The real irony of this disingenuous false equivalence apologists use, erroneously equating religious faith with the primary definition of faith, is that even were it true it wouldn’t lend any credence to religious beliefs. Since an unevidenced belief would not suddenly be less dubious because others held equally dubious beliefs. It’s a risible argument, it really is.
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I don’t use faith to conclude that your god, or anybody else’s, doesn’t exist. There is zero evidence for any of them being real. The Bible isn’t anything other a collection of stories put together by the Catholic Church.
Do you believe in any of the stories that were excluded, like the book of Enoch? If not, why? You can’t use the Bible to prove the Bible is the truth.
The only thing that is an absolute fact is this, we will all die one day. End of story, including you.
He ain’t lyin’, folks. Just ask George…
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Case 1.
Dynamic Balance.
First we have to define stability.
It’s the property where a body can remain in equilibrium on tip or edge if centre of mass is located above the base.
So as you stepped on slippery surface your body’s centre of mass remained above the feet.
Some more variables in our equation can be muscle control and nervous system that made automatic adjustments to control your body’s movement and stability that are indeed the underneath cause of biological stability.
Case 2
Conservation of momentum.
Ever wondered why voyager doesn’t need billion gallons of fuel to continue its journey outside of solar system.
It’s because conservation of momentum says that a body will continue to move unless external force is applied.
So why objects stop after sometime.
Well friction is a force responsible to stop its forward motion ,it can be air drag,surface friction.
Run a marble on smooth surface it will move more farther.
So when you were moving on icy surface your forward momentum was being conserved in accordance with classical laws of physics.
Now combining case 1 and case 2.
Your body balanced your momentum itself, it acted as amazing biological gyroscope.
Dynamic Balance + Conservation of momentum = Motion is Conserved.
Uh, well, HAHAHA! As someone who has grown up and lived my entire life in a subarctic climate with long winters, I have a lot of experience with walking and running on icy and slippery surfaces. In fact, it is everyday experience during winter where I live. So trust me, I know from personal experience that it is perfectly possible to run on icy roads, slipping and sliding without falling. It just requires normal balance and to not attempt sudden changes in the momentum vector. In short, your personal anecdotal “evidence” of a “miracle” don’t impress me much. There is a perfectly rational explanation to it.
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Oh dear. Look what’s turned up in the in tray …
Your presuppositions on this matter do not dictate the reality thereof. And since you manifestly need the requisite schooling on this matter, i’ll provide it.
Atheism, in its rigorous formulation, is nothing more than suspicion of unsupported mythology fanboy assertions. That is IT. In case you need the point reinforcing, NOT treating unsupported assertions uncritically as fact, is the very antithesis of “faith”.
We all know how you “look” at our output - by ignoring salient facts when they’re presented to you.
This is steaming bullshit of the most feculently stinking order.
First of all, those of us who paid attention in class, reject “faith” itself. Because as you and your ilk routinely demonstrate, “faith” consists of uncritical acceptance of unsupported assertions. As I’ve just stated above, atheism is the exact opposite of this. Likewise, we dispensse with “belief” itself, for the same reason. But we’re used to seeing your ilk peddle this lie here.
Indeed, my own output alone destroys this sleazy little well poisoning assertion of yours, let alone that of several other regular contributors here.
Oh, no kidding? It’s takes a special brand of incredulity, to believe the assertions in the requisite goat herder mythology, several of which I’ve demonstrated are farcical and absurd.
Wrong. I’ll elaborate on this as I deconstruct your nonsense in a moment.
When we have reliably repeatable events occurring around us, then we can safely draw inferences therefrom. Which, unlike “faith”, involves taking account of observational data.
You really are an amateur at this, aren’t you?
I happen to be the exception that you should be afraid of. All the more because I have a track record of presenting the contents of relevant papers to non-technical audiences in an accessible manner. I’ve been doing this in various places for 14 years. This includes presenting papers to lay members of my Entomology Society, on such subjects as the laboratory replication of a speciation event in Heliconius butterflies.
And unfortunately for you, Classical Greek was a subject I learned in order to familiarise myself with the nuances of taxonomy. Keep digging that hole.
Not in my case. I have the requisite scholarship under my belt.
Oh this is going to be good …
Oh dear, it’s canard time, folks … a canard I’ve already dealt with. Let’s see you dig that hold deeper, shall we?
BZZZZTTT!!! WELL KNOWN CANARD!!!
[7] The operation of natural processes, and the intellectual labour required to learn about those processes, are two separate entities.
