Origins Thread

Do you believe in evolution?

  • Total voters
    16
Tiger said:
Atheists are so lazy minded, they’re always parroting Dawkins and Ricky Gervais. They haven’t original thought between them.
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Well, how do you resolve this problem?
 
Myles O'Reilly said:
And Tiger thinks it was right for the Taoiseach and his Cabinet not to go into the funeral of Ireland's first President.

Never mind that Hyde's was just a slightly different strand of the same religion/deity as the morons outside in the rain.

It’s way beyond childish because a child would not believe in such rubbish.
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Genuine question - Why do you have a big hard-on for Proddy’s Myles?

You’ve never fully explained why that is.
 
Tiger said:
Genuine question - Why do you have a big hard-on for Proddy’s Myles? You’ve never fully explained why that is.
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I've no hard on for Prods or Taigs. I've a hard on for exposing tiny minded bigots whether they're Prod or Taig.
 
Fishalt said:
That you're in a deity lottery. How do you know you're worshipping the right one in the right way?
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You say there's been 50,000 deities. Well not only does Tiger dismiss the other 49,999, he dismisses those who believe in the same particular deity he does :LOL:
 
Fishalt said:
That you're in a deity lottery. How do you know you're worshipping the right one in the right way?
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Earlier on, Myles claimed that the existence of a parasite disproved God. Now you're claiming that the existence of false religions means there can be no true God. It's shocking how shallow and lazy minded atheists can be. They never challenge their own stance. Instead, they just parrot Gervais and Dawkins ad infinitum - "Sky fairy" this and "You don't believe in one less God than me" that. Hopeless stuff. Just hopeless.

The “many gods” argument is rhetorical laziness, not reasoning. The existence of countless false gods no more disproves the true God than the existence of false scientific theories disproves objective science. Error only exists in relation to truth. A world full of broken compasses does not mean there is no north. What matters is not the number of claims, but whether any one of them corresponds to reality. Christianity uniquely invites that test because it stakes everything on events in history, not on private visions or abstract philosophy.

Christianity; and specifically Catholicism, does not claim merely that God exists, but that God entered history, acted publicly, suffered publicly, and left behind public consequences. Jesus Christ did not appear in mythic time or speak in riddles about hidden enlightenment; He was executed by a known Roman authority, in a known place, at a known time, and His resurrection was proclaimed immediately in the same city where He was killed; something no fabricated myth survives. The Church that He founded has persisted for two thousand years under persecution, internal corruption, and constant prediction of collapse, yet remains historically continuous in doctrine, sacrament, and authority.

As for knowing which God and how He wants man to live, Catholicism does not rest on private feeling or cultural habit. It rests on public acts in history that did not occur in a corner. At Fatima in 1917, over 70,000 people, including atheists and journalists, witnessed the sun move in the sky, descend, and instantly dry a rain-soaked crowd; an event predicted in advance and reported in the world’s media, including hostile secular outlets like the New York Times. Catholic saints are not vague legends but documented cases of incorrupt bodies, preserved for centuries and emitting fragrances traditionally associated with sanctity, defying ordinary biological decay. These are not philosophical claims; they are physical anomalies.

To this we can add Eucharistic miracles, where consecrated hosts have been documented transforming into cardiac tissue bearing human DNA, repeatedly analysed and consistently pointing to the same findings across different times and places. Or the Shroud of Turin, an object that encodes three-dimensional image data in a way no medieval technology could reproduce, depicting a crucified man matching the Gospel accounts with forensic precision. These are not proofs forced on anyone, but they are cumulative signs that Christianity is not merely one mythology among thousands, it is a religion that stubbornly refuses to stay in the realm of the purely symbolic.

Of the thousands of NDE’s studied in the scientific literature; were dead people returned to life, they exclusively report witnessing Jesus. This is regardless of their religion during life or what part of the world they are from. Nobody is meeting Krishna or Mohammed in these studies.

There's also many personal experiences that have played a part in my faith. I witnessed my pregnant wife falling on a stairs and being caught, held and laid down gently by an invisible force which she said was her guardian angel.

