This is topic Dang, we have to update evolution again…. Biblical Creationism stays the same in forum Books, Films, Food and Culture at Hatrack River Forum.
And you think this somehow supports biblical creationism?
Lets see, we have an overarching, explanatory theory that adapts to changes in evidence.
Vs one that doesn't, even when the evidence contradicts it soundly (perhaps you note the implication of a millions of years timespan?).
Yes, those scientists, completely unwilling to change their theories in the face of evidence . . . oh wait, they do it all the time, here's an example. Yet clearly they are unable to see/understand all the evidence against them . . .
Posted by Javert (Member # 3076) on :
Isn't it funny how the people who are giving us this new information are scientists? Hmmm...you'd think those pesky, dogmatic scientists would want to keep things like this quiet.
[/sarcasm]
Posted by mr_porteiro_head (Member # 4644) on :
If it weren't Jay posting this, I wouldn't be able to tell if it's a post supporting creationism or evolution.
Posted by MattP (Member # 10495) on :
Well, anything that dates things in terms of millions of years isn't supportive of creationism. The type of fossil found and the time scales involved are consistent with evolution, but indicate that a specific historic event - the split between between modern man and modern apes - occurred much earlier than we had previously supposed based on previous evidence.
Posted by Shigosei (Member # 3831) on :
Er, yes, that's the point of science. New discoveries and all that. The ability of science to change with new evidence is a strength, not a weakness. Scientists don't claim to have the absolute, final truth about things. Ironically, being able to admit that you were wrong and change your ideas when the evidence contradict you will probably get you closer to the truth than picking one story and sticking with it.
Minor tweaking of scientific ideas doesn't necessarily negate the original ideas, either. We still use Newton's ideas, but we have a clearer picture now because of Einstein. We don't throw out germ theory because we discover prions.
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
Dang, you all got there faster than I did.
Posted by Shigosei (Member # 3831) on :
mph, good point. Aside from some of the sarcasm in the post and the fact that it's Jay, I'd almost read it as a post supporting evolution.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
The hysterical thing about this is that I saw the subject line before checking the name of the poster and thought the thread would be an effective attack on Biblical creationism.
It didn't occur to me that only a Biblical creationist would think that creationism's abject failure to change in response to evidence would be an argument for it. Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
I thought that too, actually. Posted by mr_porteiro_head (Member # 4644) on :
quote:The hysterical thing about this is that I saw the subject line before checking the name of the poster and thought the thread would be an effective attack on Biblical creationism.
Remove the subjective word "effective", and that's the exact same response I had.
Posted by MightyCow (Member # 9253) on :
Good ol' Bible, fighting the good fight against facts and knowledge!
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
quote:Originally posted by Shigosei: mph, good point. Aside from some of the sarcasm in the post and the fact that it's Jay, I'd almost read it as a post supporting evolution.
So did I Posted by Nato (Member # 1448) on :
I wonder what Jay expected to find in this thread when he came back to it.
Posted by 0Megabyte (Member # 8624) on :
I dunno, but I know one thing:
the fact that the change occured farther back in time than we thought is actually quite interesting.
How could anyone think that finding new data which contradicts earlier views, adn thus promptly incorporating this new data, thus gaining more accurate information, weakens the theory of evolution?
Oh, right. Ignorance of the very concept of science in general, and the theory of evolution in particular, and further, a stupidly wrong view of scientists and the scientific community.
I always forget those things...
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
quote:How could anyone think that finding new data which contradicts earlier views, adn thus promptly incorporating this new data, thus gaining more accurate information, weakens the theory of evolution?
Well there is the whole "You said that last time and you were wrong so why should we believe you now?"
You know, loss of confidence?
Not saying I think that is the case with science but it sure is the case with religion.
Posted by Blayne Bradley (Member # 8565) on :
*laughs quietly*
Posted by Javert (Member # 3076) on :
I hope, for his sake, that Ben Stein has a better argument in his movie.
Posted by 0Megabyte (Member # 8624) on :
"Well there is the whole "You said that last time and you were wrong so why should we believe you now?""
So our information is more accurate than it was before.
That's a strength. Scientific information is always becoming more accurate.
Scientists have never stated they have all the answers, in the least. They make very clear that their current views are based on current evidence, and new evidence can and will, and does, as this case shows, change their views.
Do you doubt the sciences that allow the creation of nuclear power, becuase 50 years before they split the atom they didn't know they could, and were clearly wrong before then? No, because that power is staring you in the face.
If evolution was as prominant as nuclear power, no one would doubt it. Pity that it's not.
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
quote:Not saying I think that is the case with science but it sure is the case with religion.
You are preaching to the choir, or in this case whatever a group of scientists all rejoicing in unison is called.
Posted by rollainm (Member # 8318) on :
quote:Originally posted by Javert: I hope, for his sake, that Ben Stein has a better argument in his movie.
I'd be very interested to hear what he has to say.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
quote:Dang, we have to update evolution again…. Biblical Creationism stays the same
You posted a link that demonstrates that the species record changes over time to honestly incorporate expanding knowledge and facts.
I know that this is another thinly researched blind stab at the overwhelming credibility of evolutionary theory, because you're Jay, but the validity of evolution isn't being challenged at all with the expansion of a record of our closest non-human genetic relatives.
There are some people out there who like to prove to the Internet At Large that they don't understand science at all by trying to claim that the alteration of scientific records and theories is equivalent to a flaw, an 'inconsistency' that degrades the credibility of science in the face of rigid, dogmatic answers provided by whichever specific religious answer they hold to through preconclusive bias, by saying, essentially, "Look, my belief structure does not change, even in the face of overwhelming evidence against it. Yours does, therefore it is less credible than mine!" These people are generally received by the internet as being incredibly dumb, because it's an argument that nobody would make if they actually had an actionable understanding of the scientific method; one that was not convoluted by the chronic loyally-held scientific ignorances (See: "It's only a theory," Behe's Black Box, Irreducible Complexity, et. al) of the biblical creationist crowd.
Think about that before you make your next thread!
Posted by Blayne Bradley (Member # 8565) on :
notice how Jay has shied away from the topic.
Posted by Tatiana (Member # 6776) on :
0Megabyte has it right. The reason I know science is true is that I can build stuff based on it and it actually works. If the science were false, the machine wouldn't work. The reactor core wouldn't heat up and boil the water, the laser wouldn't lase, or whatever.
That's the great thing when you have a new theory for what's going on (and this happens on scales large and small -- I constantly use the scientific method in my work), when you make a change based on that theory and then try it and <poof> it works.
If the machine works, then your theory is a thing of beauty and a joy forever. That's why I'm an applied scientist instead of a theorist. I love that moment of truth when you try it and it actually works. Posted by Tatiana (Member # 6776) on :
The fundamentalist impulse, to reject any and everything that changes, is odd to me. I can't understand how anyone can have that mindset. The only unchanging things are dead. Fundamentalism is fear.
Posted by Nato (Member # 1448) on :
And you could have a theory that appears to work for a time, or at least within tolerances. Eventually, more information could come along to prove that your theory was only coincidentally able to predict/create consistent predictable results and didn't really represent the causal mechanism at all. There is no moral imperative to stay with a theory that has become outdated--it's not a moral issue at all, only a pragmatic one. Now there are better theories that allow more accurate/consistent results, so we'll switch to them in order to be more effective. Even if a certain scientific theory is wrong, it is no criticism of science. The practice of science is only in error if new information comes along to disprove the old theory and we don't incorporate the new information into the creation of a replacement/upgrade theory. You can't update or "improve" on your religion without meeting a lot more resistance.