That I have to address this explicitly, and deal with this particular canard, after it had been repeatedly erected by one particular creationist of my acquaintance, after he had been repeatedly schooled upon this, really does make one wonder if some of the people purporting to be in a position to critique valid scientific theories, have ever attended a real science class in their lives, let alone paid attention therein.
Let’s knock this particular nonsense on the head once and for all. Just because scientists perform experiments, for the express purpose of determining how a particular natural process operates, and the details of whatever quantitative laws that process obeys, does NOT in any way, shape or form, support “intelligence” at work within those processes. The only “intelligence” in operation here is that of the scientists trying to learn about the natural process under investigation. In order to demonstrate the fatuousness of the converse view, consider gravity. This is a regularly observed real world phenomenon, and, as real world phenomena go, is about as mindless as one can imagine. The idea that “intelligence” is at work when something falls off a cliff is asinine to put it mildly. Now, in order to deduce the quantitative relationships at work when gravity acts upon objects, scientists can perform various experiments, to determine, for example, the speed of impact with which objects strike the ground when dropped from tall structures of varying heights. That they have to do this in order to deduce these quantitative details, and derive the requisite laws operating within the world of gravitational phenomena, does NOT in any way support the idea that “intelligence” is operating within that natural phenomenon itself. Indeed, applied mathematicians can postulate the existence of all manner of alternative forces, obeying different quantitative laws, and determine what would be observed if ever instances of those forces were observed in the real world, but again, this does NOT support for one moment the idea that those forces are innately “intelligent”. So those who try to erect this nonsense with respect to experiments in evolutionary biology, or abiogenesis, will again invite much ridicule and laughter.
For those who really want ramming home how absurd this canard is, the online satirical magazine The Onion has published this hilarious piece on “intelligent falling”. Anyone who reads this without laughing, and regards the content as a serious exposition of scientific thinking, is in dire need of an education.
It’s also apposite here to deal with the duplicitous assertion that a scientific experiment intended to eludicate the workings of a given physical system, implies that said system was “designed”. This is apologetic bullshit of the most steamingly foetid order. First of all, scientific experiments are performed, frequently because the behaviour of the system in question is not yet known, and as a corollary, can hardly be said to be “designed” for this reason alone. Second, that system isn’t “designed” for another reason - namely, that the outcome of the experiment may be surprising to the experimenter, and yield unexpected (or even counter-intuitive) results. One cannot be said to have “designed” something that delivers an unexpected result. Of course, I’ve dealt with the duplicity of the whole “design” apologetics elsewhere in a separate exposition, but it’s apposite to point out salient ideas here, for those who haven’t read that exposition.
Indeed, I recently encountered a creationist who, farcically, claimed that cosmological models of a hypothetical cyclic universe inplied that said cyclic universe was “designed”, which again is fatuous nonsense for one simple reason. Scientific models are intended to be descriptive, NOT prescriptive. They’re simply intended to describe the workings of an actual or hypothetical physical system, with NO “design” or teleology implied (I’ll cover other relevant bases in other sections of this exposition). We leave prescription to mythologies and their unsupported assertions.
In case you’re wondering, I first penned this at another place way back in 2010, so you’re peddling a canard that has been KNOWN to be a canard forTHIRTEEN YEARS.
Moving on …
Oh dear, I smell the erection of the “you need my magic man to be moral” canard coming up any moment now …
Oh dear. It seems you need educating yet again …
First, there’s the matter that those of us who paid attention in classes devoted to ethics, learned a long time ago that this subject is far more subtle and complex than the fatuous caricature thereof that mythology fanboys embrace, namely “Magic Man says so”. Which of course is recognised by those of us who paid attention in class, as not merely a caricature of genuine ethics, but a dangerous one, as anyone familiar with Susan B. Anthony’s famous and succinct critique thereof is well aware. In addition, a paper I have presented in several places about differences between secular and religious societies also has significant input at this juncture., one that also presented in another thread here, which I cover in some detail in this post.
Those of us who paid attention in the requisite classes, learned some time ago of a simple and powerful test that can be performed, to determine the ethical status of an action, that is independent of any “authority” - namely, what benefit or harm is bestowed upon the recipients of the action in question. Being able to perform this test, courtesy of our ability to place ourselves mentally in the situation of others, doesn’t require a comsic Big Brother, but empathy, a property that is actually to be found possessed by eutherian mammals all the way down to rodents (about which I shall say more shortly).
Likewise, the concepts of reciprocity and fairness are to be found distributed much more widely than the usual suspects imagine. Indeed, there now exists an abundant scientific literature, documenting in exquisite detail the evidence for the evolutionary and biological basis of:
[1] our capacity for ethical thought, and;
[2] the motivation to act thereupon.
