Why Young Christians are Leaving the Church

Author: Stronn

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@Mopac
And you can't because you are faithless and refuse to accept instruction.
Haughty.
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@Mopac
So If the word " God " means, The ultimate reality,  
The word " God " does not mean,  Father / Son /  holy spirt. 

So the UR means God. 
The UR  doesn't mean :  the father 
The UR doesn't mean :  the son 
I'm not sure about the the holy spirt

SO to rap it up,  the UR doesn't mean the holy trinity it means God. 
How did you get God to  mean the father , the Son , the holy spirit. ?
I'm missing something ain't i mow mow?

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@Deb-8-a-bull
The Trinity is our personal relationship with God, and how God is revealed to us.

But make no mistake, we are talking about one God, The Supreme and Ultimate Reality.


It is not incorrect to say that...

The Father is God.

The Son is God.

The Holy Spirit is God.

It is incorrect to say that...

The Father is The Son.

The Father is The Holy Spirit.

The Son is The Holy Spirit.


These three persons are one in essence and undivided. They describe One God.

It is incorrect to say that these are three Gods or three parts of God.




Orthodox Christianity is The Trinity. That is our faith.


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@Mopac
And Man created a God in his own image.
For Man needed answers when there were none.

But the answers now come thick and fast.
And a New God riseth from the minds of clever Men.





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@Mopac
Ok one more pac mo.
Going by what you said in your last post .


The father is God ? 
The son is God ?
The holy spirit is God ?

Soòooooooooo  ( the father means the Ultimate Reality? )

Then you say The trinity is your faith. 
So the trinity isn't God ?

I'll get to the bottom of this yet.
Does faith mean the UR ?






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@zedvictor4
And the new god is desperate for money. Give, give till it hurts.
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@zedvictor4
You were present for the start of every religion? Seems a lie. 
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@Athias
And "indistinguishable from randomness" would necessitate an ontological statement beyond epistemological limits. Have you observed randomness to an extent where you can relate it? 
Would you be more comfortable with "no detectable or decipherable order or pattern"?
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@keithprosser
It is intended to imply that intelliegence and teleology play no role in determining the what and when of mutations - they happen 'randomly'.
And even if they were caused by intelligence and teleology, to us, they conform to no detectable or decipherable order or pattern.

In other words the mutations essential to the mechanism of evolution are currently unpredictable.
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@keithprosser
The validity of the kalam argument is debatable, but it is also moot because even if it is valid it doesn't prove anything about the god of any religion, let alone of a particualar religion.
Well stated.
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@zedvictor4
And Man created a God in his own image. 
For Man needed answers when there were none.

But the answers now come thick and fast.
And a New God riseth from the minds of clever Men.
For example, [LINK]
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@keithprosser

In the context of evolution 'random' means that mutations occur with no regard to the consequences.   It doesn't mean all mutations are equally likely - they certainly aren't mathematically random!  It means that whether a mutation happens or not is a 'chance event' unrelated to the benefit or damage it will cause.

I'm not bothered if 'that isn't what random means'!  It is what what 'random' means in this context.   It is intended to imply that intelliegence and teleology play no role in determining the what and when of mutations - they happen 'randomly'.
And what/which evidence informs this contextual "randomness"?



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@Athias
Have you read the title and OP of this thread? Never mind.
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@Stronn
Models that incorporate randomness can closely match reality. I would not call that insignificant.
What you call it is insignificant as well. A "random" reality necessitates observation of the metaphysical which Epistemics has yet to demonstrate any capacity to incorporate.

If you are as versed in evolutionary theory as you claim you ought to know this. For natural selection to be random it would have to select genetic variants purely by chance. But the theory says the opposite. Genetic variants are selected based on proclivity to produce viable offspring, not on chance.
This is virtually no different from your argument six days ago.

And, in fact, evolution is a phenomenon, and is as inevitable as water flowing downhill. The first thing to realize is that it is not survival that matters in evolution. Rather, it is offspring production. Sure, organisms must survive to produce offspring. But they could survive forever and if they produce no offspring they are an evolutionary dead-end.

Once you realize that evolution is about offspring production, it becomes a simple math exercise. If you produce more than an average number of viable offspring for your species, then the gene variants you carry increase in frequency in the population. If you produce fewer than average viable offspring, then the gene variants you carry decrease in frequency. That is, in fact, the very definition of evolution: a change in allele frequency in a population over time.
We've now come full circle.