Posted by JonHecht (Member # 9712) on :
Until I realized it was Jay I thought this was a topic supporting evolution, silly me.
Edit: "the laser wouldn't lase"
Posted by 0Megabyte (Member # 8624) on :
Yes. That is the most awesome phrase I've seen in awhile.
I shall remember it, and use that term for that piece of grammar.
Posted by 0Megabyte (Member # 8624) on :
To BB:
Sorry about that, I wasn't particularly arguing against you, just the mindset you showed some people have.
I didn't mean to make it seem I was arguing with you, sorry!
Posted by Olivet (Member # 1104) on :
It amazes me how so many people seem to feel that science and the existence of a divine entity must be an either/or type of thing.
That said, my son came home with a perfect 100% on his scientific method quiz. It made me feel all tingly inside. Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
quote:Originally posted by BlackBlade:
quote:How could anyone think that finding new data which contradicts earlier views, adn thus promptly incorporating this new data, thus gaining more accurate information, weakens the theory of evolution?
Well there is the whole "You said that last time and you were wrong so why should we believe you now?"
You know, loss of confidence?
Not saying I think that is the case with science but it sure is the case with religion.
I don't think this must of should be the case in religion. As a matter of fact, I think that believing that we have all the answers about an infinte God is about as just about as silly as believing that we know all there is to know about the universe. Maybe moreso.
And likely more hurtful and dangerous. I believe that the idea that we can never be wrong about religion, never learn anything new, stems from either fear or from the desire to have power over other people.
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
kmbboots: I agree that in some instances people bank their "belief in God" on some aspect of gospel doctrine rather then on God himself and fall away when that doctrine is modified.
But even I must confess that there are aspects of my faith that should they be overhauled would cause me to lose all my confidence in it.
But there is a difference between God showing us something radically different and the church saying that God is radically different.
Posted by Mucus (Member # 9735) on :
Man, that was confusing. When I checked this last night, I thought the OP was satire and everyone was missing the joke, especially since mph's first post was carefully ambivalent about which it was (I do not know Jay).
shigosi didn't help either because I wasn't sure which direction the sarcasm was directed in
At least the thread has filled up a bit more since then.
Posted by Kwea (Member # 2199) on :
I agree with Olivet. My belief is science has little to no affect on my faith. It affected HOW I believe, but not if I did or not.
[ August 26, 2007, 03:09 PM: Message edited by: Kwea ]
Posted by rollainm (Member # 8318) on :
quote:Originally posted by Mucus: Man, that was confusing. When I checked this last night, I thought the OP was satire and everyone was missing the joke, especially since mph's first post was carefully ambivalent about which it was (I do not know Jay).
shigosi didn't help either because I wasn't sure which direction the sarcasm was directed in
At least the thread has filled up a bit more since then.
Perhaps this little gem will help clarify things a bit:
quote: I for one am very anxious to go to the Creation Museum to see the facts and truth it holds. It’s a shame that so many of you won’t even consider seeing it instead of bashing it before you know the whole story. I’ve been to many evolutionist museums and seen the lies they tell, what’s the big deal if one place gets it right. Does the truth scare you that much? Are you worried that the strangle hold opinion of the day of evolution might not be able to survive a little criticism? The great thing is that the truth shall set you free and one day we will all be at the great judgment seat and know for sure.
Posted by Mr.Funny (Member # 4467) on :
Where did that quote come from? (deleted post, perhaps?)
Posted by Zoh (Member # 10889) on :
That's a quote of jay's from another topic.
While were on the subject of that quote.
"The great thing is that the truth shall set you free and one day we will all be at the great judgment seat and know for sure."
It's actually quite sad. In reality, one day he will make the wrong person mad, or contract a disease, or have an organ failure, or one of the other thousands of things that could kill you, and that will be it for him. He will never know that he's spent a good portion of his precious time alive preaching ridiculous views to people who know better, people who are smart enough to question the disease that is religion.
Posted by rollainm (Member # 8318) on :
Zoh, I'm not religious and I find your post to be a bit offensive.
Posted by erosomniac (Member # 6834) on :
I don't know why anyone bothers responding to Jay anymore. It's obvious from the way he posts that he probably doesn't even really believe the crap he spouts and is saying it just to be inflammatory.
If we all ignore him, it's like he's not a part of this community, which suits me just fine.
Posted by ClaudiaTherese (Member # 923) on :
quote:Originally posted by erosomniac: I don't know why anyone bothers responding to Jay anymore. It's obvious from the way he posts that he probably doesn't even really believe the crap he spouts and is saying it just to be inflammatory.
I have no idea what Jay really believes, but I agree it certainly seems his posts are attempts at poking an anthill with a stick. They seem worded in a way calculated to try to get people riled up.
I am not sure he really cares about the stick, but I'm pretty sure he enjoys the scurrying of the ants.
He must, or he wouldn't keep doing it.
Posted by Shigosei (Member # 3831) on :
I don't think Jay will ever change his mind. However, I think it was valuable in this case to point out that change in science is a good thing, not a bad thing. Jay might not listen, but that doesn't mean that nobody will.
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
quote:Originally posted by rollainm: Zoh, I'm not religious and I find your post to be a bit offensive.
Thanks, rollainm.
Posted by Kwea (Member # 2199) on :
quote:Originally posted by Zoh: He will never know that he's spent a good portion of his precious time alive preaching ridiculous views to people who know better, people who are smart enough to question the disease that is religion.
That view is ever bit as distasteful, and untruthful, as Jay's are, and I would be ashamed to agree with either of you.
Good thing that isn't likely.
Posted by ClaudiaTherese (Member # 923) on :
Well, whaddaya know, I am in agreement with Kwea.
---
Shigosei, I agree it's useful to make note of errors in fact or thinking when they occur. I wouldn't quibble with that, just remark that any "ha, so now we showed him!" quality to responses might be counterproductive in the long run.
Posted by Noemon (Member # 1115) on :
Zoh, what other names might we know you by? Your account is new, but your tone suggests that you've been around here for a while.
Posted by rollainm (Member # 8318) on :
Probably just a long time lurker.
Posted by Icarus (Member # 3162) on :
I think it's Porter.
Posted by rollainm (Member # 8318) on :
Is Porter a hardcore gamer interested in "Physical Theory, Quantum Physics and Futurology"?
Posted by Olivet (Member # 1104) on :
roll, note the winky.
Posted by rollainm (Member # 8318) on :
I saw it. Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
quote:Originally posted by Kwea:
quote:Originally posted by Zoh: He will never know that he's spent a good portion of his precious time alive preaching ridiculous views to people who know better, people who are smart enough to question the disease that is religion.
That view is ever bit as distasteful, and untruthful, as Jay's are, and I would be ashamed to agree with either of you.
How would you know? Moreover, if there is no afterlife, then indeed Jay will never know that he is wrong, which admittedly is a little unfortunate.
Posted by Icarus (Member # 3162) on :
I think "hardcore gamer" and "Physical Theory, Quantum Physics and Futurology" practically define Porter.
Posted by 0Megabyte (Member # 8624) on :
Zoh is basically saying, if there's no afterlife, the guy won't ever know how much of his life he wasted on something wrong, and furthermore, telling people who know better, and understand science, and perhaps sometimes even scientists who work with the evidence, that they're wrong, when even that's false.