Finally, the claim that belief is “just where you were born” collapses under scrutiny. If that were true, then disbelief is equally accidental, and no one has grounds to claim intellectual superiority. Yet you plainly assume you stand above belief. Catholicism survives this reduction because it does not ask to be preserved as a cultural comfort. It asserts that God has spoken, acted, judged history, and revealed the meaning of suffering through His law; and that claim can be examined, resisted, or rejected, but not dismissed by counting false gods and calling it insight.
 
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Myles O'Reilly said:
You say there's been 50,000 deities. Well not only does Tiger dismiss the other 49,999, he dismisses those who believe in the same particular deity he does :LOL:
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Protestants don’t believe in the same triune God of Catholics Myles. See that’s were you are wrong.

You’re pretty much always wrong.
 
Myles O'Reilly said:
I've no hard on for Prods or Taigs. I've a hard on for exposing tiny minded bigots whether they're Prod or Taig.
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Yes you do Myles. You’re just too ashamed to admit it.

You had an inexplicable mickey-fit because I had no interest in attending the proddy imitation of the Catholic pilgrimage at Walsingham. That can’t be explained without acknowledging your fetish for Protestantism and its adherents.
 
Myles O'Reilly said:
No I didn't. I said that if there is a God he's put some very evil shit in his design.
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Liar.

This is the quote where you were debating divine design with Hermit, claiming that God cannot exist because of….

“Even the insect who's sole purpose is to dig into an African child's eyes and eat them?”

Factually untrue and a stupid argument on the face of it.
 
Tiger said:
Protestants don’t believe in the same triune God of Catholics Myles. See that’s were you are wrong.
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So in terms of people getting to heaven you've ruled out all non-Christians and half the Christians as well.

In fact you probably rule out non-practicing Catholics and those who don't attend the Latin mass you do.

So overall, out of the 8 billion or so people on earth, how many qualify to get through the Pearly Gates?

It must be a very small number (although you're one of them of course).
 
Tiger said:
Liar. This is the quote where you were debating divine design with Hermit, claiming that God cannot exist because of….“Even the insect who's sole purpose is to dig into an African child's eyes and eat them?” Factually untrue and a stupid argument on the face of it.
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You're the liar who's constantly making things up.

I didn't say there is no God. I said he/it must be very nasty if he/it does in fact exist.
 
Myles O'Reilly said:
You're the liar who's constantly making things up.

I didn't say there is no God. I said he/it must be very nasty if he/it does in fact exist.
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You were quoting a sexually deviant Jew who likes young boys.

His argument was precisely to explain that God cannot exist because of the existence of suffering. If I had a euro for every ding dong that brought up that stupid Gay Byrne interview as prove of something, I’d be a rich man.

Throw in quotes from Gervais, Dawkins and Hitchens and I’d be wealthier than Elon Musk.
 
His response to Byrne was if there was a God what kind of God would it be.

You come up with some bullshit about suffering even though there's no rhyme nor reason to it. Some mostly avoid it, others are subjected to it relentlessly.

Your God - if he exists - is an unjust one.
 
Tiger said:
Earlier on, Myles claimed that the existence of a parasite disproved God. Now you're claiming that the existence of false religions means there can be no true God. It's shocking how shallow and lazy minded atheists can be. They never challenge their own stance. Instead, they just parrot Gervais and Dawkins ad infinitum - "Sky fairy" this and "You don't believe in one less God than me" that. Hopeless stuff. Just hopeless.

The “many gods” argument is rhetorical laziness, not reasoning. The existence of countless false gods no more disproves the true God than the existence of false scientific theories disproves objective science. Error only exists in relation to truth. A world full of broken compasses does not mean there is no north. What matters is not the number of claims, but whether any one of them corresponds to reality. Christianity uniquely invites that test because it stakes everything on events in history, not on private visions or abstract philosophy.

