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October 9th, 2013
02:27 PM ET
Creationists taunt atheists in latest billboard warBy Eric Marrapodi, CNN Belief Blog Co-Editor (CNN)– A new video billboard in New York's Times Square has a message from creationists, "To all of our atheist friends: Thank God you're wrong." The video advertisement at 42nd Street and Eighth Avenue in Manhattan is one of several billboards going up this week in New York, San Francisco and Los Angeles, paid for by Answers in Genesis. Answers in Genesis is best known as the multimillion-dollar Christian ministry behind the Creation Museum outside Cincinnati. The museum presents the case for Young Earth creationism, following what it says is a literal interpretation of the book of Genesis, which says the Earth was created by God in six days less than 10,000 years ago. Ken Ham, president of Answers in Genesis, said the idea for the advertisements came from an atheist billboard in Times Square at Christmas. During the holidays, the American Atheists put up a billboard with images of Santa Claus and Jesus that read: "Keep the Merry, dump the myth." “The Bible says to contend for the faith,” Ham said. “We thought we should come up with something that would make a statement in the culture, a bold statement, and direct them to our website. "We're not against them personally. We're not trying to attack them personally, but we do believe they're wrong," he said. "From an atheist's perspective, they believe when they die, they cease to exist. And we say 'no, you're not going to cease to exist; you're going to spend eternity with God or without God. And if you're an atheist, you're going to be spending it without God.' " Dave Silverman, president of the American Atheists, said he felt sad for creationists when he saw the billboards. "They refuse to look at the real world. They refuse to look at the evidence we have, and they offer none," Silverman said. "They might as well be saying, 'Thank Zeus you're wrong' or 'Thank Thor you're wrong.' " Silverman said he welcomed another competitor to marketplace, noting that after atheists bought a billboard two years ago in Times Square that read "You KNOW it's a myth," the Catholic League purchased competing space at the entrance to the Lincoln Tunnel for a sign that read "You KNOW it's true." "I would suggest, if they're actually trying to attract atheists, they should talk about proof and reason to believe in their god, not just some pithy play on words," Silverman said. Ham says part of the goal of the campaign is to draw people to the website for Answers in Genesis, where he offers a lengthy post on his beliefs for the proof of God. Ham insists that this campaign is in keeping with their overall mission. "We're a biblical authority ministry. We're really on about the Bible and the Gospel. Now, we do have a specialty in the area of the creation account and Genesis because that's where we say God's word has come under attack." Ham said Answers in Genesis made the decision to split its marketing budget for the ministry between a regional campaign for the museum and this billboard campaign, rather than a national campaign. IRS filings for the ministry in recent years have shown a yearly operating budget of more than $25 million. Ham said the marketing budget is about 2% of that, about $500,000 a year. Though they are waiting for all the bills to come due for this campaign, he said he expected it to cost between $150,000 and $200,000. Silverman noted that his billboards were not video and cost approximately $25,000 last year. He said another campaign was in the works for this year. "They're throwing down the gauntlet, and we're picking it up," Silverman said, adding that his group would "slap them in the face" with it. Ham said that despite criticism from other Christians for being negative and the usual criticisms from secularists he received on his social media accounts, the advertisements have been a success. "We wanted people talking about them, and we wanted discussion about this. We wanted people thinking about God," Ham said. The Creation Museum and the theory of Young Earth creationism are widely reviled by the broader science community. In a YouTube video posted last year titled "Creationism Is Not Appropriate For Children," Bill Nye the Science Guy slammed creationism, imploring parents not to teach it to their children. "We need scientifically literate voters and taxpayers for the future," he said. "We need engineers that can build stuff and solve problems." The museum responded with its own video. For the past 30 years, Gallup Inc. has been tracking American opinions about creationism. In June 2012, Gallup's latest findings showed that 46% of Americans believed in creationism, 32% believed in evolution guided by God, and 15% believed in atheistic evolution. For as long as Gallup has conducted the survey, creationism has remained far and away the most popular answer, with 40% to 47% of Americans surveyed saying they believed that God created humans in their present form at one point within the past 10,000 years. The Creation Museum said it recently welcomed its 2 millionth visitor since its opening in 2007. soundoff (8,748 Responses)« Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 Next »
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The CNN Belief Blog covers the faith angles of the day's biggest stories, from breaking news to politics to entertainment, fostering a global conversation about the role of religion and belief in readers' lives. It's edited by CNN's Daniel Burke with contributions from Eric Marrapodi and CNN's worldwide news gathering team.  |
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There are over 4 billion people who don't believe Jesus is a god. Why worry about the 2% that are atheists? These people are not spending their donors money well.
God is not willing that any should perish. Jesus said that the good shephard will leave his flock to find the 1 lost sheep.
God is cares about each individual hearts. Not percentages.
And nor will very many of them drive past this billboard.
As I posted before, I wish I had a billboard for which people would pay $200k to publish a message whose intended audience will simply ignore it.