Isn't working for a falsehood, spending your life telling believing falsehood, and telling other people falsehood, a bit of a waste?
If, indeed, there is no afterlife, and if, indeed, science is right. (the latter is definitely true. Can't disprove the former, of course)
Posted by Icarus (Member # 3162) on :
I don't think anybody misunderstood Zoh.
Posted by Shigosei (Member # 3831) on :
quote:One is that, as I have reported previously, teeth are not great diagnostic material for phylogeny. They are very adaptable, and if a species finds itself in a similar environment with a similar diet, the teeth will tend to evolve rapidly to a particular morphology similar to that of relatives who later evolve in the same situation.
It's possible that the conclusions based on this particular fossil find will eventually turn out to be wrong, particularly since it contradicts molecular evidence. I'll be interested to see where this whole thing goes.
Posted by Samuel Bush (Member # 460) on :
I love the scientific method. I’ve always felt that it is a pretty good way of learning about stuff. I’ve always been fascinated by scientific discovery. I have a healthy respect for scientists (most of the time). Like in the example mentioned at the start of this thread. They’ve found some new data and are willing to adjust their ideas accordingly. This is a good thing. It is how the scientific method is supposed to work.
But one of the things that really bugs me and makes me start to lose respect is when some scientific types try to use evolution and other theories as a bludgeon against God. They often come across with a condescending, gloating, snotty altitude like, “See there, all you bonehead believers in god, we just proved there is no god. You are all idiots. God is dead. We’re right and you’re wrong. Na na, so there.”
Another thing that bugs me is that I often detect an certain tone of arrogance in some scientific types. They seem so sure of themselves, and will not admit to any kind of uncertainty until some new data comes along and then they are quick to trot out the scientific method and say they were never really absolutely sure after all. And next month they will be mired back into their old arrogance again, admitting to no uncertainty. (Maybe appearing uncertain is not conducive to winning grants.) But in fairness to scientists, maybe what I’m describing here is the attitude of some of the folks who explain science and stuff to the rest of us and not the attitude of some actual scientists. Who knows?
But I think what bugs me the most are examples I’ve read about where some old and reputable scientist has tried to destroy the career of some other scientist who disagreed with him. That’s where they start be indistinguishable from medieval religious fanatics - complete with their inquisition type tactics. They give lip service to the scientific method but their treatment of heretics and pronouncements of Truth have a familiar religious fanaticesk ring to them. These modern-day keepers of the flame of Truth have even adopted their own vestments and rituals to keep them separate from the rest of us unwashed masses.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m not supporting certain Creationism philosophies either. Some of them have tried to adorn themselves with the trappings and jargon of science - presumably to give themselves an air of credibility in a world that respects science and has largely come to question certain traditional religious creeds.
On the other hand, though, I have detected a certain note of scorn here toward religious folks. The notion has been expressed that religious types are so sure of themselves that they will not change their ideas when new data comes along. That is actually not true in a lot of cases.
I know a lot of people of faith who have let go of the old traditional belief of a literal reading of the Bible in that God created the earth in a literal 6 days as we reckon days.
Ministers (mostly males) used to preach against women using any kind of anesthetic to ease the pain of childbirth. They preached that it was ordained of God that women were supposed to suffer and that it was evil to try to prevent it. They would even trot out Biblical scriptures to support these notions. Yet how many religious people do you know today who still believe such nonsense?
A similar thing happened with lightning rods.
Then there is the old evil of slavery. There used to be lots of ministers and other hymn singing folks who preached and believed (or at least claimed to believe) that slavery was justified by the Bible. I think most of us have kind rejected that nonsense by now.
Also a whole bunch of us readily embrace new technologies that come along like phones, jet airplanes, TV, computers, internet. Even though all of these things can be used for evil purposes.
So yes, we can change our ideas too.
I guess my own attitude can be summed up by what writer Madeleine L’Engle said in a TV interview several years ago. She said something to the effect that, “Science and religion does not have to be in conflict. Science is attempting to figure out HOW the world was created, and religion is attempting to figure out WHY the world was created.”
That is why a lot of folks can love and respect science and the scientific method and, at the same time, have deep and abiding faith in God. They know that they haven’t yet arrived at a knowledge of all Truth, but they find the journey fascinating.
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
quote:Originally posted by 0Megabyte: Isn't working for a falsehood, spending your life telling believing falsehood, and telling other people falsehood, a bit of a waste?
I suppose that depends in large part on what the time would have been spent on instead, and on whether there were any benefits other than the ones that are false.
For example, I don't believe that most of the central tenets of Christianity are true. However, I don't think most Christians are wasting their lives, either.
In any case, not only is Zoh (and I have to say, I find that SN incredibly amusing) wrong, he was incredibly rude. And in direct violation of the TOS.
Posted by Flaming Toad on a Stick (Member # 9302) on :
What Sam and Rivka said, substituting a different religion for Christianity in the latter's post.
Posted by mr_porteiro_head (Member # 4644) on :
quote:Originally posted by Icarus: I think it's Porter.
You know, I was never able to make prank calls either, because everybody always knew it was me. Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote: I know a lot of people of faith who have let go of the old traditional belief of a literal reading of the Bible in that God created the earth in a literal 6 days as we reckon days.
You know a lot of religious people who were Creationists but no longer are? Of all the religious people I know, about seven of them fit this description.
Posted by mr_porteiro_head (Member # 4644) on :
Am I one of those seven?
Posted by rollainm (Member # 8318) on :
And how many religious people do you know? I'd like to know what kind of percentage we're working with here.
Cuz, you know, if you only know like eight...
Posted by Icarus (Member # 3162) on :
That was a very good post, Samuel Bush.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
Porter: yes. Bev's on the fence regarding the issue, right?
It's worth noting I'm also not counting people who were "Creationists" in their childhood but grew out of it before they turned 20; like the number of people who believed in Santa Claus, that'd screw with the statistics a little.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
(BTW, I really dislike the old argument that religion is about "why" things happen, and science is about "how." If you'd like, Sam, I'll go into more detail about why that particular assertion bugs me.)
Posted by mr_porteiro_head (Member # 4644) on :
quote:Porter: yes. Bev's on the fence regarding the issue, right?
I'm not sure she's any more on the fence than I am. I'll ask her later.
Depending on your definition of creationist and evolutionist (i.e., for certain values...), I am either one, both, or neither.
Although, you would have to stretch the definition more to consider me a creationist.
Posted by Jon Boy (Member # 4284) on :
quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson:
quote: I know a lot of people of faith who have let go of the old traditional belief of a literal reading of the Bible in that God created the earth in a literal 6 days as we reckon days.
You know a lot of religious people who were Creationists but no longer are? Of all the religious people I know, about seven of them fit this description.
I think I'd fit that description.
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
quote:A similar thing happened with lightning rods.
Then there is the old evil of slavery. There used to be lots of ministers and other hymn singing folks who preached and believed (or at least claimed to believe) that slavery was justified by the Bible. I think most of us have kind rejected that nonsense by now.
Also a whole bunch of us readily embrace new technologies that come along like phones, jet airplanes, TV, computers, internet. Even though all of these things can be used for evil purposes.
So yes, we can change our ideas too.
I think, however, that few of the individuals who held those ideas changed, except by dying, which is a bit of a cheat in this context. As for accepting new technologies, colour me highly non-impressed, since very few religions actually object to technology or innovation. And of those that do, well, how many ex-Amish do you know?
