A few questions for fellow atheists

[curtsibling]

@zen;

All too true, I'm afraid...

If a person cannot free themselves from those childish and unreasoning fears of their own fanciful designs...

Then they are living a substitutional life, and are trapped in a cage of their own making.

If that is what some people want, then they should have it, and leave us be.

They may keep their faith at a safe distance.
No-one can convert me with such mental slavery.

[Archaic]

Originally posted by Frogman
Urban Ranger

I'm a chemical engineer, so I've had all the thermodynamics anyone ever needs. Sure its a big system, but I never could figure out why they said that eventually the whole universe was headed for a state where everything would be evenly dispersed and break down over time. Two things always seemed to me to work against this principle. One is Life the other is gravity. As smart as we think we are, and as well as we think we understand the workings of gravity, we still don't know what the hell it is. Life is even trickier.

The fact that life gets more complex, not less, certainly does defy the logic of entropy which would suggest things break down, lose information, move to lower energy states. In the big picture, I know this must be true, but why is it that there is this one area that advances in the opposite direction?

Appeal to Authority logical fallacy. Just because you're a chemical engineer doesn't mean you can't make mistakes, and in this case, you've made a rather significant one.

Now, before you or someone else bothers to point it out, the arguements below are pretty much copy/pasted almost word for word from Stardestroyer.net.

http://www.stardestroyer.net/Creationism/Arguments/Pseudoscience.shtml

The second law of thermodynamics has two basic postulates:
- All physical processes create entropy (microscopic disorder).
- The entropy of a closed system cannot decrease, ie- entropy can be created but not destroyed.

Now..

1) The entropy of a living organism can decrease, because a living organism is not a closed system. Since it is an open system, entropy can leave and enter. Entropy doesn't have to be destroyed- just moved. Food, water, and energy enter and leave your body all the time, thus making it an open system. Furthermore, an entire species is even less of a closed system than an individual life form, and evolution occurs from one generation to the next, not in a single organism as it ages.

2) Complexity is not the destruction of disorder or the creation of order. In fact, there is more disorder in complex systems, as any student of chaos theory (or government bureacracies) can tell you. There is far more entropy in a nuclear power plant than there is in an ice cube, and a pretty snowflake has much more complexity than the drop of water from whence it came.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by cyclotron7
That's an interesting take, but people who discover something to be morally wrong will continue to observe that even after the enforcer is removed.

That depends on two conditions:

1. There is an internal ethical compass
2. The ethical code remains unchanged

Neither of these is satisfied by the Christian morality. First of all, it states this morality exists outside of a person, not inside. Secondly, this morality comes from the Christian god, thus there is no gaurantee that it does not change from a second to another.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Frogman
I'm a chemical engineer, so I've had all the thermodynamics anyone ever needs. Sure its a big system, but I never could figure out why they said that eventually the whole universe was headed for a state where everything would be evenly dispersed and break down over time.

This is one of the hypotheses. The other one is Big Crunch.

Originally posted by Frogman
The fact that life gets more complex, not less, certainly does defy the logic of entropy which would suggest things break down, lose information, move to lower energy states. In the big picture, I know this must be true, but why is it that there is this one area that advances in the opposite direction?

The purest form of the Second Law of Thermodynamics is the usable energy in a closed system decreases over time. Randomness is one of the interpretations, but you don't see that in the formula.

As Archaic pointed out, even if I accept this interpretation, the Law does not prohibit the increase of order in part of the system at the expense of the rest of the system as long as the overall randomness increases. That's why we have the phenomenon of crystalisation.

Originally posted by Frogman
Here's my view of evolution in a nutshell. The laws that govern the universe made life possible under certain conditions, and wherever those conditions are met, life will form. There is a dna blueprint that starts at the cellular level. That dna changes on a timetable triggered by both environmental factors or perhaps even a counter. Once the dna change is triggered, a process of change takes place that is not dependent on chance but rather on an endpoint that will once again be stable.

How is your version more sensible than the prevalent version? You speak of an external timetable, how did it come about? Through what mechanism does it work on life on earth? What is this endpoint? Who or what defined it? Is it embedded in life itself or it is outside? If it is outside, where? If it is embedded, how can we find it?

So, still no answer and/or position on transitional forms?

[Elok]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger
As far as I can see, Christian morality is frightening because it requires an external threat to impose the code. All this talks of fear of god and hell as punishment.

Hoo boy. No. At least, not in Orthodox Christianity(what I am, and actually a rather large religion despite its obscurity in the western world). "The code," as it is, is for one's own good not because God is going to zap you good(although he may, who knows), but because it is believed to be the way we really are, or were, before the whole world went mad. All sin is in essence irrational behavior that hurt more than they harm; lies only lead to more lies just to maintain them, violence only hurts to no real benefit, and, well, let's not even start on the ways fooling around can make you unhappy. Sex is an act of total union, but it's regarded as no more serious than taking a walk. Ugh. Anyway, the point is not that evil makes the big man mad, but that you're better off without it. I have to go to class now, but I'll get back to ya later.