"""Why worry about the 2% that are atheists?"""
They are afraid. They have lost the intellectual argument. They have lost their faith in their god, whether they realize it or not. Why else would they intervene on behalf of their omnipotent god unless they suspect their emperor wears no clothes?
Get over it boys and girls, there is not a sky-daddy that knows all and sees all, who also runs the entire solar system. And if someone tells you that, watch your wallet because those folks are fakes and phonies.
lol!
Snoresville. That's a childish view of a higher power. But if you decide to not investigate because the only notion of a higher power you can think is a "sky-daddy", then you're lazy.
This whole debate is silly. It always has been. It's a red herring that plays right into the hands of creationists, but so many atheists just can't seem to resist the bait.
There is NO reasonable argument for creationism and never has been. It's a philosophical argument at best with about as much substance as a piece of popcorn. BUT, if creationists can get you debating evolution, they can push you down the rabbit hole of silliness there bye taking the focus off their own unsubstantiated claims. Thus, a red herring.
The interesting thing is that even if creationists somehow managed to prove evolution false, it wouldn't add one bit of credence to their claims.
Furthermore, the fact of evolution doesn't prove there is no god of some sort. Many theists accept evolution as true and simply believe it is the process by which "God" brought about the diversity of life on Earth. So, at the end of the day, this entire debate is as useless as two breasts on a bull! The only people that really have a stake in it, are those dwindling few (relatively speaking) who still believe a god created the whole thing in 6 days and made humans from a clump of dirt. heh
Uh, you realize that countless believers of God believe in evolution, right?
Uh, and you might try reading the post you're responding to before you respond. I addressed that...
"Furthermore, the fact of evolution doesn't prove there is no god of some sort. Many theists accept evolution as true and simply believe it is the process by which "God" brought about the diversity of life on Earth."
I meant to type "Yes, I'm glad you recognize..." but I slipped and typed "Uh" and also accidentally typed "right' at the end.
@kevin hehehe Fair enough sir! 🙂
The more I study science, the more I believe in God.
Let's see if your belief is rational. Did you come by your belief in God via a method such that if God actually does not exist, you would not believe?
Correct.
Then let's go into the method. Hold forth, AE.
I'm just posting direct quotes of Albert Einstein's. He actually said all that.
Really?
Here's an actual quote by Einstein.
“It was, of course, a lie what you read about my religious convictions, a lie which is being systematically repeated. I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it.”
Yes, that is another actual quote he said.
He also said: “I’m not an atheist, and I don’t think I can call myself a pantheist. "
AE, So when After Effects doesn't do what you thought – do you use logic to figure out what went wrong or do you write it off as the devil's work?
Of course I pray and God just does what I tell him.
The scientific method is not the most fundamental form of knowledge. It is also only one method of arriving at knowledge. It presupposes other truths like apprehension, judgment and logic. The scientific method is built on the limitations of experiments. You cannot have an infinite number of experiments therefore scientific knowledge can never cross the threshold of absolute knowledge.
Everyone who is seriously involved in the pursuit of science becomes convinced that a spirit is manifest in the laws of the Universe–a spirit vastly superior to that of man, and one in the face of which we with our modest powers must feel humble.
Everyone? You have even a little evidence for that rather extraordinary claim?
In the absence of any other proof, the thumb alone would convince me of God’s existence.
That sounds like one of those famous quotes of yesteryear. The problem is, it answers nothing.
Basically it says: Reality is so amazing and special that something even more amazing and special must be behind it. It couldn't possibly just BE......Yet, then it stops! The very logic you use to get to that point is then tossed out the window when the question is asked..."Why does that even more vastly amazing and special thing exist?" the answer is..It just does!
So, hmmm, if vastly amazing and special things can simply exist with no explanation, then what was the issue in the first place? Essentially, it's just pushing the goal posts back. It really answers nothing.
So more or less that means that reality seems to be so amazing and special that something even more amazing and special must be behind it. It couldn't possibly just BE......Yet, then it stops! The very logic you use to get to that point is then tossed out the window when the question is asked..."Why does that even more vastly amazing and special thing exist?" the answer is..It just does!
So, hmmm, if vastly amazing and special things can simply exist with no explanation, then what was the issue in the first place? Essentially, it's just pushing the goal posts back. It really answers nothing.
sorry for the duplicate post
Correct. Science is limited in scope, but within that scope it's the best method there is. My question would be: What makes you think you can achieve some sort of absolute knowledge through ANY means? ALL epistemology is based on axiomatic supposition.
We are in the position of a little child entering a huge library filled with books in many languages. The child knows someone must have written those books. It does not know how. It does not understand the languages in which they are written. The child dimly suspects a mysterious order in the books but doesn’t know what it is. That, it seems to me, is the att~tude of even the most intelligent human being toward God.
I agree with you. You can't have absolute knowledge in science. Apprehension, judgment, the laws of logic are indeed axiomatic. They have to be demonstrable. Can I have absolute knowledge that this thing in my hand "exists"?