Christianity; and specifically Catholicism, does not claim merely that God exists, but that God entered history, acted publicly, suffered publicly, and left behind public consequences. Jesus Christ did not appear in mythic time or speak in riddles about hidden enlightenment; He was executed by a known Roman authority, in a known place, at a known time, and His resurrection was proclaimed immediately in the same city where He was killed; something no fabricated myth survives. The Church that He founded has persisted for two thousand years under persecution, internal corruption, and constant prediction of collapse, yet remains historically continuous in doctrine, sacrament, and authority.

As for knowing which God and how He wants man to live, Catholicism does not rest on private feeling or cultural habit. It rests on public acts in history that did not occur in a corner. At Fatima in 1917, over 70,000 people, including atheists and journalists, witnessed the sun move in the sky, descend, and instantly dry a rain-soaked crowd; an event predicted in advance and reported in the world’s media, including hostile secular outlets like the New York Times. Catholic saints are not vague legends but documented cases of incorrupt bodies, preserved for centuries and emitting fragrances traditionally associated with sanctity, defying ordinary biological decay. These are not philosophical claims; they are physical anomalies.

To this we can add Eucharistic miracles, where consecrated hosts have been documented transforming into cardiac tissue bearing human DNA, repeatedly analysed and consistently pointing to the same findings across different times and places. Or the Shroud of Turin, an object that encodes three-dimensional image data in a way no medieval technology could reproduce, depicting a crucified man matching the Gospel accounts with forensic precision. These are not proofs forced on anyone, but they are cumulative signs that Christianity is not merely one mythology among thousands, it is a religion that stubbornly refuses to stay in the realm of the purely symbolic.

Of the thousands of NDE’s studied in the scientific literature; were dead people returned to life, they exclusively report witnessing Jesus. This is regardless of their religion during life or what part of the world they are from. Nobody is meeting Krishna or Mohammed in these studies.

There's also many personal experiences that have played a part in my faith. I witnessed my pregnant wife falling on a stairs and being caught, held and laid down gently by an invisible force which she said was her guardian angel.

Finally, the claim that belief is “just where you were born” collapses under scrutiny. If that were true, then disbelief is equally accidental, and no one has grounds to claim intellectual superiority. Yet you plainly assume you stand above belief. Catholicism survives this reduction because it does not ask to be preserved as a cultural comfort. It asserts that God has spoken, acted, judged history, and revealed the meaning of suffering through His law; and that claim can be examined, resisted, or rejected, but not dismissed by counting false gods and calling it insight.
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There's a lot about this that's pretty mad, Tiger. The sun moving towards earth even slightly would be catastrophic to the Earth's orbit, to say nothing of solar irradiance and presumably whatever atmospheric effects would correspond. I couldn't find anything in the NY times detailing this phenomenon. Not specifically. The Eucharistic miracles you speak of have only ever been validated by the Church, which obviously has an interest in them being validated.

The shroud of Turin has been carbon dated to the middle-ages. It appears to have been created by an artist some 1000 years after the death of Jesus Christ. No records of the shroud exist before this time, and Bishop D'Arcis declared the work a forgery in 1389, claiming to have received the artist's confession.

I agree with you on the last part, and this is actually my entire point. Our belief sets are determined by our lives and times. If I'd been born the son of a blacksmith in rural medieval England, I would absolutely not be an atheist--at least in all likelihood. However, not believing in something is not the same as being instructed in belief. These are fundamentally different things. I'm not saying I stand above belief. I'm saying what that we believe is culturally and chronologically determined.

And you still haven't solved the fundamental problem, which is how to determine whether the deity you worship is indeed the creator of the universe, and the moral code dictated by its prophets is the one to which we must subscribe to receive salvation. There are millions of Hindus who are as committed to their religion as you are to yours, for example.

There's also many personal experiences that have played a part in my faith. I witnessed my pregnant wife falling on a stairs and being caught, held and laid down gently by an invisible force which she said was her guardian angel.

I don't believe this happened. As even my Christian friends say, the rain falls on the good and the wicked.
 
Tiger said:
Liar.

This is the quote where you were debating divine design with Hermit, claiming that God cannot exist because of….

