1. Comment #231221 by Last Man In Europe on August 16, 2008 at 1:14 am

Thanks Richard! You are an inspiration. I look forward to the Q and A session. I wonder how often a NEW question arises i.e one that really makes you think. Most questions seem to be entirely predictable e.g. What about Hitler etc.

These tend to be from the same people who say 'I haven't read your book BUT...'

;-)

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2. Comment #231222 by mordacious1 on August 16, 2008 at 1:18 am

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3. Comment #231223 by fontes on August 16, 2008 at 1:26 am

Thank you Prof. Richard Dawkins

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4. Comment #231237 by AfraidToDie on August 16, 2008 at 3:41 am

I never tire of reinforcing my consciousness awareness. I'll pass this link on to others who need a jumpstart.

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5. Comment #231264 by jonico on August 16, 2008 at 4:17 am

Can't wait to watch it. Seeing Dawkins and Berkley in title automatically got my attention.
(Is there a possibility of having future videos and audio also avaible in open formats such as ogg and ogm for those of us who don't like using or can't use propriety media formats?)

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6. Comment #231312 by entheogensmurf on August 16, 2008 at 5:51 am

Great lecture as expected.
I'm a tad tired so not much to ramble about currently.

It was nice to see such a warm reception to RD.

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7. Comment #231326 by LaurieB on August 16, 2008 at 6:05 am

Richard,

Please come to Boston ...

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8. Comment #231356 by Backslidden on August 16, 2008 at 7:00 am

I wanted to see this lecture in person but it sold out so fast.

The video won't play for me :(

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9. Comment #231360 by Galactor on August 16, 2008 at 7:11 am

I've been trying all morning to either start the video by clicking on it or saving the target - it doesn't work for me either.

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10. Comment #231363 by AfraidToDie on August 16, 2008 at 7:21 am

LaurieB - love your avatar...at least the place. Been there too! The view is almost enough to make me a pantheist :-)

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11. Comment #231371 by Mango on August 16, 2008 at 7:37 am

Dr. Dawkins might be able to fill a baseball stadium in some (or all?) regions of America.

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12. Comment #231375 by twilleyj on August 16, 2008 at 7:44 am

Video not working...
Anyone else know where to find a copy?
I've searched UC Berkeley's site...no luck.

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13. Comment #231377 by Quetzalcoatl on August 16, 2008 at 7:46 am

twilleyj-

Very nice avatar!

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14. Comment #231378 by twilleyj on August 16, 2008 at 7:46 am

Is this the same one?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FBmQA8yctrE

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15. Comment #231391 by genoray on August 16, 2008 at 8:08 am

Video not working for me.

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16. Comment #231404 by LaurieB on August 16, 2008 at 9:06 am

AfraidToDie,

Yes, I've been lucky to have done a fair amount of traveling and I can say that Machu Pichu is one of the places I could easily go back to year after year and never be bored. It has a surreal beauty and must have been a very effective location for the Inca ceremonies. I would really love to be there on the summer solstice. Good location for an atheist meetup, That's my kind of "pilgrimage".

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17. Comment #231497 by SaintStephen on August 16, 2008 at 12:58 pm

It looks like the video may be working now, but last night I chose to download the whole file, install QuickTime with the link provided, and then Right-Click on the file and use "Open With..." -- then selecting QuickTime. It worked at that point.

As far as the content, I just can't get enough of Professor Dawkins. People not able to see his ideas clearly respond instead to his demeanor and tone, which must only add to Richard's frustration. His demeanor makes perfect sense to me, because in his mind he's trapped/living in a world governed mostly by children's fiction, and nonsensical ideas without a trace of scientific merit -- and he's getting shouted down and mocked by people holding these beliefs, to add insult to injury.

Such treatment should cause anybody (except for perhaps the incredibly, genetically calm Sam Harris) to roll his eyes in astonishment.