AE, I like it.
@AE.. that is a very good analogy about the child entering the library..
But do you know what the child does not believe when he sees the books in library? that someone snapped their fingers and wrote each and every book in, like 6 days?
The problem with creationists is, they do not take their thought process to whatever end it goes. They stop thinking when they find an intermediate thought they like. To them, we are still searching for answers never satisfies. But for some reason, magic daddy snapped fingers and made it happen seems to satisfy it completely. Go figure!!
That was a quote by Albert Einstein. But I do appreciate it.
I feel so sorry for you, studying without understanding. "Relictus" by the way, is Latin for "Forsaken".
Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.
So... any evidence for your claim that everyone who seriously studies science reaches the conclusion there's a spirit vastly superior to man?
I want to know how God created this world. I am not interested in this or that phenomenon. I want to know his thoughts; the rest are details.
So... no evidence for your claim. Gotcha.
AE, why don't you want to know how the world was created? Why do you presuppose some god did it when you don't know how it was done? Why do you chose a 2,000 year old book written by unknown desert dwellers over more recently acquired, and openly peer-reviewed and tested, scientific knowledge?
Are you Catholic? Read Fides et Ratio?
I do want to know how the world was created. I don't presuppose some god did when I don't know how it was done. I do not choose a 2,000 year old book written by unknown desert dwellers over more recently acquired, and openly peer-reviews and tested, scientific knowledge.
Why do you aszume I don't?
AE, your statement, "Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind" sounds like something I read in Fides et Ratio, (Faith and Reason) by Pope John Paul 2. It's about how the two are needed for each other, like a bird with two wings.
I'm not Catholic. But that is interesting.
I like what Martin Luther King, JR said:
“Science investigates; religion interprets. Science gives man knowledge, which is power; religion gives man wisdom, which is control. Science deals mainly with facts; religion deals mainly with values. The two are not rivals.”
AE, I apologize for believing what you wrote: "I want to know how God created this world."
"Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind" is a direct quote from Albert Einstein.
"I want to know how God created this world."
I was quoting Albert Einstein. But I do want to know how God created this world. True.
AE, so you do presuppose that some god did it. Why are you posting Einstein quotes without attribution? Why are you creating confusion?
AE, so you do presuppose that some god did it. Why are you posting Einstein quotes without attribution?
I was just playing around – I realized AE could = Albert Einstein. I fessed up like a good boy.
I believe in God, so yes, I presuppose God designed this universe. And I appreciate science; it lets me study how God's natural world works. I view it as a gift.
Any time you want to take the ban off my home IP address will be fine, CNN. I've no idea why you're doing this.
Have you asked God for help?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=FZFG5PKw504
Do people really talk like this, that peanut butter does not have life and that is the proof that evolution is wrong. Very amusing and pretty stupid. Flies from rotting meat was used as proof to show that life occured spontaneously 2 centuries ago, till Pasteur showed that by using a curved flask, we could prevent that. Peanut butter does not have life because it is sterilized by radioactivity in the factory.... you religious freaks. Try storing a peanut butter jar without that sterilization process and you will see that life does happen there. But even then that is not proof for evolution. Evolution happened over billions of years through random chance and mutations. Scientists have created simple building blocks of life – amino acids in a container that stimulated prehistoric life. It would take millions of years of such random events to create life, not a few days in a peanut butter.
Trust me.. that video is not an athiest's nightmare at all. If at all, it is a wonderful piece of humourous nonsense which every scientist religious or not will roll on the ground with laughter. I did.. I am still laughing. Are there really people stupid enough to believe what they say in this video.. sound almost like they are talking to people who lived 2000 years back.. Hoo.. Boy.
"""that video is not an athiest's nightmare at all."""
I dunno, prism, I had a dream recently – just last sundae – about peanut butter and bananas. And Ice screamed.
Do people really believe that life forms evolved from non-life forms magically?
Apparently, 15% do!
The Creationists believe that a magic sky daddy created all life. That's a magical belief.
Do people really believe that some magic daddy snapped his fingers and created them? The kind of magic daddy whose existence has absolutely no evidence..?
Nope, he didn't snap his fingers. He did nothing other than spoke everything into existence. He's bigger than the entire three universes (this one, Heaven, and Hell), and all the angels and beasts put together. And he's sad when he's called names such as sky-daddy, when all he wants to do is reach out to do, that you might let him take care of and love you.
What a bunch of morons. Consider the source, clueless idots. KEEP YOUR !@#$%^&* RELIGION TO YOURSELF!!!!!
Who's the bigger moron? If you don't believe, why are you here? You serve your master the devil well. Pity that you hate so much and let him have such rule over you.
Filmed at the Royal Geographical Society on 22nd May 2013.
Daniel Dennett is one of the world's most original and provocative thinkers. A philosopher and cognitive scientist, he is a Professor at Tufts University.