“Even the insect who's sole purpose is to dig into an African child's eyes and eat them?”

Factually untrue and a stupid argument on the face of it.
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He's right, though. There are some examples of life and natural processes that are incredibly horrific and even sadistic. Hard to conceive of a moral creator baking those in.
 
Tiger said:
Christianity; and specifically Catholicism, does not claim merely that God exists, but that God entered history, acted publicly, suffered publicly, and left behind public consequences.
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If humans have existed for around 100k years why did God sit back, arms folded and allow all sorts of mayhem for 98k years and only interfere 2k years ago?

Tiger said:
I witnessed my pregnant wife falling on a stairs and being caught, held and laid down gently by an invisible force which she said was her guardian angel.
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What in the holy fuck?!
 
Fishalt said:
There's a lot about this that's pretty mad, Tiger. The sun moving towards earth even slightly would be catastrophic to the Earth's orbit, to say nothing of solar irradiance and presumably whatever atmospheric effects would correspond. I couldn't find anything in the NY times detailing this phenomenon. Not specifically.
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Saying “there’s a lot that’s pretty mad about this” is an empty shallow dismissal, not a real argument.

The Miracle of the Sun was never a claim that the sun left its orbit; it was a public, local sign demonstrating God’s power over nature. Around 70,000 people witnessed it; including Freemasons, anticlerical journalists, and atheists who went to mock the apparitions, and the crowd reported the same sequence of unusual solar phenomena simultaneously.

Avelino de Almeida, editor of the secular O Século, went as a skeptic and wrote afterward that he saw “something extraordinary” he could not explain. Natural explanations miss the point entirely: the miracle was never about astrophysics, but about authority over nature witnessed publicly and predicted in advance, acknowledged even by hostile observers.

Clearly this isn’t a topic that you have engaged with seriously. You’re unfamiliar with it and outside of a 30 second search for a NY Times article, you have nothing. This fits with someone who parrots Ricky Gervais like he’s Aristotle.

 

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Why do you keep talking about Ricky fukking Gervais?

Neither of us even mentioned the man.

In any event, you can't even answer simple questions which suggests you know you're beat.
 
Fishalt said:
The shroud of Turin has been carbon dated to the middle-ages. It appears to have been created by an artist some 1000 years after the death of Jesus Christ. No records of the shroud exist before this time, and Bishop D'Arcis declared the work a forgery in 1389, claiming to have received the artist's confession.
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*yawn* The 1980's have just phoned and are looking for their Shroud of Turin knowledge back.

Your summary of the Shroud of Turin as a “medieval forgery” is outdated and oversimplified. The 1988 radiocarbon test dated a small corner of the cloth (which we now know was a on section that was repaired due to fire damage) to AD 1260 - 1390, but modern research has shown that those samples were contaminated, repaired, and unrepresentative of the whole linen. Environmental exposure, fire damage, and centuries of handling can all skew carbon results. Relying on a single, small test on a repaired section as proof of forgery is therefore scientifically naive and no scientist studying the shroud today pays any attention to the 1988 study. Likewise, the oft-cited Bishop d’Arcis memorandum does not record a confession of an artist producing the image; it merely expresses skepticism about a relic decades after its first public exhibitions.

Swiss criminologist- Max Frie identified more than 50 species of pollen on the Shroud which are native to the Jerusalem and Dead Sea regions, and not Europe. Showing that the cloth was present in the Middle East long before showing up in Europe.

Recent scientific work using wide-angle X-Ray scattering (WAXS) and spectroscopic aging techniques has produced dates consistent with the time of Christ. These methods are superior to carbon 14 dating were they analyse cellulose degradation over long timescales, not just isolated carbon content.

The Shroud itself, however, remains entirely inexplicable by any known pre-modern technique. The image is encoded in a way that conveys three-dimensional topography, with shading corresponding to the contours of a human body; something medieval artists could not even conceive, never mind bloody pull off convincingly. Forensic specialists confirm that the wounds and scourge marks perfectly match what is described in the Gospels regarding the Crucifixion. Blood stains are real, visible under ultraviolet light, and demonstrate serum separation patterns consistent with actual human blood. No medieval forger could have anticipated that future technology would reveal these microscopic details, much less reproduce them.