Dawkins lives in a crazy, savage world of juveniles and fairy tales, and he WANTS IT TO CHANGE... NOW. He senses the urgency of the matter, and he is impatient of those who would suggest otherwise, and their "softer" methods.

I'm heterosexual, but I LOVE Richard Dawkins, in the truest sense of that word I can muster.

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18. Comment #231535 by Border Collie on August 16, 2008 at 2:00 pm

Flawless ...

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19. Comment #231556 by mdowe on August 16, 2008 at 2:30 pm

I quite liked how the slides were inserted into the video so we could get a clear look at them. Well done!

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20. Comment #231590 by justaminute on August 16, 2008 at 3:48 pm

A couple of observations.

First, an argument that runs like this falls:
1) There are hundreds of ideas that people believe in that are wrong, therefore
2 ) All ideas that people believe in are wrong.

Simply asserting that most religions are false doesn't make all of them false.

As science is a tool for measuring certain types of phenomena it's not much use for measuring things that fall outside its types. A pair of bathroom scales would be ideal for measuring my weight but useless for measuring the love I have for my wife. It is both true that I weigh around 80kg and that I love my wife.

It's as senseless to try and deny the supernatural on the grounds that science cannot measure it as it is for my wife to claim that I don't love her because the bathroom scales can't measure it.

Second I can understand the argument that everything that has a beginning must have a cause. But it's entirely logical to argue that there may exist an intelligent being who created time space and matter and that that being was not caused because he / it did not have a beginning.

I am not trying to prove that such a being exists, merely wishing to establish that such a being may exist.

I've never met the person who designed the keyboard I'm typing on but that does not mean that s/he doesn't exist. This is an argument by analogy, so too is the argument by design.

Scientific naturalists understandably rail against supernatural explanations because they clash with their belief system but they are quite happy to invoke significant amounts of 'luck' to bolster up the gaps in their science.

RD is a great story teller but I reckon there's some large holes in his logic.

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21. Comment #231592 by Quetzalcoatl on August 16, 2008 at 3:54 pm

Second I can understand the argument that everything that has a beginning must have a cause

Not necessarily.

But it's entirely logical to argue that there may exist an intelligent being who created time space and matter and that that being was not caused because he / it did not have a beginning

Actually, it's not logical at all, not least because the concept of something happening "before" the beginning of time is itself a logical impossibility.

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22. Comment #231593 by J Mac on August 16, 2008 at 3:55 pm

I've never met the person who designed the keyboard I'm typing on but that does not mean that s/he doesn't exist. This is an argument by analogy, so too is the argument by design.

But the person who designed your keyboard must have more design than the keyboard. Therefore it is fair to question where that person (and his/her intelligence came from.)

Scientific naturalists understandably rail against supernatural explanations because they clash with their belief system but they are quite happy to invoke significant amounts of 'luck' to bolster up the gaps in their science.

You presented your case respectfully so I'd like to respond respectfully, but this portion displays gross ignorance of science. Where exactly is "luck" needed to bolster anything in science?

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23. Comment #231595 by Apathy personified on August 16, 2008 at 4:00 pm

First, an argument that runs like this falls:
1) There are hundreds of ideas that people believe in that are wrong, therefore
2 ) All ideas that people believe in are wrong.

Strawman alert: No one uses that argument, no point in bringing it up.

Scientific naturalists understandably rail against supernatural explanations because they clash with their belief system but they are quite happy to invoke significant amounts of 'luck' to bolster up the gaps in their science.

*sigh* First, explain what you mean by scientific naturalism, then explain why it is a belief system. Second, when is 'luck' seriously used in any scientific discourse?

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24. Comment #231603 by thewhitepearl on August 16, 2008 at 4:16 pm

RD is a great story teller but I reckon there's some large holes in his logic

Like?

[edit]

Oy I see you have made quite a few silly statements. I shall address them when my patience returns.

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25. Comment #231606 by J Mac on August 16, 2008 at 4:21 pm

But it's entirely logical to argue that there may exist an intelligent being who created time space and matter...