[Lincoln]

Logic leads to theism, not atheism: The Blind Atheist.
Even though this is a rough draft of the book the conclusions are still valid. Science cannot make a definitive satement about God so it is a lack of logic that uses science as the source of all truth.

[gunkulator]

Originally posted by Lincoln
Logic leads to theism, not atheism: The Blind Atheist.
Science cannot make a definitive satement about God

that should be gods, plural. There's no reason to leave out the others whom you, for whatever reason, choose not to believe in. While you're at it, you can include faeries, leprechauns and the whole gamut of supernatural beings.

so it is a lack of logic that uses science as the source of all truth.

AFAIK, no science or scientist has every claimed sole possession of all truth. Religions otoh...

[Jack the Bodiless]

Science tries to avoid making definitive statements about the unknown.

But ANYONE can make definitive statements about God. "God is your Lord and Master and he commands you to give all your money and nubile daughters to ME" is a definitive statement about God.

The question is whether this is an advantage of religion over science.

[DinoDoc]

Originally posted by Shi Huangdi
Not an atheist, but i'll still go up for an argument against the fundies....

Yeah, I miss Civie.

[SlowwHand]

[DaShi]

Do athiests believe in CBeasts?

[Arrian]

Ok, that's it! I've had it! WHAT THE HELL IS A CBEAST?

-Arrian

[Elok]

Hoo boy. No. At least, not in Orthodox Christianity(what I am, and actually a rather large religion despite its obscurity in the western world). "The code," as it is, is for one's own good not because God is going to zap you good(although he may, who knows), but because it is believed to be the way we really are, or were, before the whole world went mad. All sin is in essence irrational behavior that hurt more than they harm; lies only lead to more lies just to maintain them, violence only hurts to no real benefit, and, well, let's not even start on the ways fooling around can make you unhappy. Sex is an act of total union, but it's regarded as no more serious than taking a walk. Ugh. Anyway, the point is not that evil makes the big man mad, but that you're better off without it. I have to go to class now, but I'll get back to ya later.

Okay, I'm on break. Where was I? Oh yeah; like I was saying, there are different denominations of Christianity, of course, but I'm guessing there are others out there who focus on the individual rather than the whole wrath and smiting deal. I say that God defines ideals because, without a higher power, we are left with only our own reason, which has proven time and time again to be sadly lacking. Whether because of a devil giving us idiot ideas or for some other reason is a matter of personal opinion, but I think the most accurate picture of the Christian view of humanity is of good children who hang out with a bad crowd and get stupid ideas. As for the people who say, "believe or go to hell," well, stupid ideas come in many shapes and guises.
Take abortion, for example. Yes, I know you're all groaning now, but it's the best example I can think of at the moment. Most of the abortion argument centers around what point in the development of a fetus is the turning point at which it becomes "human." The logical answer is, "why the hell does it matter?" Whether you kill it while it's still an embryo or wait until it's fifty years out and shoot it, you're killing the exact same organism. If it's not human at any one point, it would be later, so abortion is essentially a pre-emptive attack against one's own conscience. That's not just rhetoric, it's plain scientific fact. Yet, for some reason, hundreds of thousands of people maintain that there's some magical point within a state of continuous development whereat it is no longer permissible to kill. That is not a reasonable assumption. Again, sorry to drag up an unrelated controversy, but it's the best thing that came to mind.
The point is guidance for the lost. Or it should be.

[SlowwHand]

Originally posted by Arrian
Ok, that's it! I've had it! WHAT THE HELL IS A CBEAST?

-Arrian

This IS the day of the week that he traditionally makes the attempt to be banned.

[Jack the Bodiless]

Take abortion, for example. Yes, I know you're all groaning now, but it's the best example I can think of at the moment.

Except that Christianity doesn't actually provide any guidance on abortion. The only condemnation of abortion is in the Didache, which didn't make it into the Bible. The Old Testament, on the other hand, apparently recommends the administration of an abortifacient if you suspect your wife of infidelity:

Numbers 5:26-28 And the priest shall take an handful of the offering, even the memorial thereof, and burn it upon the altar, and afterward shall cause the woman to drink the water. And when he hath made her to drink the water, then it shall come to pass, that, if she be defiled, and have done trespass against her husband, that the water that causeth the curse shall enter into her, and become bitter, and her belly shall swell, and her uterus shall rot: and the woman shall be a curse among her people. And if the woman be not defiled, but be clean; then she shall be free, and shall conceive seed.

(The Hebrew word for "uterus" appears as "thigh" in the KJV and some other translations)

It's a classic example of projection: "I'm religious and I think abortion is disturbing, therefore it's against my religion". You don't actually NEED the religion to be "moral".