Give me time to look up some relevant citations, and I’ll provide them in another post. 
Among the topics discussed in said literature, are:
[3] The evolution of brain development genes expressed in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex, the part of the brain that has been known to be implicated in ethical decision making for over a century;
[4] Observed instances of ethical behaviour in non-human species, none of which know about our mythologies or invented cartoon magic men.
With respect to [4] above, I was recently introduced to peer reviewed scientific papers, documenting experimental determination of ethical behaviour in rats. Which have been shown in the laboratory, to reject behaviours that would inflict pain and suffering upon a fellow rat, even when a substantial reward for those behaviours is offered. Seems rats have a better ability to reject avarice than a good many human beings I can think of.
Looks like once again, a large body of real world data is destroying your smug, complacent presuppositions.
WRONG.
Apparently you need to learn an elementary fact again, namely that mythological assertions do not constitue fact. Indeed, many of them have been destroyed by real world data. That you are unaware of this specak volumes.
Oh, you mean the way in which they ignore the large body of observational data we present to them as a free education?
We didn’t “close our minds” to your mythology, we learned that it contains demonstrable and manifest nonsense, and as a corollary, cannot be trusted as a source of supposed “knowledge”. That assertion about genetics being purportedly controlled by coloured sticks being a particularly foetid example.
What’s genuinely futile, is pretending that a mythology is superior to genuine sources of fact.
Except of course, that the idea that a successful military general existed in the past, isn’t that remarkable. We have numerous examples right across recorded history to call upon. Plus, there exists archeaological evidence of Alexander’s activity, such as the causeway he built to facilitate the Siege of Tyre in 332 BCE. The stone used for that causeway can still be found today, stretching from the Al-Bass region of the modern city in the east, to the Crusader Cathedral in the west. Part of it runs through the Tyre Al-Bass World Heritage Site, and is visible in Google Maps satellite images.
I suspect other archaeological evidence can be found at other sites of his military activity.
Meanwhile, it transpires that some writings about Alexander do survive.
There’s much you don’t understand, such as facts.
Actually, the first major biographer of Alexander after the fact began writing in the 1st century BCE, 200 years, not 400 years, after the events in question. Plus, once again, he wasn’t stating anything remarkable in that biography. “Military general was successful at military conquest” isn’t a particualrly remarkable assertion. On the other hand, “Magic Man came to earth and then rose from the dead” is really far out there.
This presumes that the character in question actually existed as stated. Indeed, I addressed that very question in this earlier post in another thread.
Looks like you have a lot of homework lined up for the foreseeable future …
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Ezekiel 26:1-5&12-14 “ “In the eleventh year, on the first day of the month, the word of the Lord came to me: “Son of man, because Tyre said about Jerusalem, ‘Good! The gateway to the peoples is shattered. She has been turned over to me. I will be filled now that she lies in ruins,’ therefore this is what the Lord God says: See, I am against you, Tyre! I will raise up many nations against you, just as the sea raises its waves. They will destroy the walls of Tyre and demolish her towers. I will scrape the soil from her and turn her into a bare rock. She will become a place in the sea to spread nets, for I have spoken.” This is the declaration of the Lord God. “She will become plunder for the nations,”
”They will take your wealth as spoil and plunder your merchandise. They will also demolish your walls and tear down your beautiful homes. Then they will throw your stones, timber, and soil into the water. I will put an end to the noise of your songs, and the sound of your lyres will no longer be heard. I will turn you into a bare rock, and you will be a place to spread nets. You will never be rebuilt, for I, Yahweh, have spoken.” This is the declaration of the Lord God.”
There’s an element of faith in Buddhism. However, the Buddha tells us, “postpone your doubts for the moment and follow this line of thought. If you do, you may live to experience amazing feelings of love, joy, and compassion.”
Your “doctrine” - it tells you, “postpone your doubts for the moment. I have nothing left to tell you. If you live you entire life “believing” in me, then at the end - I “promise” you will have everlasting life.”
And you think that most of us don’t know a good bargain when we see one!
LOL… and completely deviate from the 'Middle way." Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha … You don’t really think Buddhism is about love and good feelings do you. Tha’t kist so.
Oh no, not the “destruction of Tyre” nonsense …
Except that your goat herder mythology presented two assertions that were completely and utterly wrong. First, that the city would be erased from the face of the Earth, never to be rebuilt. Except that oops, the Romans rebuilt sizeable chunks thereof, and their ruins form part of the modern day Tyre UN World Heritage Site. Furthermore, the city is today a bustling metropolis of 200,000 people, and you can even take Google Steet View tours of the city.