And the existence of such a thing doesn't even raise your curiosity?

It seems that theists must be the people that hear "Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain" and respond "Durh, okay, whatever you say."

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26. Comment #231612 by chewedbarber on August 16, 2008 at 4:38 pm

Simply asserting that most religions are false doesn't make all of them false.

Apathy personified is polite to call this a strawman. That might imply that you understood some argument but in your frustration at being unable to counter it you invented this. But you have not even understood what was really a very simple point.

If all these religions are false, then can we at least entertain the idea that yours is false? This is not an argument against religion. It is a response to religions attempt to immunize itself to criticism. Something that can only succeed if the faithful are allowed to forget that all other religions are false, and how we determined that they are.

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27. Comment #231614 by NewEnglandBob on August 16, 2008 at 4:48 pm

20. Comment #231590 by justaminute

You forget that there is no evidence whatsoever for a supernatural being. RD's logic is not flawed, your statements are specious. What tool are YOU using for that supernatural being possibly existing? DUHness?

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28. Comment #231618 by J Mac on August 16, 2008 at 4:56 pm

What tool are YOU using for that supernatural being

If I may rephrase that I think it can be said better:

What a tool you are for using that supernatural being.

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29. Comment #231621 by Lucas on August 16, 2008 at 5:09 pm

As science is a tool for measuring certain types of phenomena it's not much use for measuring things that fall outside its types. A pair of bathroom scales would be ideal for measuring my weight but useless for measuring the love I have for my wife. It is both true that I weigh around 80kg and that I love my wife.

It's as senseless to try and deny the supernatural on the grounds that science cannot measure it as it is for my wife to claim that I don't love her because the bathroom scales can't measure it.

Ah, justaminute here seems to be of the camp that thinks that there is some other world beyond the physical one that cannot be described by science. It's a simple misunderstanding of the nature of the unknown. Your love for your wife, my friend, can indeed be measured by the tools of science, though perhaps not just yet. While there will always be a horizon to what is known, beyond which is the unknown, it is incorrect to assume that this unknown is thus unknowable. And it is idle conjecture to imagine what might be sitting there, unknown and unmeasured. This can be entertaining, for sure, but it does not do as a description of reality.

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30. Comment #231674 by Kiwi on August 16, 2008 at 8:50 pm

Thanks Josh, I hope the Q&A comes soon, I always find that the most interesting part, having heard the main lecture several times before. It is good to see the slides.

Justaminute, imagine you lived before the invention of the telescope. The fact that the tools to see the moons of Jupiter did not exist did not influence their existence at that time. Nor did it mean that the odds of them existing or not, if someone had imagined them, were 50:50. Science simply requires evidence for meaningful comments to be made. One can hypothesise the teapot, but if unsupported by evidence, it remains an hypothesis.

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31. Comment #231727 by Styrer- on August 16, 2008 at 11:59 pm

Comment #231590 by justaminute on August 16, 2008 at 3:48 pm

Justaminute

The time it took you to write your above 'piece' is far, far more than the time it would have taken you to read the same length of text of, say, the opening pages of 'The Blind Watchmaker'.

Permit me to suggest that you are using your time unwisely. And that you are equally extravagantly wasting my own time by irritating me so much that I feel I have no alternative but to place your utter stupidity in the spotlight by way of this fucking paragraph.

Now fuck off and read a book. The above-referenced will prove a useful start.

Styrer

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32. Comment #231739 by lastgreekstanding on August 17, 2008 at 12:58 am

Styrer said,

Permit me to suggest that you are using your time unwisely. And that you are equally extravagantly wasting my own time by irritating me so much that I feel I have no alternative but to place your utter stupidity in the spotlight by way of this fucking paragraph.

Now fuck off and read a book. The above-referenced will prove a useful start.

What a frustrated creature you are, Styrer!

