Poor John Clayton, still lying about atheists, still failing to show his imaginary friend exists, still evidence that his religion is a joke. (incidentally, not much new at all, and since this is a rather long post there are no memes at the bottom)
He tries a tired old “joke”:
““An atheist is rowing on Loch Ness in Scotland when the Loch Ness Monster attacks him. The petrified atheist shouts, ‘God, help me!’ And suddenly the monster freezes. A voice from heaven booms, ‘You say you don’t believe in me, but now you ask for my help?’ The atheist shrugs, ‘Well, ten seconds ago I didn’t believe in the Loch Ness Monster either.’”
It’s great how the joke actually skewers Christianity since it acknowledges the need for evidence to be able to accept something exists, evidence that John lacks. One doesn’t have to look for evidence if something rather dramatic and large shows up and that is one example of why this god fails: it is quite big and dramatic, far larger than a monster in a lake. Where is it?
Then he claims to have all the evidence one needs to believe in his imaginary friend, written up by his friend Roland, and of course fails miserably. He, as usual, claims that those who don’t believe in his god won’t look at the evidence. Well, my internet audience, let’s do so.
“What is the strongest evidence for an intelligent Creator? That is an interesting question. Sarah Salviander, an astrophysicist, suggests that biology offers more convincing evidence than her field of astrophysics. She said, “The incredible machinery of a living cell is far more complex than the structure of an entire Galaxy of stars.” On the other hand, the late atheist critic Christopher Hitchens once said that atheists find the “fine-tuning” of the universe to be “one of the most intriguing” arguments for intelligent design. I think that biology and cosmology together make a strong case for God’s existence.”
When a Christian tries to use a scientist to claim that their god is real, they are using an appeal to authority fallacy. That a person is educated in a science doesn’t make magic suddenly be an answer to anything. Dr. Salviander has no evidence her god exists. That she admits that her own field fails to support a god is notable. Her bible says that stars are little lights on a solid dome that can fall to the earth. She has shown that her bible is the product of ignorant humans.
When her best argument is “What is your repeatable, scientific evidence for your objective existence as a human being? Seriously. On what basis do you assert your own existence as a person reading these words as opposed to a brain in a vat hallucinating all of this as “real”?” one can show that she literally has nothing to show her god exists at all. When a Christian tries to claim we can’t know anything, that shows how vapid their claims are. This is a version of the “transcendental argument for god” where the Christian has to claim we can’t know anything without their god, and yet, they can’t show their god merely exists. I do wonder if she whined like this when she defended her doctoral dissertation. Happily, she is out of teaching and is just spewing her nonsense to christians.
and oh this
“Astronomer Carl Sagan popularized this statement decades ago. Atheists like to repeat it in reference to the supernatural, because it sounds right. However, there are two major problems with it.
1. It’s a statement about believability, not about proof.
You realize this when you see how people try to defend ECREE. I had a fellow explain it to me this way. “Tell me you have a red car,” he said, “and I’ll believe it without question. Tell me you have a flying red car, and I’m going to need to see it.”
People who believe ECREE are really talking about their own personal baseline for believability. It has little to nothing to do with establishing the truth of a claim.
If we need to establish the truth that you have a red car — say, for a court case, where demonstrating that you own a red car may be crucial for determining someone’s guilt or innocence — you’re going to need to produce the same evidence as for the flying red car. You wouldn’t respond to a request for proof from the judge with, “Well, your Honor, the claim that I own a red car is ordinary, so you should just believe it.” You’d produce the document proving it. Probably an official, verified government document stating that you own the car in question. The amusing thing is, if someone produced such a document for the ownership of a flying red car, most of you would probably consider that “extraordinary,” despite the fact that it’s of the exact same nature as the proof of ownership for the ordinary red car. And, the question would be unequivocally settled in either case by simply showing the judge the car.
This is why I like to distinguish between casual belief and actual belief. If someone, whom I have no reason to mistrust, tells me he has a red car, and it doesn’t really matter whether the claim is true or not, I’ll probably casually believe it. If it matters for some reason, then I wouldn’t — I’d need proof before I would actually believe him. I guarantee it’s the same for you.”
Hmm, curious how she never mentions just showing the red flying car. She has to go on about a document, not the actual item. It’s a shame someone so incompetent is an actual teacher.
Of course, she claims that the following are “rational reasons” for believing in her version of the Christian god, which happens to be an evangelical one, BTW.
“I came to believe in God mostly through my work in science. I was convinced by:1. The teleological argument. The universe seemed to me far too logical and intelligible to be the product of a random cause. (Twenty demerits to anyone who falsely claims this is an argument from incredulity.)”
