Are atheists afraid to answer my question?

Question

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=Av1Ik9gp9M5_Yre3tAD78DPsy6IX;_ylv=3?qid=20070926094827AAWgqDj

I posed it as a 'yes' or 'no' for simplification but left room for an explanation. I see many who skipped past my question to answer other questions and some even took the time to call Christians names like "idiot" and "f....ing retarded".

I am asking because I would like to see how many people would have answered "no" had they not been so busy insulting others here.

The Reverend Soleil - You may have heard of Occam's Razor. Would not "God did it" then be the simplest answer therefore most likely true?

Why would I have to explain where God comes from when by causality, infinity must be explained anyway? God, by definition, is infinite (eternal) which defines the first "cause". Otherwise, You have to define infinity some other way to show the "uncaused". Can you do that? Either way, you run into Maxwell's Demon.

No one insulted me personally. I saw where other people have been insulted harshly and I reacted. Before that, I asked a simple question and got 4 responses. Personally, I was leaning towards evolution anyway but have the problem of origin or abiogenesis and reconciling that origin to be God, leading to Theistic Evolution. I asked in this section because most atheists hang out here and advocate evolution so naturally I wanted a response. I have asked in the science section and now I asked here.

The insults today were directed towards someone else today (although I have been personally insulted in the past, I hold no grudges)

Those who did the insulting know who they are, they know that I know and they also know that I am Not the one being deceptive. I have not named names because I hope that it is not necessary.

The Reverend Soleil - I find it revealing that you are the first one to respond to this question and with so many thumbs up. Your mission is to call people ignorant, stupid and retarded for not believing as you do. Someone words a question wrong and instead of clarifying and/or discerning the obvious meaning, you open up with,

"What, are you f***ing RETARDED?!?!"

Do you think that is an acceptable and appropriate thing to say? Is this how you wish to spread your message?

Answer 1

Don't flatter yourself.

But to answer your original question: Yes, I can offer you a viable alternative explanation -- or at least, my understanding of the latest discoveries of the scientific community. They may not yet have unraveled every single mystery; but saying "God did it" isn't an explanation at all -- if anything, it only exacerbates the problem, since you then have to explain where God, who would be infinitely more complex (and infinitely less likely to "just happen"), came from.

Answer 2

There are many cultures that have no concept of a 'higher being' or 'divine power'. Buddhist cultures would be an example. In a foxhole, any soldier of a Buddhist faith would face his fears alone, with no god - or gods - for guidance. Your question is very narrowly focused on the society you understand while ignoring the thousands of societies that think in an entirely different manner. More directly to your question, what does a foxhole have to do with atheist being afraid of answers about religion? Your question is similar to me asking: Why are Christians afraid of the idea there is no God? Have you ever heard of the saying, 'Always look on the bright side of life,'? It just makes no sense. If your question and answer is any indication of the issue you were trying to raise, my answer is that I am afraid of answers about religion because they make no sense. Nice try though.

Answer 3

You have several good answers there. One that you didn't seem to like from jewishgirl (and I may very well have the name wrong, but it's something like that) said that it depends on what you consider viable. She was not asking for a definition - she was saying that viability in that case is a matter of opinion. It depends, therefore, on your opinion.

It irritates me when atheists post things like this. It irritates me even more when other believers do it. Just because you didn't get as many answers as you wanted, or the specific answers you wanted, doesn't mean that "atheists [are] afraid to answer your question." Perhaps some of them looked, found that someone had already given the answer they would have, and chose not to repeat answers. If that's the case, then God bless the ones who made that choice. How many questions here get fifteen or more functionally identical answers, when one and fourteen up-thumbs would have done as well?

Edit: Maxwell's Demon? The little thing that sits at the door and lets fast-moving molecules out and keeps slow-moving ones in? What on Earth does that have to do with this?

Answer 4

Dude...they have crossed every line there is in the lab. They are maybe 3-5 years away from doing it totally from scratch. If you wanted a real answer, you would have asked it in the Biology section or emailed one of the guys who is doing the research, but:

1- The way the building blocks form was done experimentally in the 1950's for pitty sake. How many times do you need this pointed out.
2- They can build viruses totally from scratch using those building blocks so there is your start. I have the papers somewhere in my notes, email me if you care (which you don't) That is your start.
3- They can do brand new genomes of bacteria using only the membranes from others. They are a couple of years away from being able to produce the membranes, but by ANY definition this is making life from non-living material.

There is no magic quality that makes something alive or dead. You can argue all day about viruses and never get a real answer. That alone means that your line is gray at best.

Answer 5

I believe that the world was most likely created by someone or some thing. I would use the term “God” loosely. Of course, I am a Deist not an Atheist, but I do find the Atheist’s arguments much more convincing than those of theists. If there is or was a creator, I am certain that it could not have been anything like the God described in the Christian Bible.

Answer 6

LOL, as of right now, you have five responses to your question, none of which are insulting or call you any of the names you list.

You Christians here do this all the time -- you claim that your enemies insult you and call you names, when in reality you're getting crystal-clear, rational responses to your questions. Sure, there are some who just like to hurl insults, but those come from all sides -- believer and nonbeliever alike. In any event, you should stop bearing false witness.

Answer 7

Lets say for argument that no one knows. Does that mean that god created humans or anything for that matter? Of course it doesn't.

Lack of an answer is not an answer. For your belief to have any validity you would need to first prove that this creator existed. Of course you can't and therefore your belief that god created anything completely falls apart.

I can say that I don't know for certain how humans came to be so I need to prove nothing. You on the other hand seem to be claiming to know for certain. The onus is on you to prove your claim or not.

I can however offer a notion more viable than god. I created humans and everything in the universe. This notion is more viable because I can produce incontrovertible evidence of the existence of the creator. Me.

Now when you produce god we can move to the next stage and see who is the more powerful. I await your gods arival.

Answer 8

The first answer there is the correct answer. Just because you disagree with it based on a flawed Christian belief that it doesn't fit the Second Law of Thermodynamics (a strawman if ever I saw one) doesn't make it wrong. It makes you ignorant (as in uneducated).

Take a science class and open up your mind to the possibility that you might be wrong.

Answer 9

"If you do not believe that God created life then can you give a viable alternative explaination?
Something that does not involve aliens or meteorites since that would take us back to square one."

This a logical fallacy called a loaded question. You can't ask for other possible explanations while at the same time ruling out other possible explanations. You might have well have asked:

"Can you give a possible alternative to God that does not invovle anything but God?"

You can't simply rule out aliens or astriods because you feel like it. Remember, you arguing from the point of "faith" and not science, so you can't rule out something like an astroid because it takes us back to square one (whatever square one is).

Answer 10

No.

Did not see it go by.

Followed your link, answered it.

You need to go take some real physics and chemistry lessons and not just go from what you read on Christian fundamentalist web sites. It just makes you look like an idiot.


Edit:
"God Did it" is an avoidance, not an answer. All it means is that you immediately have to ask:

But where did God come from?

Answer 11

Just because we are limited in what we understand it does not mean that "god" must have done it.

I can live with not knowing every single thing there is to know and just because something can't be proved or is unknown it does not mean that automatically validates the existence of something else (i.e. god.) Even if it did, it still does nothing to prove it is your god in the first place.

Oh, and considering I have answered this question many times it would be safe to say no, atheists are not scared to answer but good ploy to get our attention.