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33. Comment #231740 by Styrer- on August 17, 2008 at 1:08 am

Comment #231739 by lastgreekstanding on August 17, 2008 at 12:58 am

Oh yes, my little theistic enemy, do not doubt it. Frustrated indeed, and angered, by all of your lot's duplicitous shenanigans.

But you've been rumbled, my old son. By minds greater than both yours and mine, but whose offerings we can both understand.

Now where was that evidence for a deity that you were going to provide? In response to the many, many posts on other threads which have requested such?

Got anything yet? Nope. Didn't think so.

Frustrated, me? By the notion that dickheads such as yourself stand between children and knowledge of science? Between myth and truth? By the knowledge that you are wasting the evolutionarily granted brain between your ears on making a positive supernaturalist fest of NOT understanding the world around you?

You bet your fucking arse.

Styrer

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34. Comment #231748 by Vaal on August 17, 2008 at 1:49 am

Styrer

I have to agree with you. The site is starting to become tedious having to incessantly refute people so credulous and with the same woolly headed and frankly infantile non-arguments.

In fact, since I have been on RD net, I have never heard a theist argument that is even worth bothering to reply to, they are so weak and insipid, and quite frankly, embarrassing. The Flea books are a joke. Even the more intelligent and articulate theists argue from a position of personal incredulity, and vagueness beyond belief. The stupider theists just come across as deranged. It is tragic and breath-taking that human beings can be so easily brain-washed. I have often wondered how Hitler managed to turn a modern intelligent well educated European nation into Nazi automatons, but the similarities to religious brain-washing are striking.

I have always considered the idea of God/Gods as idiotic. It may have been OK in the dawn of human history when we had no idea of the mechanisms of nature, and where people believed that a supernatural crutch was required to ensure their crops survived, that their hunt would be successful, that the weather would be clement, that their local volcano wouldn't blow up, but for people to really believe in supernaturalism now is frankly ludicrous, verging on insanity.

Of course, religious leaders from the first Shaman in a cave saw that religion is a powerful tool of control, and a free lunch. Nothing much has changed there. Look at the wonderful example of Islam.

Now, we are all used to the label of a bigot, or not understanding "theology" and the rest of these turgid excuses, so OK, we have been listening and waiting to be convinced, and if these dreadful arguments are the best that the theists can come up with, then the sooner religion dies a natural death the better for humanity and reason.

Please, let's have some new arguments, not the same old rampant rubbish regurgitated again and again and again.

EDIT: A prime example Mr Robertson on another thread saying absolutely nothing, other than the usual "smoke and mirrors". Tedious personified.

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35. Comment #231751 by geehigh on August 17, 2008 at 2:07 am

To Justaminute or anyone else who gives credibility to the argument from design.

It is far too tedious to constantly repeat the same old arguments against your viewpoints on this forum.

Instead, I would respectfully recommended that you watch RD's 'Growing Up in the Universe' lectures (specifically lectures 3 and 5), and Carl Sagan's 'Cosmos - Episode 2: One Voice in the Cosmic Fugue'.

Not only will you find your position challenged and refuted, but you find that it is done so through practical examples.

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36. Comment #231756 by Jesus86 on August 17, 2008 at 2:22 am

RD seems puzzled why we tend to give irrational religious notions so much polite deference.

Isn't it precisely because of its irrationality that we need to treat religion with some care? Causing an irrational person offense just might lead them to do something irrational. Offending the irrational can be like poking a bear with a stick. Remember:

"A good cause to die for is also a good cause to kill for." -Camus

It's that kind of logic that leads to religious violence, because every true believer thinks their religion is worth dying for (at least in principle). That's why we have have constitutional protections for freedom of religion. As long as those nuts can be restrained from going around poking each other with sticks, the rest of us might enjoy some peace around here.

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37. Comment #231766 by d4m14n on August 17, 2008 at 3:17 am

We treat all religions with respect precisely because "offending" the religious provokes an offended reaction. A clever little trick in the memeplex of religions, but one that they shouldn't get away with any longer.