On May 22nd he came to Intelligence Squared to share the insights he has acquired over his 40-year career into the nature of how we think, decide and act. Dennett revealed his favourite thinking tools, or 'intuition pumps', that he and others have developed for addressing life's most fundamental questions. As well as taking a fresh look at familiar moves - Occam's Razor, reductio ad absurdum - he discussed new cognitive solutions designed for the most treacherous subject matter: evolution, meaning, consciousness and free will.
By acquiring these tools and learning to use them wisely, we can all aspire to better understand the world around us and our place in it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EJsD-3jtXz0
God created everything 6000 + years ago. God is in eternity.
Sorry, meant to reply below.
6000 + 13.798 billion?
You do realize that bit information has been proven false multiple times.
The oldest living tree on earth is over 4000 years old.
And? There have been fossilized remains of trees and other creatures over a million years old. We actually have found fossilized human remains that are predicted to be over 10 million years old possibly and that is on top of the fossilized human remains found to be a million years old.
They took a core of the tree & counted the rings. The dating methods used to date things to millions of years are questionable.
Radioactive decay is pretty reliable. But that's unacceptable for some reason?
Robert there are many trees that are far older then 4,000 years old. I really have no clue where you seem to believe there is only one tree that is only 4,000 years old. The trees in Northern California have been dated for more then 4,000 years. Also I have stated fossilized remains of trees have been found that are more then a million years.
I can honestly say I don't know the age of the earth. I have read some objections to the decay dating methods. Are you convinced of their reliability ?
Aand 6000 yrs ago, god put the dinosaur bones into the earth for.. umm, giggles.
When I read objections to something, I usually see who makes those objections. if they turn out to be from a scholar from orthogonal field, like a theologist objecting to scientific method, I tend to question the person's motive rather than pay attention to their objections.. Works like a charm every time, surprise!!
Looking at various radioactive series is valid, I believe, as long as processes that may influence the abundance and distribution of the elements and decay products involved are well-understood.
Dinosaurs were on the ark.
@Robert Brown,
you don't have to accept radio metric dating to understand that the universe is more than 10,000 years old.
Do you accept that the speed of light is measurably 3×10^8 m/s^2?
If so, based on distant star light measured through techniques including doppler shift and the distance correlated with time for the light to reach us, you would have to concur that the universe is billions of years old.
Yesterday a believer pointed out that the light that appears to have originated from distant objects was probably created with its directional and spectral properties, including redshift, so that we have only deceived ourselves by working up an age for the Universe from it.
I don't believe God deceives Tom. Is the speed invariable in all conditions GOP er?
Also, aren't dinosaurs still around? Komodo dragon crocodile
Is the speed invariable in all conditions GOP er?
We've found nothing so far that demonstrates the speed of light can change.
We've found nothing so far that demonstrates existence of God either.
Anything might be possible, I'm only interested in what is demonstrable.
RB, The largest dinosaur that we know of: Argentinosaurus is the biggest sauropod whose size has been backed up by convincing evidence. This gigantic plant-muncher measured about 120 feet from head to tail and may have weighed over 100 tons. How big was the ark? Could it have two of those let alone all the other animals. btw This was found in Argentina, so how did Noah get those and all the animals on the then-unknown continents before the flodd and then get them home after?
Some people maintain that birds are the modern representatives of dinosaurs, though fairly modern birds were around when the familiar dinosaurs were last on earth.
The speed of light does vary, Robert, though not by much in ordinary circumstances. The speed of light in flat space in a vacuum is a physical constant. When in various sorts of media, including gravitational fields, it goes a tiny bit slower.
Some people maintain that birds are the modern representatives of dinosaurs, though fairly modern birds were around when the familiar dinosaurs were last on earth.
The speed of light does vary, Robert, though not by much in ordinary circumstances. The speed of light in flat space in a vacuum is a physical constant. When in various sorts of media, including gravitational fields, light goes a tiny bit slower.
Goper, I'm surprised the speed of light is unalterable. Does it travel at the same speed through all known mediums?
@Robert Brown,
electromagnetic waves (light) do not behave like pressure waves (like sound) whose speed varies substantially in different media. It's pretty much a constant.
As TTTOO says, there are very small variations but as far as we know, it is essentially constant.
Perhaps this understanding will change with new observations some day, but that is our present understanding.
Thanks for the info Tom. A few billion light years is a very large distance. The last time I fed an ostrich I thought he looked kinda of funny.
Thanks Goper & you too Santa. You scientists know some cool stuff.
Bold claims, Robert. Care to provide evidence for them, or should we just dismiss them as baseless right now?
There is a good summary on answeringenesis.
That I can cite this instant, no. I have read other bible scholars who have used the ages and genealogies in the bible to calculate a similar age.
I've seen that site.
Very entertaining!
Why do you suppose that no penguins ended up in the Arctic, and no Polar Bears ended up in Antarctica? Why no kangaroos along the way to Australia? Why no apes in the Americas?
Ben, different animals on different continents, what are you asking?
the stooges have more cred as god than jesus christ. observer
Heck, Robert, mankind's been drinking beer for at least 9000 years.