Posted by mr_porteiro_head (Member # 4644) on :
quote:Originally posted by Jon Boy: I think I'd fit that description.
*high five*
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson: It's worth noting I'm also not counting people who were "Creationists" in their childhood but grew out of it before they turned 20; like the number of people who believed in Santa Claus, that'd screw with the statistics a little.
How about if it was a process that began before I was 20, but took over 10 years for me to come to a firm conclusion on? (To the degree that my conclusion is firm, which it mostly is.)
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson:
quote: I know a lot of people of faith who have let go of the old traditional belief of a literal reading of the Bible in that God created the earth in a literal 6 days as we reckon days.
You know a lot of religious people who were Creationists but no longer are? Of all the religious people I know, about seven of them fit this description.
Do I count as one of those 7? I want to hang with Porter and Jonboy.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
I was also including Jon Boy. I was not, however, including Rivka, so you can bump that number up to eight depending on your interpretation of her status. Posted by mr_porteiro_head (Member # 4644) on :
OK, I asked Beverly, and no, she's no more a creationist than I am.
You can tell by how in-tune I am to my wifes' beliefs on this subject how important it is to me.
That's not to say that I haven't thought about it much. I've thought about it a lot, and Beverly and I have had many discussions about it. In fact, one of the first discussions we had was about Genesis and evolution.
But what's not not important to me is what individual conclusions people come to on the topic. Some believers examine the available information and come to one conclusion, some come to another. As long as they aren't obnoxious about other people agreeing or disagreeing with them, I'm happy for people to come to either conclusion.
Posted by mr_porteiro_head (Member # 4644) on :
quote:I was not, however, including Rivka, so you can bump that number up to eight depending on your interpretation of her status. [Smile]
If it took her ten years of thinking to come to a firm conclusion about it, she obviously didn't just "outgrow" it.
BTW, what's your justification for not counting such people?
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote:Some believers examine the available information and come to one conclusion, some come to another.
See, that's the part I don't believe. I think some believers examine the available information and come to one conclusion, while other believers do not examine the available information and come to their choice of two conclusions.
Posted by rollainm (Member # 8318) on :
quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson: (BTW, I really dislike the old argument that religion is about "why" things happen, and science is about "how." If you'd like, Sam, I'll go into more detail about why that particular assertion bugs me.)
If you don't mind sharing, I'd be interested to hear your take on this.
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
I think he's talking about the fact that I am mildly wishy-washy on the subject, not whether I outgrew it.
But I'm really not all that wishy-washy. I just agree with Porter that it doesn't MATTER very much. (I do get annoyed when people attempt to claim that there is scientific support for things there isn't, but that's actually a slightly different issue, IMO.)
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson: I think some believers examine the available information and come to one conclusion, while other believers do not examine the available information and come to their choice of two conclusions.
While I certainly know plenty of people like that, I also know people like Porter described.
Posted by mr_porteiro_head (Member # 4644) on :
quote:(I do get annoyed when people attempt to claim that there is scientific support for things there isn't, but that's actually a slightly different issue, IMO.)
I'm right there with you, except that I think that's a very different issue. Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
Two reasons, rollainm:
1) First off, religion does pretend to address the "how;" it only claims otherwise when yet another "how" has been disproved. This actually leads to the classic "God of the Gaps" problem: as more and more religious explanations are rejected, there's less and less left for religion to do. God used to push the sun across the sky; now, religion can at most claim that they can tell us why the sun bothers to rise.
2) The assertion that religion also tells us why things happen is flawed in a variety of ways. For one thing, philosophy also addresses the "why," and does not require the baggage expected of most religion; the difference between religion and philosophy is that religion is able to arbitrarily appeal to a higher -- if uncommunicative -- moral authority to "resolve" its ethical dilemmas. For another, the claim itself begs the question. There may very well be no single, authoritative "why;" saying that a religious epistemology actually offers such a "why" might (if indeed none do) be like pushing a "holistic" remedy at a cancer sufferer.
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
*reconsiders*
I agree in theory, but there does tend to be some overlap. Quite a bit of late, on another board I frequent. Which is probably why I'm feeling that way [edit: in general] at the moment.
[ August 26, 2007, 11:34 PM: Message edited by: rivka ]
Posted by beverly (Member # 6246) on :
I remember when I was taught about evolution in school, read about it in books. I remember particularly Zoobooks magazines showing all the fossil-found relatives of the horse, a dramatized illustration of a dinosaur becoming a bird. It all made a lot of sense to me.
I remember going to Genesis to see if evolution would mesh with what I saw there. It seemed to me that in the account of the creation, there was stages of complexities of life, as there are in evolution. It said that the oceans brought forth abundantly of life and seemed to suggest that birds came from the ocean as well. Evolution says all life came from the ocean, more or less.
I came away with the conclusion that evolution was the tool God used to create life on earth. And since I believe that God is strongly pro-free-agency, is immensely patient, and believes in working through natural laws, evolution seemed to gracefully match the God I already believed in.
I agree that there are lots of religious evolutionists out there. And since most of the religious start out believing scripture to be literal, I'd say there are plenty of religious who have "converted" to evolutionism.
To this day I watch my chickens, ducks, and guinea fowl and imagine little flocks of mini-dinosaurs running around on our property. I love thinking of them that way. Posted by rollainm (Member # 8318) on :
Thanks Tom.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote:And since most of the religious start out believing scripture to be literal...
This is actually why I mentioned the 20-year-old cut-off. Most American religious traditions do not teach that scripture is literal, but even the children in more liberal religious traditions often believe in a literal scripture; it's only once they've become more consciously familiar with their own theology that they move away from it.
Posted by beverly (Member # 6246) on :
quote:1) First off, religion does pretend to address the "how;" it only claims otherwise when yet another "how" has been disproved. This actually leads to the classic "God of the Gaps" problem: as more and more religious explanations are rejected, there's less and less left for religion to do. God used to push the sun across the sky; now, religion can at most claim that they can tell us why the sun bothers to rise.
But there are so many ways to look at this. I could claim that God does still push the sun across the sky with all that we know about science included. When that is so vastly unimportant to our soul's salvation, I see no problem with a primitive people seeing things this way.
What matters to the believer that if there were no God, there would be no sun to begin with, no earth, and no rotating, no beings to observe all this. What matters to the believer is that since there is a God and since He has told us that our souls will exist eternally, everything that we are doing now has much further reaching consequences than the span of our mortal lives, and we need to act accordingly.
In light of this, I have no problem with a creation story being a vastly simplified, symbolic version of the real thing. Why waste precious time and energy (not God's, the people's) explaining something as irrelevant as evolution to a people completely unprepared to appreciate it?
So, when we discover things about the universe, instead of coming to the conclusion, "Aha! God LIED to us!" I come to the conclusion that we didn't understand things before because it wasn't important to understand them. Our ability to see the universe better has made us extremely arrogant, as we continue to grope at the legs, trunk, and tail of the elephant.
As several people have emphasised, it is quite unimportant in the Big Picture. Fascinating to be sure, but unimportant.
Posted by beverly (Member # 6246) on :
quote:Most American religious traditions do not teach that scripture is literal, but even the children in more liberal religious traditions often believe in a literal scripture; it's only once they've become more consciously familiar with their own theology that they move away from it.
Agreed. When my children take the scriptures to be %100 literal, I am tempted to offer another point of view. But then I remember that my daughter still believes there are Care Bears hiding in the clouds, and I grin good-naturedly to myself and just let things take their natural course.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote:So, when we discover things about the universe, instead of coming to the conclusion, "Aha! God LIED to us!" I come to the conclusion that we didn't understand things before because it wasn't important to understand them.