Nothing like failure right out of the gate. The design argument fails since Christians have a universe where most things are lethal to humans. They try to ignore the details and claim that the “constants” are perfect for humans. This is the common puddle argument, and those “constants” guarantee our sun gives us cancer. If this god is omniscient and omnipotent, why did it choose a constant that required that? Often a Christian will either claim “the fall did it” or try to make the “best possible world” argument, both of which fail. The claim about the fall fails since that would make everything seen corrupted and not what their god wanted. The best possible world argument shows that their god is not omniscient or omnipotent by the mere definition of those words.
“2. The Kalam Cosmological Argument (KCA) combined with a logical inference that the cause of the universe must be personal led me to belief in the Abrahamic God.”
There is no logical inference that there must be an intelligent and personal creator. That is based on nothing more than a presupposition. There may have been a beginning, nothing shows that their god is the cause.
And then she face-plants into the moral argument. She claims “God is the most philosophically satisfying basis for morality and justice in the world.”
Nice personal claim with no more basis than any other theist’s claim. She also fails in that she cannot show any objective morality, nor can she show that this god is interested in justice consider the stories in her bible. A god that murders a child for the actions of a man is not just or fair.
Of course, she, like so many other frauds, has no comments allowed no her blog. How not surprising.
Unsurprisingly, the people at John’s blog still try to tout Salviander when she supposedly claims hat cells are more complex than galaxies. That’s a lovely baseless assertion and so what? Still no evidence for their imaginary friend. Complexity shows no design from some magical being. We see complex things repeatedly in nature, and complexity can be show differently in different objects. To get more into biology, we have human bodies that guarantee that thousands of humans will choke to death. If there was an intelligent designer, why is that? If it was the fall, again, there is no god-design to be seen, it’s all been changed per the myth. We see children dying of cancer, is that part of the “design? If it’s the fall, then again, there is nothing to show what this god supposedly intended. DNA itself fails often and horribly. Again, why did this god not fix these things if it exists?
Then we go onto even more ridiculous claims. It is claimed “Chance would create chaos rather than beauty.” Nothing shows that to be true, that is a baseless assertion. Beauty is opinion, nothing more. A vain human being will always think that they are special, out of ignorance and delusion. A psalm is quoted:
“1 The heavens are telling the glory of God; and the firmament proclaims his handiwork.2 Day to day pours forth speech, and night to night declares knowledge.3 There is no speech, nor are there words; their voice is not heard;4 yet their voice goes out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world. In the heavens he has set a tent for the sun,5 which comes out like a bridegroom from his wedding canopy, and like a strong man runs its course with joy.6 Its rising is from the end of the heavens, and its circuit to the end of them; and nothing is hidden from its heat.“
Which literally shows just how ignorant people were. Christians will of course claim that this isn’t “really” what is meant, but this is what ignorant humans believed. Christians love to make fun of Islam which has the sun in a swamp, but theirs is no different in its silly claims of a solid dome proclaiming things, the sun sits in a tent at night, and that it runs a course over the flat earth.
and the other quote from Psalms?
“13 For it was you who formed my inward parts; you knit me together in my mother’s womb.14 I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; that I know very well.15 My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth.16 Your eyes beheld my unformed substance. In your book were written all the days that were formed for me, when none of them as yet existed.”
Here we have a typical vain man, who ignores all of the birth defects, etc. that exist in his world. This god itself declares that no one who is injured or misshapen can go in to its presence. Humans aren’t made in the earth, and here we go with how there is no free will in this cult, no matter how they claim it to be so.
Yep, the author of the Psalms, not “David” BTW, was ignorant. So was Darwin since we didn’t have good microscopes yet. Biology, and evolutionary theory, have gone on far beyond what Darwin started and that’s how science works. This also doesn’t mean that their imaginary friend exists. Those really neat cells often fail long before any senescence takes us.
Unsurprisingly, there is no evidence at the last link these frauds have on that page. What is does have is this “Both scientists and believers in God should avoid letting social dynamics and peer pressure shape their beliefs. Carefully examine the evidence for what you believe and avoid falling into the trap of believing extraordinary claims despite the evidence.”
Curious how that is exactly why Christian claims still exist, since these cultists depend on social dynamics to believe. That’s all religion is, peer pressure supported by ignorance, fear and hate.
It’s lovely how John claims he’ll answer questions, but he won’t allow comments on his website. I fear that may be because of me, and John’s inability to show his god is real. He claims we should believe in Romans 1 which is the bible saying the bible is true. Amusingly, every cult uses this same claim, and not one can show that their god is the right one, or that it merely exists.
Club Schadenfreude 