Ken Ham believes that unicorns actually existed because many bibles translations have them in it. His museum has a penguin in Eden and dinosaurs with saddles for riding. Come on.
"There are people who believe that humans and dinosaurs co-existed, that they roamed the Earth at the same time. There are museums that children go to, in which they build dioramas to show them this. And what this is, purely and simply, is a clinical psychotic reaction. They are crazy. They are stone-cold-fvck nuts. I can't be kind about this, because these people are watching The Flinstones as if it were a documentary."
ha ha ha, I love that segment. Of pandas and people....it's so concise!!!
The tragedy of all that is the money (nearly 5 billion dollars I heard) used to make this enormous museum of stupidity could have been used for noble causes that would have furthered the belief in the religion in the people who would have been benefited. But they choose to instead fight useless wars and not do the things their gods asked them to do in the first place. That is the hypocrisy of the religionists.
Creation museums look more like Flintstones theme parks than anything else. Lots of fun!
Yaba daba...don't
My pet unicorn, Sparkles, is more powerful than God. An angel brought me Sparkles as a little colt, along with a golden book of Theology. I was only allowed to look at the book, at the angel took the book back with him. You'll just have to trust me on this.
So, hey. Unicorns are totally real.
Ah, yes, a fervent believer in unicorns.
Say, imagine the problem if there were millions like you, spending fortunes on shrines to unicorns and museums promoting unicorns, fighting over territory that the Grand Poobah Unicorn has promised you but is the same land the Easter Bunny believers claim is their Holy Hutch?
oh, wait......
it is good to see that the majority of Americans DON'T believe in evolution. I once read an article in a science journal written in collaboration with a number of biologist who stated that most scientist don't believe in evolution but choose to side with evolutionary theory because creation theory doesn't actually answer anything. After all, if there is an advanced being (God) that created man and the world as we know it that begs the question of where this advanced being came from and scientifically we are right back to square one. Life hates a vacuum, we feel the need to fill in the blank even when we don't know the answer.
Now I can see quite clearly that you are a liar.
Where did you read that? I am a scientist, and I am yet to see a scientist (in my 25 years of research) who does not believe in evolution. THe proof is simply overwhelming and indisputatble. Get educated.
I am also a scientist, I go to church and believe in God. I DO NOT believe in creation.
The ministers at our church believe in evolution and talk about the "creation story" or the "creation myth".
Creation and "creation science" are not for the well educated.
One question: Do you have any professional, scientific reasons for believing in God, or is it just a matter of faith?
I did not say that scientists do not believe in God. Just like you, they dont believe in creation. I have nothing against a rational belief in God.
Describe what a "rational" belief in God would look like. I just don't have that kind of imagination.
I am curious, what field are you a scientist in?
Which article? In what science journal?
There was also a time when a majority of people believed the earth was flat.
Life hates a vacuum?
Well we would. We die in a vacuum.
Perhaps you mean 'nature abhors a vacuum' which means something else entirely than what you seem to mean and only means anything when the vacuum is surrounded as in earth's atmosphere.
I am an athiest, but I have no problem with people believing in God. It is their right to do so. But the point where my tolerance ends is when some religious (yes.. some.. being religious does not mean that you dont believe in science) people say that the world was created in 7 days 6000 years ago, that is against overwhelming indisputable proof of evolution. I would also not tolerate people who tell me that Jesus is the only path to salvation, since then heaven would be crowded with murderers and rapists who eventually repented and believe in Jesus in prison or before their executions, and not people who always helped others, the poor and were selfless but did not believe in Jesus. THat is crazy talk. Believe but believe in the goodness of humanity, first, then god.
God said He is the Alpha and Omega, beginning and end. That is a description of Time. If God controls Time, then yes, He could have aged the earth in 6 days to be millions of years old. If the universe were created by a Big Bang, one would assume that everything moved fast since Time was more condensed, and as the universe expands, Time slows down. the bottom line is nobody knows, but to base your belief on something you may not understand is not very intelligent either.
That is stupendous. This is what is called cyclic logic. So if you want to create a "truth", you make another "fact" that supports the truth which in turn supports the fact, when actually the "fact" and the "truth" are merely creations of person(s) that wants to believe in it. I guess metaphysics may not be your forte. But your theory has as much truth as me saying "a Fairy godmother created the world, and since she is capable of creating the world, she can also create time and everything else" and hence that supports my fact. COme on dude.. you do have brains. Use it and dont be scared of religious threats of hell if you question God. Scientists always questions answers in the quest for truth, while religion has answers and prevents anyone from questioning them.
I never stated fact. I opened a possibility. There is more to God than your usual fairy tale person in the sky argument. But that is about where your level of understanding of who God is ends. Ironically, I find people who enjoy science, for the most part, always use "prove" as their argument. Isn't that in itself limiting? Would you have believed a person could fly if I said so 500 years ago? or 2,000 years ago? probably not. secondly, if you knew God you would know He will never be "proven" using your methods.