I'll be the first to agree that it's possible -- even beneficial -- to incorporate elements of truth into a religious worldview, albeit with some effort. I don't find religious belief to be inherently incompatible with the scientific method; I prefer to think that those believers have had personal experiences which they are willing to interpret as evidence of the rightness of their belief.
Posted by beverly (Member # 6246) on :
It is generally part of LDS belief to accept all truth wherever it is found. And I have long felt that many things that appear to be contradictory are only so because we don't have a clear view of the full picture.
I figure that is the case with quantum physics and relativity. Posted by Tatiana (Member # 6776) on :
I was always a believer in evolution, and in science. I got religion kind of late in life, around age 35 or so. But I see no conflict at all. That is, science doesn't know everything, and neither does the religion that has been revealed thus far. Any points of seeming conflict are a matter of lack of full understanding in one or the other camp, or, as is most likely, both. We're not terribly developed yet, as a species. I think we have a long way to go.
I just heard a very shocking statistic, that something like 40% of all college graduates never read another book for the rest of their lives after they get out of school. 40%! I think rather than argue about all the things we do know that are in conflict, our time would be much more fruitfully spent just learning a whole lot more... about science and about religion too. 40%, wow! That blows me away.
Posted by mr_porteiro_head (Member # 4644) on :
I don't believe that statistic. I saw an article recently which said, IIR, that 25% of all Americans didn't read a single book last year.
*goes to look for article*
Posted by mr_porteiro_head (Member # 4644) on :
According to the poll, 75% of Americans read one or more books last year.
I would expect the statistics for college graduates to be the same or higher than that of the general population.
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
quote:Originally posted by 0Megabyte: Zoh is basically saying, if there's no afterlife, the guy won't ever know how much of his life he wasted on something wrong, and furthermore, telling people who know better, and understand science, and perhaps sometimes even scientists who work with the evidence, that they're wrong, when even that's false.
Isn't working for a falsehood, spending your life telling believing falsehood, and telling other people falsehood, a bit of a waste?
If, indeed, there is no afterlife, and if, indeed, science is right. (the latter is definitely true. Can't disprove the former, of course)
Honey, I am generally willing to admit that religion often "gets it wrong" and I agree with Jay on pretty much nothing, but, seriously, wasting their lives?
I can think of plenty of people (and you probably could as well*) who spent their lives on what they would consider religious work who, even if they are wrong, could not be said to have wasted their lives.
*But if you can't, some examples just off the top of my head:
The Rev. William Sloane Coffin The Rev. Martin Luther King Dorothy Day Mother Teresa The thousands of religious who have taught, nursed, cared for the poor, worked for peace and social justice The American Friends Service Committee Kathy Kelly The scores of people from my parish alone who are rebuilding a town in Mississippi after Katrina.
Posted by The Pixiest (Member # 1863) on :
Mother Theresa lost her faith and still continued to do good works.
I'm not sure if that backs you up or contridicts you, Boots.
Posted by mr_porteiro_head (Member # 4644) on :
I'm not sure it's fair to say that she lost her faith, although it certainly is true that she wrestled with her faith and doubts for many years.
Of course, I think that's true to one extent or another for the majority of believers.
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
quote:Originally posted by The Pixiest: Mother Theresa lost her faith and still continued to do good works.
I'm not sure if that backs you up or contridicts you, Boots.
Why do you think Mother Teresa lost her faith Pixiest? From my understanding she was a faithful Roman Catholic all her life.
The only thing I can conjure up that you might be talking about was her decisions to leave her convent, so that she could be more mobile in her missionary labors.
edit: Or what Porter and kmbboots said.
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
Continuing what she thought was God's work despite her doubts?
Doubt is not contrary to faith. I think most people who take their faith seriously question it.
Posted by Nathan2006 (Member # 9387) on :
I'm under the age of 20, which means I'm still rather wishy-washy...
I was a creationist, than an apathetilutionist (A word of my own making), then a creationist again, and then a divine theist evolutionist, and now I'm back to being an apathetilutionist.
And that was in the past two years.
However, I do believe that this time, the apathy will stick. <Grin>
Besides, correct me if I'm wrong, but there can never be a conclusive law regarding our origins, since our origins can't (As of yet) be repeated. So, everything is going to remain a theory anyway, right?
Oh, and by the way:
I've never much corresponded with Jay, but I do believe I would be a bit put off by the reaction of the group as a whole were I in his place.
You're all rather scary as a group. I got a migraine just from reading the thread (Along with some rather unpleasant flashbacks)
And, another BTW, excellent post Samuel Bush (I'm sure my praise means the world to you)
The end.
Posted by Javert (Member # 3076) on :
quote:Originally posted by kmbboots:
quote:Originally posted by 0Megabyte: Zoh is basically saying, if there's no afterlife, the guy won't ever know how much of his life he wasted on something wrong, and furthermore, telling people who know better, and understand science, and perhaps sometimes even scientists who work with the evidence, that they're wrong, when even that's false.
Isn't working for a falsehood, spending your life telling believing falsehood, and telling other people falsehood, a bit of a waste?
If, indeed, there is no afterlife, and if, indeed, science is right. (the latter is definitely true. Can't disprove the former, of course)
Honey, I am generally willing to admit that religion often "gets it wrong" and I agree with Jay on pretty much nothing, but, seriously, wasting their lives?
I can think of plenty of people (and you probably could as well*) who spent their lives on what they would consider religious work who, even if they are wrong, could not be said to have wasted their lives.
*But if you can't, some examples just off the top of my head:
The Rev. William Sloane Coffin The Rev. Martin Luther King Dorothy Day Mother Teresa The thousands of religious who have taught, nursed, cared for the poor, worked for peace and social justice The American Friends Service Committee Kathy Kelly The scores of people from my parish alone who are rebuilding a town in Mississippi after Katrina.
I generally agree with you kmbboots. I say "generally" because I don't know everybody on that list. At least not until I hit up Wikipedia later.
But I think the "wasting your life" part implies all the religious activities that help no one. The hours of prayer, ceremonies and scripture study that, you could argue as a non-believer, is a waste of time.
(Just to be sure, I'm just saying that I think that's what he meant...not that I necessarily agree.)
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
quote:And since most of the religious start out believing scripture to be literal, I'd say there are plenty of religious who have "converted" to evolutionism.
A literal reading of the Bible does not support creationism, in that there are two stories that are logically mutually exclusive.
I'm of the opinion that creationism generally doesn't come from humility and respect for the Bible, but rather an outside need that is used to twist/ignore what the Bible says.
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
I kinda get the feeling that Zoh is Jay, who has moved on to a different stage of trolling.
Posted by Noemon (Member # 1115) on :
BlackBlade, here is an article that discusses what Pixiest is talking about in more detail. It's a pretty interesting read.
Nathan, there's a history here; Jay isn't being jumped this way in his first post. I'm usually a pretty compassionate person, but I can't really muster any sympathy for Jay, in this circumstance.
Posted by mr_porteiro_head (Member # 4644) on :
Mother Theresa's journals were recently published, and they show that she struggled with her faith for many years.
edit: What Noemon said.
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
quote:Originally posted by Javert: I generally agree with you kmbboots. I say "generally" because I don't know everybody on that list. At least not until I hit up Wikipedia later.
