Raf

The issue for me was not the use of Darwin's name. It was the implication that godless = goodless. The implication that unless someone believes in God, he has no interest in anything but himself. THAT's what horses hit. We have plenty of things to live for, plenty of causes we deem greater than ourselves. We just don't worship them.

I heartily recognize there have been many times that I have taken aim at the words chockfull has used. I hope by now it is clear that my criticism of those words are not intended as criticisms of chockfull. I am also confident we can all agree that horrifyingly evil acts have been perpetrated in the name of godliness as well as the name of godlessness. Each side has an extreme that justifies acts of sociopathy, whether it's manifest destiny or no lives matter. And now i will check the impulse that compels me to respond to every point. Chockfull, thanks for clarifying what you did not mean, and please, in the future, try to recognize that our interpretation of the words that were used was perfectly reasonable, even if it was not applicable to you.

Exactly. The notion of "Darwinian construct" as implied in the statement I quoted demands a definition that is a caricature of what Darwinism predicts. It basically says, goodness can only come from God. Therefore, where there is no God, there is no goodness. This is, of course, horse hit. The problem is, most people don't recognize "darwinian construct" and "survival of the fittest" as something of a tautology. A tautology is a definition of something as itself. For example, in the dictionary, under the word "redundant," is says, "see: redundant." Get it? "Survival of the fittest" is the notion that those species best suited to their environment will live long enough to reproduce, thus passing on their genes. Humanity developed as a social species. So did ants and bees, though their structure is rather more rigid. Survival of the fittest does NOT mean "every man for himself," as that would be harmful to our long-term survival as a species. But it's rather easy and elitist to dismiss godlessness as goodlessness. Two traits can evolve simultaneously (within a species or between different species) that have no bearing on whether an animal lives long enough to reproduce. Vegetarian animals (cows, deer, horses) may have different dental structures. It proves there's more than one way to eat plants. The animals were suited to their environment and survived to reproduce. We can go over a ton of examples, but the bottom line is: nothing in Darwinism requires a worldview that man does not help his fellow man. TO the contrary, our evolution as social animals demonstrates a need to work cooperatively to achieve common goals. It's how we survived. The other half of the post is fine, by the way... Most of that, can't argue with it. If you put your "hope" in an existence beyond your death, there is NOTHING atheism can offer you. Our argument is that there is ZERO evidence of an existence beyond death. There is zero evidence of a soul or a spirit that survives your body's demise. But no inspiration? That depends on how you define the word. I am inspired all the time. With awe, all the time. I mean, when you consider the mathematical odds against your specific existence, you HAVE to be filled with awe. Had a different sperm cell fertilized the egg in your mother's womb, you would not exist right now. I might never know the alternative person who came to be. WOW! One of the accusations that always amazes me (and I am not attributing it to anyone in this conversation) is that atheists are somehow arrogant. Heavens, no. To realize there is nothing cosmically different between my life and that of a cockroach is far from arrogant. Arrogance is the feeling that you are unique among all the species of the cosmos in attracting the attention and affection of the Creator to the point that your species, and only yours, will live forever AND that only those among your species who happen to agree with you on the subject of religion will enjoy that privilege. What does my world look like without God? Same as yours. Good things happen to bad people and vice versa. Disasters happen to good people while sinister people rise to the highest ranks of society. Mother Teresa and Adolf Hitler end up in the same place as decent people who never hurt anyone. I guarantee if you went through the 3,000 or so names who died on 9/11, you would find no pattern that shows divine justice at play, that those who lived deserved to live or that those who died deserved to die. A world without God looks precisely like the world in which you and I live.

What does "Darwinian Construct" mean to you guys. Guaranteed it's a parody of what Darwinism would actually predict.

Tell me you don't know what a "Darwinian construct" is without using the words "I don't know what a Darwinian construct is." Hint: "Every man for himself, eff-all-yall" is not a Darwinian construct.