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38. Comment #231820 by HourglassMemory on August 17, 2008 at 6:41 am

I often think about this "being offended" reaction people have because of their religious stances.

Why should anyone be offended about their opinion on the origins of the universe?
If you think about it, it's not something that would affect us personally in our daily lives, unless you believed it was so, and that's exactly what religions do.
For now we don't know what lies beyond, and that should be enough, to simply live in ignorance of those truths and work towards them with Science.
Without religions, if we did find out the origins and it all finally fit into place...it would just be a curious little fact about the universe, just like it is a curious little fact that gravity makes planets out of clumps of matter, and three generations later, that fact would be a given and people would go on with their daily lives.
It is religions that indoctrinate people into putting emotions in these "possible realities". That there's a Jesus that judges those nasty gays and listens to you, and that there's this recycling of souls that won't let you die and the only possible outcome is happiness and completeness of your Karma.
The reason people bother with these ultimate questions so vehemently and passionately the way they do is because they weren't taught to do otherwise. They were put into this circular position where many cannot escape from. Those who taught them to behave like this thought it was important, and they thoguht so because they were taught so.

They get offended because they think the answers to these big questions concern them as individuals, when it really shouldn't. We don't know if it does concern us. Why do they bother with having faith? What is the reason that makes them think that having faith in the answers to those big questions is important? Why do they think that the answer is going to have "Human" or "You" in the sentence? Is there really any good reason besides "I was taught to do so" either directly or indirectly.

If we were all taught that when we lost things it was because of fairies and goblins were taking care of our possessions, and that they took them away because we have a magic influence which those fairies depend on to fight the goblins, and if the world took it as seriously as it takes religion seriously today, we'd start having people getting offended when we told them that those fairies weren't there. It wouldn't be surprising seeing them claim that their life had no meaning now, it had no magic influence on their objects or was now a complete disorder because their conception of "possession" had just been ripped apart.
Science is getting closer and closer to covering the grounds where this sort of beliefs lie. We're already capable of saying if it's likely or not if there is a god.
They have no reason to invest their time on these beliefs besides tradition. And they take it without question, since childhood.
They're indoctrinated into depending on those beliefs so they can just have a stable mind.

It makes me very sad when they start saying "I need it" or "I don't know what I would do if I didn't believe...".
It's sad that they can't go beyond that. That they can't get out of themselves for once and put their existence into perspective. It's always this "personal experience".
Never having been in a religious environment during my childhood, those statements to me are simply outlandish and disturbing. They really do sound awkward and strange to me. Every time Jesus was mentioned I raised my eyebrows or felt awkward in the presence of the person. I still do.
I would literally feel as if I was in a madhouse if I was to find myself inside a megachurch.

I wish I could express myself better. I feel that I haven't really nailed this feeling I have about people caring so much for things that we really have no reason to invest our emotions in yet.

I just feel that if we invest our emotions so much before we have any evidence, and then we find out it's the opposite, or not at all what we thought, it just gets us disappointed.
Like I usually say, and I bet I'm not the only one who has thought this "It's better to think nothing will happen and be surprised than to think everything will happen and be disappointed".
Or in shorter words "Don't expect the best in life, then you won't be disappointed".

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39. Comment #231840 by J Mac on August 17, 2008 at 7:20 am

Hourglass,

well said throughout the post, I'd like respond to one bit:

..."personal experience".
Never having been in a religious environment during my childhood, those statements to me are simply outlandish and disturbing. They really do sound awkward and strange to me.

As someone who was raised in a christian environment - and I do mean christian, it wasn't until my late teens that I met a single individual who would even think to question any of the dogma - I have had the types of experiences these people talk about. When interpreting everything in terms of spirits and ghosts is so highly encouraged it is easy to fall into. Never would any christian upon hearing about a "personal experience" ask the obvious question of "Are you sure it wasn't something you ate?"

The human mind can create lavish detailed images and can interpret stimuli in various ways. If someone starts with a foolish bias it is easy to experience and be completely convinced of foolish ideas.

