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how 'bout those Chinese people, eh?

Thu, 2008-09-25 22:53 — willy
Question:: 
I was recently watching the 2008 Olympics and one of the commentators stated that the Chinese people have a 5,000-year written, documented history. If that's the case and is empirically true, where do the YEC's say the Chinese came from if the earth is only 6,000 years old?
Atheist Answer: 

If you really try, the two timelines juuuuuuuust about fit together. I mean really try.

The link is the downfall of the Tower of Babel, where (supposedly) human language diversified and the different peoples went their separate ways. The Biblical timeline accepted by YECs puts this incident at about 2700 BC, or about 4700 years ago. By sheer coincidence, that's just when early Chinese written language came about. That announcer rounded up a bit when he said 5000 years.

You can therefore imagine a scenario where the Chinese-speaking Babelites trekked straight from the ruined Tower to Asia over a few months or years and set up shop there. It's a near thing, but it kind of works.

Ancient Chinese history is therefore not the history to pick when you're trying to contradict the Bible. Happily, you're spoilt for alternatives. Writing itself came about in the 4th millennium BC (4000-3000 BC), and plenty of civilisations around the world were doing it. Even in the 5th millennium BC, supposedly before Creation, there were lots of symbols being carved into stones. Before that, it's all strictly archaeological evidence.

Happy digging.

- SmartLX

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Fri, 2008-10-31 07:20 — A bible believing christian (not verified)

no God

To state that "there is no God" is to state an absolute fact. The same as to say "there is no gold in China", to say with confidence that there is no gold would mean that you would have to know everything about China. What's under every rock, every part of the ground, every chinese persons mouth for gold fillings. But if I were to say there is gold in China, I would only need a tiny piece of Gold, from china, enough of one filling to say with confidence there is gold in China. The same applys to God, we only need to see a little of him, and we can say "There is a God". Imagine that there is a circle in front of you and that represents all knowlegde in the entire universe. All history, all the number of atoms containing protons, neutrons and electrons. Everything. Now think of how much percentage you know in that circle. Let's say you know an amazing 1%, is it possible that God might be in the 99% that you haven't yet come across?

Sat, 2008-11-01 01:32 — SmartLX

WOTM!

"No gold in China" gives this away as an argument taken straight from the Way of the Master official approach to atheists. Both Ray Comfort and Kirk Cameron have delivered it in person multiple times, and Comfort frequently uses it in his blog.

Their definition of an atheist is someone who is 100% certain that there is no God (their specific god, too; never mind all the others). Therefore they think there's no such thing as a true atheist. Thing is, that's not my position, it's not Richard Dawkins' position and it's not the general position of the people they're trying to "save". Yet we still call ourselves atheists.

I never say "there is no God" without qualifying it somehow. I will happily say that I don't know whether there is a God, and that there could be a God. Having said that, I don't think there is a God, because I don't have one good reason to believe in any such thing. If a good reason came along, then I would believe. The proper name for this is agnostic atheism: the opinion/conclusion of (not faith/belief in) the absence of gods based on available information, pending any further evidence.

The corollary point of the argument is that the slightest piece of evidence supporting God is enough to justify total belief. That's true, in a way. If a tiny piece of evidence somehow demonstrated undeniably that a god, such as we understand the term, has to exist, then it would be true. The main problem with this is that there is no such available evidence, big or small.

That's not what believers say, of course. They present all kinds of "evidence", much of which I've examined in answers on this site.

Most of it is not evidence of any kind but rather arguments from ignorance (I must stress that this is not simply a putdown but the actual name of the central logical fallacy); presenting amazing yet true phenomena and daring us to think of a way it could happen without a god. It's a weak argument even if there's no known alternative, but most of the time there is one anyway. (Three quarters of the time, it's evolution.)

The rest of it is alleged historical evidence for the truth of the events in a religion's mythology, for example corroborations of the Resurrection story. That in my opinion is more worthwhile to discuss, as at least it's a positive, tangible form of alleged evidence. Nevertheless, no religion has a solid "smoking gun" yet.

Don't just say you see a little of God, A Bible Believing Christian, go ahead and show Him to us. Stop arguing straight past real atheists, face us where we stand and turn us into believers.