Second, your goat herder mythology asserted that Nebuchadnezzar would be the individual bringing the supposed hammer of doom crashing down upon Tyre. Again, what we learn from real history, is that Nebuchadnezzar laid siege to the city for 13 years, then decided to exact tribute from the city in lieu of storming it.
Plus, when Alexander the Great sacked the city of tyre, he didn’t materially destroy it. Though he was stated to have exacted a brutal revenge upon its citizens for their conduct during the siege.
Once again, your mythology isn’t a book of facts, it’s a book of fiction.
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Absolutely. Check your sources. The middle way culminates in “Right Concentration”. That is, the development of the Jhanas which include “rapture and bliss”.
That bliss is what? It is not a hedonistic ecstasy.
In this world of distraction and intellectual flexing, a man lived long ago, who understood the divine pleasure of metta (loving kindness) and Karuna (compassion).
I excluded “equanimity” in my post to “dumb ass” because I wanted to entice this deluded Jesus freak into something better.
However, you are still wrong. Of all of the “divine abidings” described by the Buddha, “equanimity” is hailed by him to be the best.
What better to finish the middle way than an infinite abiding in equanimity.
The path through metta, joy, and compassion is not trot without reason. These states are exulted. But “Upekkha” - that is, “equanimity” is the highest state declared by the Buddha.
He does not declare it as a mundane state of “indifference”. It is a unique experience of equal “opinion” towards all living things.
Blissful is the opposite of sorrowful and what we call sorrowful is the opposite of blissful. These are opposing conceptual experiences. You have trained your mind to think dualistically. Nirvana being non-conceptual is free from both the conceptual blissfulness and the conceptual sorrowfulness and there are no words in any language to describe it thus it remains the middle way. Poor poor ratty. Attachment is your friend. You hang in there. Buddhism is right and correct, Nirvana and reincarnation are true. Karma is going to get you if you are not careful. Trust the Buddha and be like him.
I know the difference between severe mental and physical pain, versus exalted physical and mental bliss. If that is duality, so what?
You are inserting “sunyata” into the equation. You are familiar with this word? It pervades the Mahayana interpretation.
In truth, these heights of spiritual bliss are markers along the path. They are not the goal, but without them the goal could not be achieved.
I do not “know” Nirvana. I know it the same as you. I understand it according to the doctrine of the Buddha.
This may or may not interest you, but the extinguishment of greed, hatred, and delusion is the definition of Nirvana.
That is only “non-dual” in the same way that a candle, once burnt out, has no explanation in terms of “existing”.
We approach pain and pleasure from a dual mind set in order to transcend this pain and pleasure.
Do you know the formulation of the Jhanas? No, cheap shots. Seriously. They are the heart of the doctrine.
The meaning is that - all told; the fourth Jhana approaches “neither pain nor pleasure” and “perfect equanimity. Just as you say … “non-dual”.
This too, I know (says Yoda).
The words exist. The Buddha has spoken them. The extinguishing of ignorance is Nirvana. Not some lofty spiritual state. Even the Buddha experienced pain and pleasure after enlightenment.
Who could argue that Buddhism isn’t correct? Are there any contractions in his doctrine? If I had the know how, I would test it as a mathematically coherent system of thought ! I think it would pass!
I do trust the Buddha! I’ve met him personally. Just as I’ve met Mara. You forget (so easily) that I am mentally “ill”!
LOL… There is no path silly rodent. There is only your imagination and then… from all we actually know… death. You follow a path seeking freedom from it. How silly is that when all you ever had to do was step to the side and let the indoctrinated walk by. LOL
There is the “Noble Eightfold Path” set out by the Buddha in his “Four Noble Truths”.
It starts with “Right View” and “Right Thought” - ie. the understanding and conviction that all things have stress, impermanence, and not-self as marks of reality.
It then consists of a standard moral code - to wit; “Right Action”, “Right Speech”, and “Right Livelihood”.
It then consists of the meditative component - to wit; “Right Effort” - ie. the effort to put down unskillful qualities and the keep them from arising any further; to bring about skillful qualities and work to keep them from falling away.
“Right Mindfulness” - the practice of observing and understanding experience in four respects - in respect to the body; in respect to feelings; in respect to the mind; and in respect to the Dharma.
Finally - “Right Concentration” - the culmination of the path - the destination - defined as the successive entry into and emergence from the four Jhanas.
From all you actually know.
I’m not sure what you mean by this? I have to let the “indoctrinated walk by”? What does that mean?
ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ! Thanks for making my point!