But I think the "wasting your life" part implies all the religious activities that help no one. The hours of prayer, ceremonies and scripture study that, you could argue as a non-believer, is a waste of time.
(Just to be sure, I'm just saying that I think that's what he meant...not that I necessarily agree.)
The prayers, ceremonies, scripture study and so forth are often what fuels and inspires and nourishes people to do these things.
Posted by Eaquae Legit (Member # 3063) on :
Kathy Kelly?
Posted by Noemon (Member # 1115) on :
quote:Originally posted by MrSquicky: I kinda get the feeling that Zoh is Jay, who has moved on to a different stage of trolling.
This is my suspicion as well, though I could easily be wrong.
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
Noemon: That is very interesting! Thanks for linking it, I've read the first 2 pages, but I'll have to get through the rest in about an hour.
Posted by Javert (Member # 3076) on :
quote:Originally posted by kmbboots:
quote:Originally posted by Javert: I generally agree with you kmbboots. I say "generally" because I don't know everybody on that list. At least not until I hit up Wikipedia later.
But I think the "wasting your life" part implies all the religious activities that help no one. The hours of prayer, ceremonies and scripture study that, you could argue as a non-believer, is a waste of time.
(Just to be sure, I'm just saying that I think that's what he meant...not that I necessarily agree.)
The prayers, ceremonies, scripture study and so forth are often what fuels and inspires and nourishes people to do these things.
True, but one isn't necessary for the other.
Posted by dkw (Member # 3264) on :
And smoking isn't necessary to get lung cancer. But it sure increases the probability.
Posted by MattP (Member # 10495) on :
quote:Besides, correct me if I'm wrong, but there can never be a conclusive law regarding our origins, since our origins can't (As of yet) be repeated.
Evolution does not address origins. I think it's unlikely that there will ever be a conclusive theory of abiogenesis given the distance of time, though the available evidence strongly contradicts the theory that everything was created all at once.
The question of whether, say, horses were created by God during a single day of creation is not refuted by evolution because evolutionary theory predicts a different type of creation, but because the evidence indicates that horses have a very old and rich pedigree.
Creation points to a street corner and says "this road begins there." Evolution points into the distance and says "but I can see it continuing for at least 10 more blocks", then pulls out the binoculars and says "and it seems to continue for several miles beyond that." Evolutionary theory doesn't say when or how the road began, but it demonstrates that it stretches far beyond the point which Creationism claims to be the beginning.
Posted by Shigosei (Member # 3831) on :
I read that article yesterday. It's fascinating, and a bit comforting, somehow. I mean, if Mother Teresa had doubts, it's clearly okay for me to have them too Posted by Javert (Member # 3076) on :
quote:Originally posted by dkw: And smoking isn't necessary to get lung cancer. But it sure increases the probability.
But praying, participating in religious ceremonies and studying scripture doesn't increase the probability of helping people.
Being in social groups does, which religions are wonderful at doing.
Posted by Noemon (Member # 1115) on :
I just saved a copy of this thread, by the way, in anticipation of Jay eventually deleting it. I'll try to remember to get a new copy of it every now and then, and will just repost the whole thing as a mammoth first post in a new thread if the deletion does occur.
Posted by mr_porteiro_head (Member # 4644) on :
quote:But praying, participating in religious ceremonies and studying scripture doesn't increase the probability of helping people.
I know for a fact that this is false, at least some of the time.
Posted by Kwea (Member # 2199) on :
quote:Originally posted by King of Men:
quote:Originally posted by Kwea:
quote:Originally posted by Zoh: He will never know that he's spent a good portion of his precious time alive preaching ridiculous views to people who know better, people who are smart enough to question the disease that is religion.
That view is ever bit as distasteful, and untruthful, as Jay's are, and I would be ashamed to agree with either of you.
How would you know? Moreover, if there is no afterlife, then indeed Jay will never know that he is wrong, which admittedly is a little unfortunate.
My distaste has to do with the lack of respect for those who are still living. I could care less about anyone's religious views are, to be honest. It's the lack of compassion and empathy that makes both ends of the spectrum diagreeable to me.
[ August 27, 2007, 01:25 PM: Message edited by: Kwea ]
Posted by Reshpeckobiggle (Member # 8947) on :
quote:You know a lot of religious people who were Creationists but no longer are? Of all the religious people I know, about seven of them fit this description.
What about people who believed in Evolution but then abandoned it later? After the age of 20, I might add?
(Hint:) This guy.
Also, someone touched on this earlier; I don't think it's the actual scientists who are so dogmatic about their beliefs. I think that when they discover some piece of evidence, it is their commitment to their professionalism that has them publish rather than conceal. It is the pseudo-scientists and activists who take up the flag and start trying to incorporate the new evidence into the rigid structure of their religion (i.e; Darwinism.) I think the problem here is not truth, but interpretation. This goes for both camps. The annoying thing is when my camp is constantly reminded of how ignorant and closed minded it is, and then we receive patient explanations of how the other side is immune from these faults, because they are "scientific."
Posted by Reshpeckobiggle (Member # 8947) on :
quote:Originally posted by Kwea:
quote:Originally posted by King of Men:
quote:Originally posted by Kwea:
quote:Originally posted by Zoh: He will never know that he's spent a good portion of his precious time alive preaching ridiculous views to people who know better, people who are smart enough to question the disease that is religion.
That view is ever bit as distasteful, and untruthful, as Jay's are, and I would be ashamed to agree with either of you.
How would you know? Moreover, if there is no afterlife, then indeed Jay will never know that he is wrong, which admittedly is a little unfortunate.
My distaste has to do with the lack of respect for those who are still living. I could care less about what anyones religious views are, to be honest. It's the lack of compassion and empathy that makes both ends of the spectrum diagreeable.
Sorry to jump in to the middle of your guys' conversation here, but I don't understand. Who is being disrespectful, and what does the person's beliefs have to do with it?
Posted by Omega M. (Member # 7924) on :
On a related evolution note, has anyone read Michael Behe's new book? He argues that, if the frequency of random mutations in bacteria is any indication of the frequency of mutations in all life forms, the probability is very low that random mutations resulted in all the current life forms of Earth in the amount of time available. Of course, natural selection still causes some changes in living things, and the fact that the theory of evolution has gaps doesn't entail intelligent design.
Ok, about Mother Teresa: In the first place, she did not help people, she helped herself to other people's money. In the second place, she didn't sit about on the Interweb arguing about evolution, which is what Jay was being criticised for. Neither did anyone else on that list.
Posted by Reshpeckobiggle (Member # 8947) on :
Haven't read it yet. Did anyone see him on Colbert? He didn't get a chance to say anything. I think Colbert was a little scared.
There is a creationist theory that I'm interested in, and that is that there are many specific "kinds," as the bible says, but that these are far less numerous than the number of actual species. Natural selection results in a loss of genetic information, but causes advantages for the animal in it's particular environment. An example is a bacterium that develops immunity from anti-bacterial substances. They actually lose the genetic information that regulates the production of resistant enzymes, which under normal circumstance would be detrimental.
Posted by Kwea (Member # 2199) on :
quote:Originally posted by Javert:
quote:Originally posted by dkw: And smoking isn't necessary to get lung cancer. But it sure increases the probability.
But praying, participating in religious ceremonies and studying scripture doesn't increase the probability of helping people.
Being in social groups does, which religions are wonderful at doing.
But those particular groups wouldn't exist if not for the common relationship....their religious background.