To date, no explanation (using all the knowledge of modern science, chemistry, optics, or textile technology) ; can account for how the image formed on the cloth. Some suggest a sudden burst of energy or light as a cause, but even these remain speculative because no known chemical or artistic process reproduces the image’s superficiality, 3D encoding, and anatomical precision simultaneously. The Shroud, in short, cannot be dismissed by medieval-forgery narratives; the evidence, from ultraviolet-visible blood to three-dimensional imaging, points to a phenomenon far beyond the reach of any medieval or human fabrication.

The idea that someone a thousand years ago could forge a cloth with realistic crucifixion wounds, real blood, encoded three-dimensional imagery, and UV-visible serum separation is laughable. Modern science continues to study the Shroud precisely because it remains an unsolved mystery, fully consistent with the traditional claim that it wrapped a crucified man; the historical Jesus.

To put this debate to bed can you answer the following questions :

1. How could a medieval forger, without knowledge of photography, computers, or three-dimensional mapping, create an image where the intensity of shading encodes the distance of body features from the cloth, producing a 3D representation detectable by modern imaging software?

2. How could someone in the 14th century deposit real human blood with serum separation, invisible under normal light but detectable under ultraviolet, in exactly the correct anatomical locations corresponding to scourge marks, puncture wounds, and crucifixion trauma; without leaving any pigment, stain, or brushwork on the fibers?

3. How could a medieval artist, with no medical training and no understanding of crucifixion mechanics, produce a cloth that accurately represents scourge patterns, thorn wounds, and post-mortem blood flows, matching what forensic experts today identify as consistent with execution by Roman crucifixion?

4. How could a forger create a superficial image that only affects the topmost fibers of the linen, leaving no pigment, paint, or dye penetration, yet forming a clear and detailed image visible to the naked eye; something modern science still cannot reproduce or fully explain?
 
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Aldo3 said:
Stephen Fry was memorably described as "a stupid person's idea of an intelligent person". He and a host of others have made a killing out of their "anti-theism".
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That’s a perfect description of Fry.
 
Still won't answer the question. Afraid to profess his own beliefs (on an anonymous Forum no less!).

Some Christian
 
Myles O'Reilly said:
Still won't answer the question. Afraid to profess his own beliefs (on an anonymous Forum no less!).

Some Christian
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I did answer your question.

You made a statement which I replied to directly and said it didn’t happen. So why would I go about explaining something that I didn’t believe happen.

How about you crawl out of whatever couch you’re sleeping on today and explain (with citations and evidence) to back up your argument?

Speaking of not actually answering questions, can you explain how the photographic negative image on the Shroud of Turin was created…?

Nope didn’t think so.
 
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Myles O'Reilly said:
You're the liar who's constantly making things up.

I didn't say there is no God. I said he/it must be very nasty if he/it does in fact exist.
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Myles, I'm genuinely interested to hear what exactly a world without suffering would look like. You seem to have a concept that if there is indeed a God, that our world would be very different. Can you explain what you would expect to see? Is there a Satan in this version of your 'God-World'? Or is it just unicorns and ice-cream parties all day?

When someone says “if God exists, He’s very nasty (cruel),” they rarely stop to specify what kind of world they think a non-cruel God should have created. A world with no suffering is not a world like ours minus pain; it is a fundamentally different kind of reality.

Would such a world include free will, the genuine ability to choose good or evil; or would all choices be pre-programmed to avoid harm? Would we be happy robots like the inhabitants of the new Pluribus show on Apple TV? Because the moment free will exists, the possibility of moral failure, injustice, and suffering exists with it. Remove that possibility, and you haven’t created a moral world at all, but a padded enclosure of automatons.