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Why do you keep quoting the Bible? No one here believes a single word of it. Do you believe any of the words in the Koran? What makes you think you’re putting your faith(a waste of time) in the right holy book?
Except these are are subjective, the best one can assert is a broad moral consensus, but then that was true of Nazi Germany. Assigning claims or beliefs to Buddha carries no more credence than assigning the, to Hitler, in the absence of objective evidence they are both appeal to authority fallacies.
What knowledge can you share that suggests we can survive our physical death in any meaningful way?
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"Alexander did not completely destroy Tyre. It later regained a place of prominence in the world (cf. Acts 21:3, 7). Isaiah prophesied that after 70 years of devastation, Tyre would be restored to worldwide economic prominence (23:15–18). Her trading profit, however, would be set aside for Yahweh. This may refer to the fact that by New Testament times, only Tyrian coinage was allowed for the temple tax. It went to “those who live (sit) before the Lord” to give them food and fine clothes (high priest’s vestments?) (Is 23:18). Interestingly, the phrase “before the Lord” often refers to acts done with a solemn sense of Yahweh’s presence, many times at a sanctuary (Brown, Driver Briggs 1979: 817).
In 274 BC, some 58 years after Tyre’s demolition by Alexander, the city was given independent status by Ptolemy II. After that she generally received favorable treatment from Greeks and Romans and prospered, in fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophecy. The archaeology of the Roman era revealed arches, roads, buildings, etc. associated with this period."
Acts 21:3-7 " 3 When we came in sight of Cyprus, leaving it on the left, we kept sailing to Syria and landed at Tyre; for the ship was to unload its cargo there. 4 After looking up the disciples, we stayed there for seven days; and they kept telling Paul, through the Spirit, not to set foot in Jerusalem. 5 When our days there were ended, we left and started on our journey, while they all, with wives and children, escorted us until we were out of the city. After kneeling down on the beach and praying, we said farewell to one another. 6 Then we boarded the ship, and they returned home. 7 When we had finished the voyage from Tyre, we arrived at Ptolemais, and after greeting the brothers and sisters, we stayed with them for a day."
Isaiah 23:13-18 " 13 Behold, the land of the Chaldeans—this is the people that did not exist; Assyria allocated it for desert creatures—they erected their siege towers, they stripped its palaces, they made it a ruin.
14 Wail, you ships of Tarshish,
For your stronghold is destroyed.
15 Now on that day Tyre will be forgotten for seventy years like the days of one king. At the end of seventy years it will happen to Tyre as in the song of the prostitute:
16 Take your harp, wander around the city,
You forgotten prostitute;
Pluck the strings skillfully, sing many songs,
That you may be remembered.
17 It will come about at the end of seventy years that the Lord will visit Tyre. Then she will go back to her prostitute’s wages and commit prostitution with all the kingdoms on the face of the earth. 18 Her profit and her prostitute’s wages will be sacred to the Lord; it will not be stored up or hoarded, but her profit will become sufficient food and magnificent attire for those who dwell in the presence of the Lord."
“In AD 638 the Arabs conquered the city and her fate began to change. In 1124 it was taken by Crusaders. In AD 1291 the Mameluke Muslims took it and reduced it to ashes. It was the policy of these invaders to make their destruction so severe that Crusaders would not be tempted to ever reoccupy it (Hitti 1997). Tyre for a period of time was all but destitute of inhabitants (Davis and Gehman 1944: 616). In 1517 it became part of the Ottoman (Turkish) empire and fell sway to its incompetent government.”
“The statement in Ezekiel 26:14 does not deny there would be buildings on the island. It means that Tyre would never be rebuilt into the commercial superpower she was in Ezekiel’s day. It means that the palaces and temples of Ezekiel’s day would forever lie deep underneath the ground (and the water!), never to be revived. It would in no way be rebuilt into the prosperous, powerful living entity she was at the time the oracle was given.”
Ezekiel 26
12Also they will take your riches as spoils and plunder your merchandise, tear down your walls and destroy your delightful houses, and [i]throw your stones, your timbers, and your debris into the water. 13So I will put an end to the sound of your songs, and the sound of your harps will no longer be heard. 14I will turn you into a bare rock; you will become a dry place for the spreading of nets. You will not be rebuilt, for I the LORD have spoken,” declares the Lord GOD.
21I will [m]cause you sudden terrors and you will no longer exist; though you will be sought, you will never be found again,” declares the Lord GOD.
After reading through most of this, it continues to clarify that Theists see and hear what they want. What ever it is, that’s what they need it to be to further justify them believing in their god. If someone else argues, the theist will just blatantly write it off as a lie or ignorance. Whatever helps them sleep at night.
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