I think religion is important, not because it gives us all the answers, but because it teaches us to question things that matter. A lot of the way right will tell you ALL answers are there in the bible, but I know not all of those answers are the correct answers for today's society.
Religion has evolved, or at least changed, over the years too. Funny how they forget that when discussing science, isn't it?
Posted by MattP (Member # 10495) on :
quote:The annoying thing is when my camp is constantly reminded of how ignorant and closed minded it is
If your side is Creationism, then the arguable standard bearer is Answers in Genesis. At least they're spending the most money on promoting what they claim to be scientific argument for creationism.
Here's what they say about evidence that disagrees with their interpretation of scripture:
quote:No apparent, perceived or claimed evidence in any field, including history and chronology, can be valid if it contradicts the Scriptural record.
You may not obtain a position as a scientist in their organization without signing the Statement of Faith that includes that text. It's hard to view such a position as anything but closed minded and ignorant. Even the most strident scientist will admit the possibility that new evidence may invalidate existing theories.
Posted by Reshpeckobiggle (Member # 8947) on :
quote:Originally posted by King of Men: Ok, about Mother Teresa: In the first place, she did not help people, she helped herself to other people's money. In the second place, she didn't sit about on the Interweb arguing about evolution, which is what Jay was being criticised for. Neither did anyone else on that list.
Hah! Best post in the thread, if you ask me. I don't know if that's true about Mother Theresa, but it's hilarious regardless.
Are you British, or Canadian? You spell "criticize" with an "s."
Posted by Reshpeckobiggle (Member # 8947) on :
quote:Originally posted by MattP:
quote:The annoying thing is when my camp is constantly reminded of how ignorant and closed minded it is
If your side is Creationism, then the arguable standard bearer is Answers in Genesis. At least they're spending the most money on promoting what they claim to be scientific argument for creationism.
Here's what they say about evidence that disagrees with their interpretation of scripture:
quote:No apparent, perceived or claimed evidence in any field, including history and chronology, can be valid if it contradicts the Scriptural record.
You may not obtain a position as a scientist in their organization without signing the Statement of Faith that includes that text. It's hard to view such a position as anything but closed minded and ignorant. Even the most strident scientist will admit the possibility that new evidence may invalidate existing theories.
I can't comment on this book, or whatever it is. I would like to point out that when you say: "At least they're spending the most money on promoting what they claim to be scientific argument for creationism," all I have to do is change the word "creationism" to "evolution," and you get a pretty accurate description of what the scientific community is doing, and with MY tax dollars, no less.
[edit] "No apparent, perceived or claimed evidence in any field, including history and chronology, can be valid if it contradicts the Scriptural record." Same thing here. Just exchange "scriptural record" with "evolutionary theory."
Posted by MattP (Member # 10495) on :
quote:Originally posted by Omega M.: On a related evolution note, has anyone read Michael Behe's new book? He argues that, if the frequency of random mutations in bacteria is any indication of the frequency of mutations in all life forms, the probability is very low that random mutations resulted in all the current life forms of Earth in the amount of time available. Of course, natural selection still causes some changes in living things, and the fact that the theory of evolution has gaps doesn't entail intelligent design.
The key science used in his book has been debunked pretty thoroughly. He makes claims that "X" can't happen and specialists in the relevant fields have pointed out that "X" has indeed happened, multiple times in some cases.
For instance, he claims that resistance to an anti-malarial drug (chloroquine) required two simultaneous amino acid changes, which are very unlikely to happen simultaneously and would therefore require a large amount of time to occur.
It turns out that there are known examples of only one of those changes occurring which still provide some resistance to chloroquine, meaning that the more resistant form containing both changes could have evolved in multiple steps - a much more likely and less time-consuming process.
Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
The discussion of Mother Teresa brings to mind that, at least for me, faith is not based on feelings. I think that feeling the presence of God is a somewhat shaky foundation. For most people, it comes and goes at best. Lots of faithful people experience a "dark night of the soul". Even God Incarnate felt forsaken. Faith, for me, is a decision.
Posted by Kwea (Member # 2199) on :
Resh, I was talking about why I dislike both extreme ends of this argument. They act a lot alike in their disrespect for anyone who disagrees with their point of view, which is ironic, but mot fun to be around.
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
quote:Originally posted by Ken Miller From a report that spontaneous resistance to the drug can be found in roughly 1 parasite in 1020, he asserts that these are the odds of both mutations arising in a single organism, and uses them to make this sweeping assertion:
"On average, for humans to achieve a mutation like this by chance, we would need to wait a hundred million times ten million years. Since that is many times the age of the universe, it's reasonable to conclude the following: No mutation that is of the same complexity as chloroquine resistance in malaria arose by Darwinian evolution in the line leading to humans in the past ten million years."
Behe, incredibly, thinks he has determined the odds of a mutation "of the same complexity" occurring in the human line. He hasn't. What he has actually done is to determine the odds of these two exact mutations occurring simultaneously at precisely the same position in exactly the same gene in a single individual. He then leads his unsuspecting readers to believe that this spurious calculation is a hard and fast statistical barrier to the accumulation of enough variation to drive darwinian evolution.
It would be difficult to imagine a more breathtaking abuse of statistical genetics.
Posted by Reshpeckobiggle (Member # 8947) on :
I only read the first part of that blog post, about how Irreducible Complexity has been thoroughly debunked. Actually, it was been subjected a couple of straw man arguments, and since some people are already convinced that evolution had to happen, well, any argument against his theory, no matter how fallacious, will do.
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
quote:Originally posted by Dawkins If mutation, rather than selection, really limited evolutionary change, this should be true for artificial no less than natural selection. Domestic breeding relies upon exactly the same pool of mutational variation as natural selection. Now, if you sought an experimental test of Behe's theory, what would you do? You'd take a wild species, say a wolf that hunts caribou by long pursuit, and apply selection experimentally to see if you could breed, say, a dogged little wolf that chivies rabbits underground: let's call it a Jack Russell terrier. Or how about an adorable, fluffy pet wolf called, for the sake of argument, a Pekingese? Or a heavyset, thick-coated wolf, strong enough to carry a cask of brandy, that thrives in Alpine passes and might be named after one of them, the St. Bernard? Behe has to predict that you'd wait till hell freezes over, but the necessary mutations would not be forthcoming. Your wolves would stubbornly remain unchanged. Dogs are a mathematical impossibility.
Don't evade the point by protesting that dog breeding is a form of intelligent design. It is (kind of), but Behe, having lost the argument over irreducible complexity, is now in his desperation making a completely different claim: that mutations are too rare to permit significant evolutionary change anyway. From Newfies to Yorkies, from Weimaraners to water spaniels, from Dalmatians to dachshunds, as I incredulously close this book I seem to hear mocking barks and deep, baying howls of derision from 500 breeds of dogs — every one descended from a timber wolf within a time frame so short as to seem, by geological standards, instantaneous.
Posted by Reshpeckobiggle (Member # 8947) on :
quote:Originally posted by Kwea: Resh, I was talking about why I dislike both extreme ends of this argument. They act a lot alike in their disrespect for anyone who disagrees with their point of view, which is ironic, but mot fun to be around.
Oh yeah, I'm with you on that. I of course, find it ironic that I dislike the extremes and the disrespect, but then actively engage in taking an extreme and disrespectful angle.
Posted by MattP (Member # 10495) on :
quote:I can't comment on this book, or whatever it is.