This exposes the hidden contradiction. People want a world with real love, courage, sacrifice, and moral responsibility, but without the conditions that make those things possible. Love without the ability to reject it is not love. Courage without danger is not courage. Moral goodness without the ability to do evil is not goodness; it is mere behavior. To demand a world with freedom but without the cost of freedom is to ask for a logical impossibility, not a better design.
The accusation of cruelty also assumes that suffering is always gratuitous and never redemptive. But that assumption collapses under scrutiny. Even in ordinary human experience, suffering can shape character, clarify values, expose truth, and awaken conscience in ways comfort never does.

Christianity does not claim that all suffering is transparently justified, only that its meaning is not exhausted by our immediate perspective. To insist that no possible reason could justify suffering is to claim a God’s-eye view while denying God.

Christianity goes further than abstract theism by rejecting the idea that God inflicts suffering from a distance. It claims that God enters history, accepts unjust suffering Himself, and allows His own creation to judge and execute Him. Whatever else one thinks of that claim, it decisively contradicts the caricature of a sadistic deity. A cruel god would remain untouched; the Christian God bears the wound. The problem of suffering is not ignored, it is answered with participation.

So the real issue is not whether suffering exists, but whether reality is ordered toward meaning beyond immediate comfort. A world engineered to eliminate all suffering would also eliminate freedom, responsibility, and moral depth. The Christian claim is not that this is the easiest world to inhabit, but that it is the only kind of world in which love, truth, and genuine moral good can exist at all.

I expect that you won't give a proper reposnse to this. However, I look forward to be proven wrong.
 
Tiger said:
I did answer your question.
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You didn't. You said something didn't happen and I don't know what you're talking about.

You mean God didn't afterall interfere in human affairs roughly 98k years since humans existed?

What are you talking about?
 
Myles O'Reilly said:
You didn't. You said something didn't happen and I don't know what you're talking about.

You mean God didn't afterall interfere in human affairs roughly 98k years since humans existed?

What are you talking about?
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You made this statement…

“If humans have existed for around 100k years why did God sit back, arms folded and allow all sorts of mayhem for 98k years and only interfere 2k years ago?”

I don’t think what you’ve written happened, so why would I bother try to explain it?
 
That God didn't just watch on for all that time and then decide to send down his Son?
 
Myles O'Reilly said:
Answer the question you cowardly son of a bitch :mad:
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Here’s the thing Myles…

You ask questions like a 4 year old kid in the back of a car - “Hey Dad, why did God make lions with sharp teeth so that they can eat us” - you never put any thought into your gormless questions and NEVER answer any of mine.

So, here’s the deal, not only will I answer your question, but I’ll actually re-write to be less garbled and more akin to something an adult might ask in an adult conversation.

However, before wasting my time doing that can you do me a favour of earning the duty of constantly responding to your child-like queries by answering my questions about the Shroud of Turin and the type of world you envision if God actually existed. Until you do this you haven’t earned the right of my reply.
 
No. I asked you first.

What is it precisely about my question are you saying didn't happen?
 
You're such a coward. You've no strength in your convictions.

I can hear the Rooster crowing 3 times from here.
 
Myles O'Reilly said:
You're such a coward. You've no strength in your convictions.

I can hear the Rooster crowing 3 times from here.
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You’re the coward.

Here’s the dynamic, you ask a question or raise a point like a 4 year old….I answer the question in great detail and then it’s left with no response….

Which is me wasting my time.

Example:

Yesterday you raised the issue of the Gay BBC Jew (who has a fondness for young boys) and his contention that if there is a God that he is cruel. I took time out of my day today to respond in great detail about how that assertion is infantile and doesn’t make any sense. You haven’t replied to it and you’re not going to because it would involve engaging with grey matter.

In point of fact you never respond when I engage you in proper debate.

I could of course continue this one way dynamic of me going into great detail about how stupid your questions are, however I think it’s only fair that you attempt to have the decency to respond to my answers to your questions to earn the right to infinite responses to infinite questions.
 
I only ask you to explain your madcap beliefs. Yet you're not able to reply.

For example, if a Guardian angel grabbed your wife and stopped her from falling over, what force caused her to trip in the first place?
 
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