Discussing how science in general works is hardly irrelevant when discussing a particular branch of science.
In this case it is. The criticism levied is one not against "Science" but a single theory. Your arguments are deflecting these criticisms with fallacies of division.

Your assertion that we have no observable data about the past is just flat out wrong. The past has left evidence all over the Earth, in fossils, geologic formations, and radioisotopes, just to name a few. We can figure out a vast amount about the past based on evidence it left behind. 
All the evidence shows is that those exist. The rest is an assumption.

Yes, it does. I've given four lines of evidence that support natural selection over orthogenesis,
No, you've given four lines of description, not evidence.

none of which you even attempted to address,
Because I'm not arguing against your description.

merely dismissing them as mere "semantics". Sorry, but calling something "semantics" is not a refutation.
It is when you claim semantics is evidence.

"The field of population genetics came into being in the 1920s and 1930s..." (https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/population-genetics/)

Population genetics signaled the final death-knell for orthogenesis. Up to the 1930's, the biggest weakness for natural selection was the lack of a mechanism for inheritance. It was only once population geneticists demonstrated mathematically that the variety in evolution could be accounted for with Mendelian inheritance that natural selection became the overwhelming consensus.
More sophistry. If evolution was mathematically demonstrable, then it would be by all scientific standards and definitions, a scientific law. (It would be the Law of Evolution rather than the Theory of Evolution.) And once again, the shift from orthogenesis to natural selection wasn't motivated by evidentiary discovery. The evidence didn't change because it was already there decades prior (Charles Darwin's conception and development of natural selection and Gregor Mendel's Laws of Inheritance.) Ronald Fisher synthesized the works of the two to create a new interpretation. That interpretation became popular among evolutionary biologists and changed the consensus. That wasn't "discovery"; that was an ideological shift.
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@3RU7AL
@disgusted
Would you be more comfortable
Once again, my comfort is irrelevant.

with "no detectable or decipherable order or pattern"?
That is logically fallacious.

@disgusted:

Have you read the title and OP of this thread?
Yes.

Never mind.
This afterthought defeats the point once you still decide to submit your comment.

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@zedvictor4
The Ultimate Reality is not a God in man's image.


You have no idea what we believe because you have dismissed it out right.


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@Deb-8-a-bull
The Trinity is God.

The faith is abiding in God.




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@Athias
with "no detectable or decipherable order or pattern"?
That is logically fallacious.
Please explain.
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@3RU7AL


The validity of the kalam argument is debatable, but it is also moot because even if it is valid it doesn't prove anything about the god of any religion, let alone of a particualar religion.
Well stated.

This is an opinion that comes from having a preconceived notion about what God is to begin with.

One of the reasons atheists bumble around so much is that they have an understanding of what God is that gets in the way of what God actually is.

Why Is thos hard for you and others?


Because instead of accepting God ss The Ultimate Reality, you take God as being what we think The Ultimate Reality is, or more accurately, what you think we think The Ultimate Reality is.


It shouldn't take much though to see why this is a frustrating predicament for someone who is trying to help the God denier through their superstition.
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@Athias
If evolution was mathematically demonstrable, then it would be by all scientific standards and definitions, a scientific law.
The standard is efficacy.

Do you have a more elegant or more precise explanation for variations in plants and animals?

Evolution only has to be "better" than nothing (or "the bible").

Perfection is not the goal of science.
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@3RU7AL
Please explain.
Yet to be discovered evidence of an order or pattern is not proof of the contrary. That would be an argument from ignorance (argumentum ad ignorantium.)


The standard is efficacy.
Efficacious toward what?

Do you have a more elegant or more precise explanation for variations in plants and animals?
No. It's all trivial in my opinion. Then again, I never sought to explain it.

Evolution only has to be "better" than nothing (or "the bible").
It's fine if you like the theory of evolution better than "nothing" (or The Bible.) That however does not mean it's more rational.

Perfection is not the goal of science.
Non sequitur.


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@Athias
This afterthought defeats the point once you still decide to submit your comment.
Do you speak (type) English?


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WHY ARE YOUNG CHRISTIANS LEAVING THE CHURCH.?

# 77 : Because Young females don't want to live like / end up like the adult females in their group.     

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@Athias
Yet to be discovered evidence of an order or pattern is not proof of the contrary. That would be an argument from ignorance (argumentum ad ignorantium.)
I'm retracting and claim of "randomness" and REPLACING it with a claim of "no detectable or decipherable order or pattern".