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40. Comment #231841 by J Mac on August 17, 2008 at 7:22 am

RD is absolutely right in calling the indoctrination of children Abuse. And when a young mind is subjected to intense, unrelenting psychological abuse that mind can create a whole new reality.

As negative of a picture as that paints I have no intent to play the victim, in fact dealing with all that crap has immunized me against all the other flavors of bullshit in the world (alternative medicine, used car sales men, tv evangelists).

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41. Comment #231855 by Saerain on August 17, 2008 at 7:52 am

Come to Harvard University. I'll drive across the state, pay the admission fee, and... why not throw in my soul as well.

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42. Comment #231915 by Peacebeuponme on August 17, 2008 at 10:06 am

I wish Richard hadn't done that bit 'challenging' god to intervene and settle matters. It's a bit cheap and unsophisticated.

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43. Comment #231926 by isthatclear on August 17, 2008 at 10:21 am

Abusing of Junior's mind

Junior 1: what are you doing here?
Junior 2: I am waiting my Rubik's cube is done.
Junior 1: Are you nuts? You got to do it yourself.
Junior 2: No! The new Biology teacher Mr Dawkins told me that I have to wait for the coincidences to make Rubik's cube is done. He said " it will happen the same way DNA was made in the first place.
Junior 1: Did he say "how long you will have to wait for?
Junior 2: No?
Junior 1: I am kidding. Just leave it. Let's go to the movies.
Junior 2: But he will be angry if I don't tell the result?
Junior 1: Okay give it tome. (five minutes later) there you go it is done.
Junior 2: Let me take it to him.


Junior 2: Mr dawkins, it is done. You are right. There was a sudden sand storm and in five minutes, cube is done.

Dawkins (stomping on his feet) I knew it. I was right. I give you A plus. Good boy.
Junior 2. Thank you Mr dawkins.

Junior 1: How did it go?
Junior 2: Perfect. I got an A plus.
Junior 1: everybody did the same in class. They made it but they said, coincidences. Let's go to the movies.
Junior 2: Which movie is on?
Junior 1: Evolution.

The name Mr Dawkins is just a coincidence. It has nothing to do with the one at the Berkeley, who gave a lecture to the students with the blank looks..

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44. Comment #231936 by J Mac on August 17, 2008 at 10:34 am

Awe damn, if ever there was a need for a cricket bat.

Steve wasn't that you who implied we should give more substantial replies to these fucktards.

I've tried to think of something to say to isthatclear, but all that I can come up with is:

IsThatClear is a fucking wack-job lunatic with less sense than a steaming pile of horse shit whose mother should have swallowed!

Of course the name IsThatClear is just a coincidence. It has nothing to do with the previous poster isthatclear who gave a rant to the forum full of people who think he's a fucktard.

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45. Comment #231938 by Corylus on August 17, 2008 at 10:42 am

Re Wooter/Wipeout/Clearmind/isthatclear

I have just been marking as both 'troll' and 'spam' and then ignoring.

Simply not worth any other response.

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46. Comment #231978 by D'Arcy on August 17, 2008 at 11:38 am

Classic stuff From Richard:

Professor Hawkins has promulgated an offical dogma, binding on all true Hawkinsians, that an asteroid killed the dinosaurs

Me wonders if this Hawkins is the same Jim Hawkins found on Treasure Island with Long John Silver. It's the theologians stuck with their wooden legs, who can only snarl uselessly at those who can move and progress past them in the pusuit of knowledge. Religion has always acted as a crutch for the oppressed, but it never solves their problems.

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47. Comment #231991 by Wosret on August 17, 2008 at 11:54 am

20. Comment #231590 by justaminute

First, an argument that runs like this falls:
1) There are hundreds of ideas that people believe in that are wrong, therefore
2 ) All ideas that people believe in are wrong.

Simply asserting that most religions are false doesn't make all of them false.