"The drivers in life being completely seeking the benefit of self or self seeking. Man does not help fellow man in general in a Darwinian construct." It looks like that, except not at all. Not even a little. It's often said atheists have nothing to live for. It's not true. We have fewer things we're willing to die for. I don't see why the absence of God should automatically entail an every man for himself, eff-all-yall mentality. We are perfectly capable of loving valuing, and living for things other than ourselves, thank you very much. And we do it with zero expectation òf a cosmic reward, crowns, or blessings from the Great Scorekeeper, Charlie Brown. Completely self-seeking? Man does not help fellow man? People who think that without God, men would be nothing but lawless savages really disclose more about themselves than they do about atheists. More later

I'm going to branch this off so as not to derail this thread, but there are three reasons off the top of my head that should cause reasonable people to doubt the "linguist witnessed and confirmed S.I.T." story as presented. 1. As is almost always the case in these stories, we do not know the identities or capabilities of key participants. Namely, two people spoke in tongues and actually produced a language. Who are they? Don't know. Where are they from? Don't know. What exposure have they had to the languages they produced? Don't know. Without the answers to those questions, it is reasonable to doubt that they did anything miraculous. Do we know the ID of the linguist? I'm of the impression that it's Dubofsky's dad, but I need to be sure to further research the claim. 2. The linguist dismissed the SIT and interpretation claim on the grounds that the interpretation was only close, not exact. Now we need evidence of the linguist's fluency in the two languages presented. There is a universe of difference between recognizing a language and being able to translate on the fly with enough precision to differentiate between a "close enough" interpretation and one that's on the nmnose. So where are the credentials? 2. The linguist's RESPONSE to witnessing this foundation shaking event defies credibility. A real linguist would have been blown away, conducted a thorough investigation, and published his results. He would be a legend in his field, not a legendary story on a message board. NOT THIS GUY. He is utterly OBLIVIOUS to the magnitude of what he just witnessed. "Sorry. There was a preposition out of place. Nice try, though." Horse hit, no matter what your presuppositions are.

I keep reading the "God's Budget" thread and coming to the same conclusion. I want you to consider this possibility, even if at first you might find it insulting. It is the byproduct of a different worldview, and not a reflection of what I think of the people on this board as people. I know we are all struggling to know, understand and accept the truth, however uncomfortable it might make us feel. TO ME: The whole thread looks like what happens when well-meaning believers try to conform reality to their faith. We want to know why the devil gets to do things and why God's ability and willingness don't really seem to align as much as we think. So we propose a God who binds himself to arbitrary rules that explain why he doesn't always seem to do what we could have sworn he promised to do in that little checkbook we used to carry around lke it was something clever. Sorry, we don't have the funds to cover the check. God's budget, doncha know. But why was the devil allowed to torment Job? Well, you see what happened was... One of the mental exercises I put myself through was asking: imagine a world in which the things we observe are brute facts, but there is absolutely no spiritual anything behind anything. What would that world look like? Natural disasters wouldn't care about the population they are affecting. The victims of a bridge collapse in San Luis Rey would be no more deserving of death than the survivors of the same incident. Bad guys would sometimes win. Bad deeds would sometimes go unpunished. Etc. In other words, posit a world without God, and tell me how different it would be from the world we actually have. The non-existence of God is the simplest explanation for the paucity and lack of predictability of "miracles." More later, maybe.

Antonio Banderas sicks more than juan language. Shrek 2, 3, 4?

On THAT, I'll go with Hotel California

Ever fit a Nissan in yhe back of a Kia?

I suppose this is where i call bs on the "my dad was a linguist who confirmed SIT produced languages bulls hit story. FYI

He played: Rudy Robles Felix Gumm Joe Dominguez

Rose and CC

We Will Rock You .... "Her lips are devil red, and her skin's the color of mocha"

Bette Mìdler

Lola was the name of the criminally underused flying car owned by Phil (his first name is Agent) Coulson on Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.

Very good dissection of what I did and did not say. You are correct.

You know, Madonna is something of an actress herself. She starred opposite Willem Dafoe in the godawful movie Body of Evidence. She was also in Dick Tracy, A League of Their Own, Evita and her own documentary, Truth or Dare. It's in that last film that she made a career blunder, poking fun at an actor/director who would later have control over whether she got a certain part in an upcoming movie. The blunder? After the actor/director appeared in her documentary, Madonna turned away from him and made a finger-in-mouth gagging gesture, making it look like the actor/director made her sick. He remembered. Someone else got the part Madonna wanted. And the movie produced the best selling soundtrack of all time. Name the actor/director. Name the movie. And name the actress who got the part.

The most underused car in tv history.

Melania Trump

16 Candles Molly Ringwald Pretty in Pink

Imagining "I am serious. And don't call me Shirley" in the voices of Vincent Price or Christopher Lee. Johnny ad libbed all his lines in the original. WW is up

oh thank god

Suppose you're right. What movie do you know that COULD have been an episode of KFM but worked much better as a novie on its own. WHO WROTE KFM?