created it, by basic logic.

And lucky how God is stuck in the small bits we've not quite 'got' yet. If we knew how the universe started but not how the clouds of atoms and dust from the first stars began to coellece to form planets, you'd claim that's where he was hiding.
 

Womble98

Well-Known Member
Joined
Jan 17, 2015
Messages
880
Reaction score
265
Points
63
Supports
AFC Wimbledon and Sporting Leyland
Something ingrained since childhood can be hard to shake off, even if you do have a scientific theory about something that doesn't quite fit. But you say it's now accepted along with evolution, so how can anyone be Catholic? There's been plenty of proven scientific facts that don't quite tally.
The default response from an atheist when someone questions their argument is that the religious person has been brainwashed. This man was clearly no idiot, and it is quite frankly stupid to suggest he wouldn't have taken the same logical approach to religion as he did to physics. He may have come to a different judgement than you or I, but if Catholicism completely discredited his views or vice versa, he would be seen publically in the academic community as a complete hypocrite.
 

Forum statistics

Threads
16,422
Messages
1,189,995
Members
8,392
Latest member
feby2112
Stronger Security, Faster Connections with VPN at IPVanish.com!

SITE SPONSORS

W88 W88 trang chu KUBET Thailand
Fun88 12Bet Get top UK casino bonuses for British players in casinos not on GamStop
The best ₤1 minimum deposit casinos UK not on GamStop Find the best new no deposit casino get bonus and play legendary slots Best UK online casinos list 2022
No-Verification.Casino Casinos that accept PayPal Top online casinos
sure.bet
Need help with your academic papers? Customwritings offers high-quality professionals to write essays that deserve an A!
Top