"No detectable or decipherable order or pattern" would seem to be an epistemologically defensible claim.
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@Athias
The standard is efficacy.
Efficacious toward what?
A stated goal.
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@Athias
Do you have a more elegant or more precise explanation for variations in plants and animals?
No. It's all trivial in my opinion. Then again, I never sought to explain it.
So is your "argument" that because you don't find the theory of evolution personally useful, that it is not useful to anyone?

If "it's all trivial" in your opinion, then why do you even bother engaging?
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@Athias
Evolution only has to be "better" than nothing (or "the bible").
It's fine if you like the theory of evolution better than "nothing" (or The Bible.) That however does not mean it's more rational
Please point out specific logical errors and or provide counter-factuals to the theory of evolution.

Both "nothingness" and "the bible" have ZERO predictive or explanatory power.
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@Athias
Perfection is not the goal of science.
Non sequitur.
You attempted to critique "the theory of evolution" by suggesting that if it was reliable enough, they'd make it a "law".

The "theory of evolution" does not pretend to "explain everything perfectly".  Perfection is not the goal of science.

The "theory of evolution" only has to be "better" than any competing theories.

All science is provisional.
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@3RU7AL
I'm retracting and claim of "randomness" and REPLACING it with a claim of "no detectable or decipherable order or pattern".

"No detectable or decipherable order or pattern" would seem to be an epistemologically defensible claim.

It's not epistemologically defensible because you're still asserting the negative using the lack of evidence toward the affirmation. That's the reason I specifically worded it as "yet to be discovered." Consider the possibility that the tools used have yet to become sophisticated enough to render a conclusion on either.

A stated goal.
Perhaps that goal is reinforcing one's own notions?

So is your "argument" that because you don't find the theory of evolution personally useful, that it is not useful to anyone?
Not even remotely.

If "it's all trivial" in your opinion, then why do you even bother engaging?
I never sought to argue the content of evolution (i.e. what is it? functional arguments, etc.) I sought to argue the logic (i.e. the structure, its premises, its conclusions, etc.) Once again, my contention isn't the content of evolution. My contention is that evolution is allegedly more rational.

Please point out specific logical errors
Where did I state logical error. I stated "teleology," which isn't necessarily erroneous as it concerns logic.

and or provide counter-factuals to the theory of evolution.
Why would I do that? Is that the nature of my onus?

Both "nothingness" and "the bible" have ZERO predictive or explanatory power.
Incorrect. The Bible has plenty of explanatory "power." It depends on the scope of one's standards.

You attempted to critique "the theory of evolution" by suggesting that if it was reliable enough, they'd make it a "law".
Not even close. Scientific Law is mathematically "proven;" Scientific Theory is not. Stronn erroneously stated that evolution was mathematically demonstrable. That is sophistry because he attempted to conflate Mendel's Laws of Inheritance, which are mathematical demonstrable, with evolution which isn't, using modern synthesis as his premise. Not to mention, Stronn mentioned earlier that evolution was a "phenomenon." That also is incorrect. If one is going to argue on behalf of "science," then it would prudent that one understands standards of science.

Furthermore, I've not once presumed values for others. If evolutionary theory is a "reliable" explanatory device for you, then that's your prerogative. Is it reliable for me? Not at all. Then again, neither is "Creation."

The "theory of evolution" does not pretend to "explain everything perfectly".  Perfection is not the goal of science.
Non sequitur.

The "theory of evolution" only has to be "better" than any competing theories.
Why? It's subjective isn't it?

All science is provisional.
Not all of it. Laws, Theories, and Hypotheses are; facts aren't.

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@Athias
I'm retracting and claim of "randomness" and REPLACING it with a claim of "no detectable or decipherable order or pattern".

"No detectable or decipherable order or pattern" would seem to be an epistemologically defensible claim.
It's not epistemologically defensible because you're still asserting the negative using the lack of evidence toward the affirmation.
You're inferring a negative.  I am not asserting anything more than simple fact.

That's the reason I specifically worded it as "yet to be discovered."
You seem to be making a critical error here making an unwarranted prediction that "a solution" will at some point be "discovered" and furthermore that it is even necessarily "discoverable".

Consider the possibility that the tools used have yet to become sophisticated enough to render a conclusion on either.
Science renders provisional conclusions with available data.  When new data is available those conclusions will be refined, but even those newer conclusions are considered provisional, pending additional data.