@df..
fyi, man still can not fly. He takes assistance of tools that manipulate flow of air so that the entire contraption, with the man on board can fly. If you had said that 500 yrs ago or 2000 yrs ago, people would still have believed.
Your argument about "possibilities" is really not an argument at all, honestly.
""""prove" as their argument. Isn't that in itself limiting?"""
You may as well have asked if knowledge, critical thinking, and reasoning are limiting.
pssst – the answer is NO.
No.
That was a 6 day creation & Jesus is the way.
Or it was just a neat story used to explain the Hebrew custom of taking the Sabbath off work? Nobody ever said that myth didn't have it's uses.
Well, said prism. I don't need 10, nor the other 600+ commandments to be a good human. I certainly don't need a jealous and insecure deity demanding me to worship him a certain way with a false promise of eternal life.
It is the goodness of humanity that comes from GOD.
That presumably being the same God that created Lucifer and evil right?
Sadly you are wrong. Morality is a genetic character of man that comes soon after birth before he or she is every exposed to God. Babies always pick the moral thing over the bad thing. There was an experiment conducted on this fact by Yale researchers in 2007 on 6 month old babies and they also picked the good behaving toys over the bad behaving ones. Humans are born with a moral compass even before they know God. Isn't that amazing? Religion was only created by people to embody that goodness so that adults can focus on that and remain good. So goodness did not come from God or religion, rather it is the other way around. If we were born evil, our Gods would also have been evil.
God ordered genocides in the Bible, so any goodness we have simply has to come from someplace else.
That is what I meant.. that evil humans have evil gods.. and hence we created God.
You need to rethink your goodness of humanity thought. I once heard it said something like this. Imagine that the level of goodness that God requires is something like the distance across the Grand Canyon. Now a great athlete might be able to run and jump some 40' towards the other side, and a fat old guy might only tip over the edge, but neither is going to make it there on their own steam. Jesus in dying for us and in giving us his righteousness through faith in him is a bridge.
Or to put it another way. Either the story of Jesus is complete nonsense and just another nice story or he is the only way to be saved. For if Jesus was crucified on the cross and if in reality that death was completely unnecessary because we could all just save ourselves by being good, then what does that say of God for sending his son to the cross?
prism
I don't have a problem with people believing in God either; it's what they do based on this belief in God that makes me sad. All that demeaning of people who don't share their ancient beliefs is just so unnecessary.
Christianity seems to ensnare the less intelligent among us. It's understandable up to the age of 12 if your parents have indoctrinated you but after the age of 18? Come on!
Science is the study of how God creates.
Nope. Science is the study to understand the laws of nature and find ways to apply that understanding for the betterment of humans. Religion is a set of arbitrary rules meant to subjugate and divide man.
for you to think that Religion (I don't particularly like that word) will subjugate you shows that you might be weak minded. You reasoning is an excuse no worth exploring. That is like saying you are "subjugated" to science.
Any intelligent man should be subjugated to evidence once he has tested it and stands strong. So yes.. I am subjugated to sceince, since I have questioned it all my life and found the answers to be verfiably true. THe day I started questioning religion, its edifice fell apart completely.
Then maybe it is because you are trying to encompass God into a box called 'Science' and you found out He does not fit. God will never be proven, it is not the foundation of which a true believer follows.
If you believe in god wouldn't it be; Science is the study of god's creation?
God continuously creates.
Stick to it.
Creation has never been observed. Science has atleast observed the spontaneous assembly of amino acids which are the building blocks of life once prehistoric conditions were recreated (google it). But creation of matter out of nothing has never been observed. Science is a study of the laws of nature not creationism.
You observed particals being created in a collider by a conscious being. How is that different than a God creating the universe?
I don't think Creation of anything has ever been observed.
The creation of you blog response has just been observed to have been created.
But not Created from nothing at all.
Last time I checked, the number of Americans who identified as atheists/agnostics (NOT Irreligious) was about 6%. That does not come out to 37 million. Rather than get involved in another useless online debate about religion (seriously, nobody has ever convinced somebody else about religious beliefs ONLINE), I'm just gonna leave you all with that number.
Have a pleasant weekend, everyone!
It is 9-10% (source "UK among most secure nations". BBC 2004-2-26. That makes the number right.
Creationist: god made us.. god made the earth and sky and stars and everything
Atheist: Ok, when?
Creationist: err.. umm.. in the beginning..
Atheist: and thats when?
Creationist: *crickets
Atheist:Ok, where is he?
Creationist: heaven
Atheist: and where is heaven
Creationist: up and above everything
Atheist: and thats where?
Creationist: *crickets chirping
Atheist: Ok, you say god made us all. then who made god
Creationist: *crickets chirping
5 hrs later
Creationist: I got it, he is forever. he is eternal and immortal
Atheist: that makes no sense. if you say he is somewhere, he got there at some time.. when was that time
Creationist: *crickets chirping
Atheist: yet another day with no answers.. *sigh
You didn't go to answersingenesis.org?!
