You state your position well here and I congratulate you for that. But in the previous thread, your position was anything but clear. In that thread, your tone was hostile and condescending without making a coherent argument.

The "Welcome" mat isn't exactly rolled out for theists here, Geo.
Your clique can be a rough, unwelcoming crowd, including the atheistic trolls that are at your feet that chew on people's ankles for the sake of ridiculing theists and nothing more.
How would you like to deal with that?
Would you give up and move on like I've seen some do here?

ant wrote:

You state your position well here and I congratulate you for that. But in the previous thread, your position was anything but clear. In that thread, your tone was hostile and condescending without making a coherent argument.

The "Welcome" mat isn't exactly rolled out for theists here, Geo.
Your clique can be a rough, unwelcoming crowd, including the atheistic trolls that are at your feet that chew on people's ankles for the sake of ridiculing theists and nothing more.
How would you like to deal with that?
Would you give up and move on like I've seen some do here?

Yes, I can appreciate that it gets intense around here sometimes. We should all try to step back, take a deep breath. Let's all focus always on communicating clearly and putting forward a rational argument, stop yanking each other's chains. All of us.

ant wrote: Most of you here are really nothing but infants who are interested in nothing more than point scoring.
You aren't really bridge builders. You're more Exclusionists than you are knowledge loving individuals.
We need more bridge builders who reach out to the diversity that makes each person who they are.

Stop being infantile assholes.
If you really want an echo chamber just say so. I'd respect that cowardly request more than I would this childish nonsense.

You're lashing out again because you've been backed into a corner.

Soooooo… do you agree that every religion is making false claims or not? That's all Dawkins and other atheists are saying, perhaps in a way you find harsh and uncomfortable.

You can call people names and duck the question because it would be politically incorrect to say so, and because you'd like to be nice to religious people.

But then who is the "knowledge loving individual"?

You also say you accept evolution, except for the part about evolving from the sea. Again, that is an uncontroversial and rather integral part of what scientists know about evolution. But we still can't pin down your objection. Because we don't know the exact year and don't have an unbroken series of fossils? Then what is it that you accept about evolution -- that we evolved from ancestors either from the sea or exclusively on land? No scientist believes the latter, not even religious people who say they accept evolution.

ant wrote: The "Welcome" mat isn't exactly rolled out for theists here, Geo.
Your clique can be a rough, unwelcoming crowd, including the atheistic trolls that are at your feet that chew on people's ankles for the sake of ridiculing theists and nothing more.
How would you like to deal with that?
Would you give up and move on like I've seen some do here?

Are you saying that you take a hostile tone and are eager to jump down peoples' throats only because everyone else is doing it? I would dispute that most people here are as you describe them, but it concerns me if you don't even realize that you can come across as the biggest offender. Take it easy, several deep breaths; the world doesn't hang in the balance.

First sentence: "Reality is everything that exists." But what about things that no longer exist? Does the past exist? What about the future? The problem of the nature of time opens deep problems regarding reality and existence. Is existence a property of the present moment, or is the connection between the past and the future somehow existent? How does time relate to existence? Is there anything real outside time? What about mathematical relations such as pi or phi? Do they exist? Are numbers real? Are they inside or outside time? Does eternity exist? Are laws of physics and morality as eternal as laws of logic? What about negation? Is a statement that something is not true a statement about reality? So does reality include the infinite set of the conceptual negation of all false statements? Is reality objective or subjective? Is reality constructed by the intentional relation between our thought and the things we think about?

@ Dexter

i thought i clarifed my position on religion.

regarding evolution;
i think it is a resonable hypothesis that life's origin in watery.

Tulip's questions are secondary compared to the question:
"Why is there something rather than nothing"

and


"is the realm of possible existence larger than the realm of what actually exists?"

these are questions that are considered impolite to ask. they are not able to be reckoned with by Science.
science is useless in these matters.
science is great at explaining the workings of natural phenomena.
it can not answer questions a child would ask.

ant wrote:"Why is there something rather than nothing"

Much as I hesitate to converse with ant, his slight here deserves comment. "Why is there something rather than nothing" is taken by Martin Heidegger in his book An Introduction to Metaphysics as the fundamental question of philosophy. But like the megaverse, it has no answer, except "dunno" or "meh". Lets stick to questions that have answers.

ant wrote:@ Dexter

i thought i clarifed my position on religion.

Your position seems to be that all religions are just a vague notion of some kind of higher power, so that you don't have to take a position on all the false claims they are making. But when Dawkins talks about all the false claims, you're very offended.

ant wrote: regarding evolution;
i think it is a resonable hypothesis that life's origin in watery.

And yet you unleashed a tirade of insults and accusations against Dawkins for "indoctrinating" people about what you and 100% of biologists believe about evolution.

I'm reading Lawrence Krause's book called "Why is there something rather than nothing" right now actually!

Turns out quantum mechanics says that nothing cannot exist for long.