This isn't even his argument, but you are still wrong.

If 99% of a class of idea, methodology, or mode of thought can be demonstrated to be flawed, and the remaining 1% cannot be shown to be fundamentally different, but instead can be shown to parallel with the other 99% exactly then it does very much imply that it is also wrong.

By that logic if I said that pink winged fairies exist, and this is proven false. This does not imply that blue winged ones, or red winged ones do not exist. If they are fundamentally the same class of thing, then disproving the bulk of them, discredits the remainder.

Though, remember, RD never even made this argument. His argument is an argument by analogy. He is saying that for the same reasons people believed those "false" religions in antiquity people believe the current ones today, and for the same reasons that you don't accept those ancient religions, he does not accept yours. Because yours cannot be shown to be fundamentally different than others. The only rational thing is to dismiss the whole class of them until evidence can be established.

It's as senseless to try and deny the supernatural on the grounds that science cannot measure it as it is for my wife to claim that I don't love her because the bathroom scales can't measure it.

False analogy. Love is not a magical thing that cannot be measured by any means, or a different between its existence and nonexistence cannot be given. It is measurable, evidence can be gathered, and demonstrated. When people watch romances, they very much can tell the difference between the presence and absence of love. No one on earth can even describe a difference between the presence and absence of an incorporeal, invisible, supernatural being that has no demonstrable effect on the world, and no being at all. I challenge you to describe the difference.

Second I can understand the argument that everything that has a beginning must have a cause. But it's entirely logical to argue that there may exist an intelligent being who created time space and matter and that that being was not caused because he / it did not have a beginning.

Firstly, no one makes that argument, Most fundamentally it is merely logically impossible. A cause is an event that precedes another event, an event cannot precede time, that is incoherent. Time is the measurement of chronology. Time having a cause makes about as much sense as square-triangles. It in fact also contradicts physical hypothesis for the origin of the universe, and observations of particles on the subatomic scale. RD's argument in this case is simply one of reduction. It is an argument against the idea of complexity necessitating design, not beginning. Nothing beyond subatomic particles have ever been observed truly "beginning" things within the universe come about by the reformation of already existing matter. They come into being by definition alone. Clay is not a pot, but when you form it to fit the definition of a pot, it does not pop into existence, what makes it up was already in existence. As far as we know, this is true for everything in the universe on the macroscopic scale...and if string theory is true, including the universe itself, and even subatomic particles. Nothing would have a true beginning, but merely being the reformation of things already in existence.

Something existing outside of space/time is definitely illogical, it contradicts the meanings of the words. What does existence mean if not to occupy space and time? To take up space, to hold a position in a location at a point? Due explain?

Scientific naturalists understandably rail against supernatural explanations because they clash with their belief system but they are quite happy to invoke significant amounts of 'luck' to bolster up the gaps in their science.

I had no idea that there was a scientific supernaturalism? Perhaps you could explain how that method works?...It would surely refute Hume, and make you a very famous man/woman.

RD is a great story teller but I reckon there's some large holes in his logic.

I think you need to spend more time worrying whether your logic is sound rather than valid.

P1) all supernatural entities have purple hair
P2) Yahweh is a supernatural entity
C1) Yahweh has purple hair.

That is a logically valid deductive argument, that proves Yahweh has purple hair. Though it doesn't count for much if I can't render my premises sound through actual investigating of the world. Believing something on logical validity alone is asinine, I can prove anything I want if I just get to make up my premises.

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48. Comment #231992 by isthatclear on August 17, 2008 at 11:55 am

(Simply not worth any other response)

to reply my comments in the same way using both humor and logic requires a high IQ so you can't.

Other Comments by isthatclear

49. Comment #231994 by Diacanu on August 17, 2008 at 11:57 am

test

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50. Comment #232009 by Sargeist on August 17, 2008 at 12:25 pm

Diacanu,

test

Sometimes that is all one can say to some of the things posted here!

(Although you missed the "es" off the end.)

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