Robert Brown
God created everything 6000 + years ago. God is in eternity.
October 10, 2013 at 8:13 pm | Report abuse | Reply
There's certainly a lot packed in that "+", Robert.
Yes Tom, the plus is honest.
Athiest: i came from a monkey
creationist: ok when?
athiest: um... well... a really really long time ago
creationist: ok, how?
athiest: well you see, there were all these mutations that were bennificial to the survival of the mutated, unlike mutations today, and well, um, i like banannas so....
creationist: so who made the universe?
athiest: a bang
creationis: when?
athiest: well, a really long time ago, like billions of years
creationist: what was there before that bang?
athiest: nothing, the bang just happened and the whole universe was created out of nothing, for no apparent reason
creationist: how do you know?
athiest: i read it somewhere. in a book, that some really smart people who went to school with other really smart people, wrote.
creationist: and how do you know they are right?
athiest: because other people agree with them
creationist: another day listening to monkeys .. *sigh
Straw men don't help your position.
its the same straw man as the original poster.
Creationists don't believe a god created everything? Well, that's news.
Your position is not help by saying "straw man".
Really? Pointing out mike was creating a deliberate distortion of what evolution is doesn't help?
"Really? Pointing out mike was creating a deliberate distortion of what evolution is doesn't help?"
No more than the deliberate distortion of creationism, by forming a make belive conversation with a creationist who is ignorant to his own beliefs, helps LOL's argument.
That is without a doubt the dumbest thing I have ever read on the internet, and I've done quite a bit of reading on the internet in the past two decades. You realize everything you suppose can't be answered actually has been addressed unlike your ultimate "god did it" cop out? If you cared to actually research it you might learn something. Also, "we don't know yet" is an acceptable answer in science unlike your dogmatic absolutist view. That is why religion is weak, because it doesn't account for new information, it just seeks to refute it using misunderstandings and logical slights of hand to prop itself up.
Because we have created parts of the big bank in large colliders by independent groups who have all come to the same conclusion that the particles they detect in space could hav ebeen created only in such a big bang. Atleast we have more evidence than the creationist theorists who only have one book that was written by a bunch of illiterates by a king who did not know anything either. I would pick the PhDs over illiterate king.
Have you created a universe in your collider, or just seen particles that already exist in the universe? By the way, the bible was not written by illiterates, given that it was written at all, and it wasn’t written by a king either. Perhaps you should spend a little more time understanding the creationist view of the universe and a little less time playing scientist. What existed before God? What existed before the Big Bang. Your scientists spend a lot of time asking questions and a lot of time discovering partial answers that are valid until “new information” is discovered and they realize their answers are wrong. One day they will get it. One day they will understand. In that day, they will become creationists.
You deliberately refuse to understand this argument. God can not be "present" in creation anymore then an author is "present" in a book or an architect is "present" in a building. You are simply saying "nothing is allowed to be transcendent".
lack of presence does not equal lack of creativity.
In every case (author, architect etc), creativity means lack of presence...this is how creation reflects God, not really sunsets etc...the creator can not be the created...we see that in every day life, just as we see it in God.
That's simply nonsense. If God isn't in "creation," then god isn't in reality.
Have you ever argued with a monkey? It's very taxing.
"if I can't see him now he is not real" – So nothing is real unless science can measure it? You and Hume. But "it ain't necessarily so..."
I like Bob Dylan's answer "all he believes are his eyes, and his eyes, they just tell him lies".
I also like the last part of your statement..."God isn't in reality"....but by that you mean "in the reality that I get to define"...not really an argument.
No, Chris. That isn't what I said at all. Stop lying.
Hate to butt in here but....
"No, Chris. That isn't what I said at all. Stop lying."
"That's simply nonsense. If God isn't in "creation," then god isn't in reality."
^^^^^
LOL thats exactly what you said.
This is awesome. People get so worked up about whether or not God exists but it's nice to see both sides having a little bit of fun with it.
No, people get worked up that their delusions are being threatened or that science education and human advancement is being threatened.
Nothing "fun" about it, not as long as superst ition like creationism leads to dangerous ignorance.
Dear CNN,
Please don't confuse "creationists" with "christians". The vast majority of Christians are extremely reasonable and cringe at the thought of someone hurling insults like this.
I'm not sure what you mean by 'vast majority' of Christians when according to Gallup 40 – 47% (when reported it was 47%) of Americans believe God made man in his present form less than 10,000 years ago.
That's pretty much the litmus test for creationists.
evidence.. schmevidence.. who needs it when they have blind faith.
It takes more blind faith to believe evolution than it does to believe we were created. Evolutionary theory proves just how desperate people are for an answer that does not include any moral responsibility.
DJones you are quite wrong in that category. Look around you for once and see the signs. In my opinion, if you don't notice the signs of evolution then you are being quite lazy.
No, the theory of evolution has plenty of evidence for it. Creationism? The next piece of evidence for that will be the first.
Your reply shows you have ZERO understanding of evolution.. if you are serious about actually understanding it, don't read about it on the back of your church pamphlet.
Actually s0merand0mguy, you’ll find that most (ex-Christian) atheists don’t believe for one or more of the following reasons:
The concept of an immortal being makes no sense to us.
The concept of an all-powerful being makes no sense to us.
The concept of an all-knowing being makes no sense to us.
Throwing the three together into one being effectively cubes its already dispositive implausibility.
We tend to have a good working knowledge of the age, size and history of the Universe. The idea that a being would create the entire thing – with 400,000,000,000 galaxies, EACH with 100, 000,000,000 starts and even more planets, then sit back and wait 13,720,000,000 years for human beings to evolve on one planet so he could “love them” and send his son to Earth to talk to a nomadic group of Jews about sheep and goats in Iron Age Palestine (while ignoring the rest of the 200 million people then alive) makes no sense to us. We can’t help but ask ourselves, “did God make the Jews or did the Jews make God?”
The answers usually proffered for what we see as basic logical flaws in Christianity – “you have been blinded by your lack of faith” “God moves in mysterious ways” “God is outside the Universe” or “our minds are too small to understand the greatness of God” are never satisfying to us. We see a retreat to mysticism as the first refuge of the cornered fool.
The common argument, “well, what caused the Big Bang?” with the implication that, because we have only theories and no iron clad explanation for the Big Bang yet, the Judeo-Christian god must have caused it – does not make sense to us. “I don’t know” does not equal “god” to us, much less the Judeo-Christian god. We feel the answers to such a question are much more likely to be found in Einstein’s equations, quantum physics, large particle accelerators and radio telescopes than in Genesis Chapters 1 through 20. We’re crazy aren’t we?
We do not see miracles in things like tornadoes missing a certain trailer in a trailer park, cancer going into remission or Tim Tebow winning a football game.
We understand that Christianity is one of many, many religions in the World, and we don’t think that we were lucky enough to have been born in the one part of the World that “got it right”. Likewise, we know how all faiths evolve, morph and change over time and do not think we were lucky enough to have been born in the one generation that “got it right.”
We tend to have a basic knowledge of history and know that there is nothing magical or special about the supposed history of the Jews, gospels, letters, apocalyptic story (Revelations) and other materials that found their way into the Bible, in that they are largely indistinguishable from the other mythology and religious writings of the Greco-Roman Mediterranean.
Human beings are terrified of their own deaths and we see the various religious beliefs that try to “wish it away,” such as reincarnation, living happily ever after in Heaven with Jesus, having your own Mormon planet etc. as nothing more than childish stories for the more näive, timid minds among us.
We do not see morality as predicated upon a belief in the supernatural. We accept that one can be moral without believing in the supernatural and that doing so is no guaranty that one will conform to the norms of society that people call “morality”.
“You can’t prove God doesn’t exist” is not a convincing argument to us, or even a relevant point, because an inability to disprove something is a far cry from it being true. We cannot prove that the Hindu gods Shiva or Vishnu do not exist either, nor Santa Claus for that matter, but that is hardly a reason to believe in them. It is not even evidence for their existence. It is impossible to prove a negative in this context.
When one looks at the various Christian beliefs that were once firmly believed – Adam and Eve, Noah’s flood, people living to be 700 or 900 years old, the Red Sea splitting, water turning into wine, a talking snake, a man living in a whale’s belly, people rising from the dead, Jesus driving demons out of people and into pigs – but which are now acknowledged by most thinking people to be mere mythology, it is pretty hard to give a lot of credibility to what’s left.
It is hard not to consider Christianity as based on circular reasoning. Most Christians believe in God because the Bible says so, then turn around and say they believe the Bible because it is the word of God. To draw an analogy, “I believe Mao Zedong was a great man because The Little Red Book says so, and the reason I believe The Little Red Book is that it was written by Mao Zedong, who was a great man.” Do you even have the slightest idea of how your Bible was compiled over the centuries or who decided what to include and what to exclude and on what grounds? Can you even name one of hundred plus authors who contributed to it? One of the many people who decided what got in and what didn’t?
To be bluntly honest, the more one comes to understand mother nature, the less reason there is to believe in a god and the more one understands human nature, the more one sees why so many of us still do.
So, before you next proudly proclaim you know the secrets to life, death, the origins of life on Earth and the origins of the Universe, simply because your parents or priest taught you some comforting stories from Greco-Roman Palestine as a child, you might like to reflect upon the overwhelming enormity of the claims you are about to make and the complete paucity of evidence that underwrites those claims.
I've read this word for word before. He tries to sell you something really stupid. Ignore. "Report Abuse"
Why don't you quite copypasting this stupid dreck? You suck.
Nicely stated, Colin. Let it be noted that the two other replies to your post at this time have nothing to say, nothing to add, and refute nothing you've said.