Answers in Genesis is an organization. They built the $35M Creation Museum that's been in the news lately and they employ a large portion of the credentialed scientists that advocate Biblical creationism as a scientific conclusion.
quote:Just exchange "scriptual record" with "evolutionary theory."
Can you point out one scientist who would agree that any evidence that contradicts their current theory is automatically invalid just because it conflicts with their theory rather than conflicting with the balance of existing evidence.
Posted by mr_porteiro_head (Member # 4644) on :
quote:"No apparent, perceived or claimed evidence in any field, including history and chronology, can be valid if it contradicts the Scriptural record." Same thing here. Just exchange "scriptural record" with "evolutionary theory."
Except that's not true, as proven by the news item that prompted this thread. New evidence was discovered which contradicted the current evolutionary theory. It wasn't rejected -- it was accepted, and evolutionary theory was changed to fit the new data.
Posted by mr_porteiro_head (Member # 4644) on :
quote:Originally posted by kmbboots: The discussion of Mother Teresa brings to mind that, at least for me, faith is not based on feelings. I think that feeling the presence of God is a somewhat shaky foundation. For most people, it comes and goes at best. Lots of faithful people experience a "dark night of the soul". Even God Incarnate felt forsaken. Faith, for me, is a decision.
I feel the same way about love -- it's much more a decision and a commitment than it is a feeling.
Posted by Reshpeckobiggle (Member # 8947) on :
That's not how it works, at least as far as I believe, Matt. All data is interpreted according to Evolutionary theory. Nothing is invalidated; it is just shaped and fitted accordingly. On the flip side, there are many things that should have been invalidated, such as the geologic column, uniformitarianism, or the various age-dating techniques, that are still in use because they prop up the theory.
Posted by Reshpeckobiggle (Member # 8947) on :
Actually, uniformitarianism is an example of rejection of evidence. The evidence shows that the entire surface of the earth has probably been subject to cataclysmic changes in the past. But this would invalidate much of the evidence used to support evolution, and so it is still being adhered to.
Posted by MattP (Member # 10495) on :
quote:Originally posted by Reshpeckobiggle: That's not how it works, at least as far as I believe, Matt. All data is interpreted according to Evolutionary theory. Nothing is invalidated; it is just shaped and fitted accordingly. On the flip side, there are many things that should have been invalidated, such as the geologic column, the various age-dating techniques, that are still in use because they prop up the theory.
I recognize that this is the general view of more sophisticated creationists, but I don't believe that this view is supported by evidence.
The potential flaws in the dating methods that are employed by geologists and other specialists which deal with geochronology are well understood and accounted for. The results are very consistent and, for the methods which deal in the same time ranges, mutually validating.
There is no evidence for the mechanisms which creationists believe cause these dating methods to be flawed, such as the suggestion that radioactive decay rates have not been constant over time. Such assertions are made only because they are necessary to fit the evidence to the creationist young earth view.
Even the somewhat interesting creationist claims about dating conflicts, such as the helium diffusion rates in New Mexico zircons, have been shown to have serious methodological flaws. Scientists point out the errors but the creationist scientists seem rather resistant to actually address the criticisms.
Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
Ah, those uniformitarians and their numerous theories of cataclysmic events such as asteroid impacts, theories frequently validated by new discoveries of layered deposits consistent with such huge, catastrophic impacts . . .
Perhaps by 'uniformitarian' you mean 'has many theories of the impact of cataclysmic events, and about specific cataclysmic events occuring-arian'?
Posted by Blayne Bradley (Member # 8565) on :
quote:Originally posted by Reshpeckobiggle: Trolling
I am above the age of 20 and still believe Evolution is the most plausible explanation for the origins of intelligent life and I have considered all the evidence, intelligent and otherwise.
Posted by Javert (Member # 3076) on :
quote:Originally posted by Reshpeckobiggle: That's not how it works, at least as far as I believe, Matt. All data is interpreted according to Evolutionary theory. Nothing is invalidated; it is just shaped and fitted accordingly. On the flip side, there are many things that should have been invalidated, such as the geologic column, uniformitarianism, or the various age-dating techniques, that are still in use because they prop up the theory.
May I ask where you get your information? Are you a research scientist? (I'm asking seriously...I realize that can be read as sarcasm.)
Posted by mr_porteiro_head (Member # 4644) on :
quote:I have considered all the evidence, intelligent and otherwise.
I seriously doubt you've considered all of it.
I wonder if there's a single person alive who could fully consider all the evidence from all the fields.
Posted by MattP (Member # 10495) on :
quote:I wonder if there's a single person alive who could fully consider all the evidence from all the fields.
That would be physically impossible. There are thousands of papers published every year in the relevant disciplines. Even 24/7, one person could not read all of them.
Posted by mr_porteiro_head (Member # 4644) on :
Good point. I obviously hadn't thought it through all the way.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
quote:Originally posted by Reshpeckobiggle: That's not how it works, at least as far as I believe, Matt. All data is interpreted according to Evolutionary theory. Nothing is invalidated; it is just shaped and fitted accordingly. On the flip side, there are many things that should have been invalidated, such as the geologic column, uniformitarianism, or the various age-dating techniques, that are still in use because they prop up the theory.
Prove it. Prove that you have any idea what you are talking about. Back this up.
Posted by Shigosei (Member # 3831) on :
Noemon, I have been saving a copy of this thread as well.
I switched from being a pretty die-hard young earth creationist to accepting that the Biblical account couldn't be literal sometime around the age of 16 or 17. I wasn't happy about it, but I was unable to deny the evidence. I got a bit tired of disbelieving huge swaths of biology, anthropology, astronomy, cosmology, and geology. So I guess you can decide if my age disqualifies me, Tom. Did I need to be an old young earth creationist for you to put me on your list?
Anyhow, having been a reasonably intelligent young earth creationist, I think it would be wrong to say that people who believe that sort of thing are stupid. Likewise, it's quite unfair to say that accepting evolution is in any way abandoning faith in God or embracing immorality. Look, I wasn't stupid then, and I'm not evil now.
Also, keep in mind that evolutionary theory is actually kind of useful in studying biology. For example, we need to understand how pathogens evolve so that we can develop defenses against them. And you know, some of the things you find out are just pretty darn cool, even mind-blowing. During a genomics class, I compared a gene from the typhus bacterium with a gene from the human mitochondrion. The theory goes that some common ancestor of the two either infected or was eaten by the ancestor of eukaryotes, and ended up in a symbiotic relationship.
Anyhow, a billion or so years later, the genes I was looking at were ridiculously similar. Amazing, isn't it?
Posted by Enigmatic (Member # 7785) on :
quote: and I'm not evil now.
Look, if you're going to go about posting this kind of outrageous claim you're going to need some to post some pretty reliable evidence if you want any of us to believe you.
--Enigmatic
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
quote:Originally posted by Noemon: I just saved a copy of this thread, by the way, in anticipation of Jay eventually deleting it. I'll try to remember to get a new copy of it every now and then, and will just repost the whole thing as a mammoth first post in a new thread if the deletion does occur.
noemon = hero
Posted by Shigosei (Member # 3831) on :
You saw me interacting with two small children in Las Vegas, and I didn't even take a nibble. I think that should be sufficient. I didn't short-sheet Rivka's bed, either. That must have been someone else Posted by Nathan2006 (Member # 9387) on :
quote:Originally posted by Reshpeckobiggle:
quote:Originally posted by Kwea: Resh, I was talking about why I dislike both extreme ends of this argument. They act a lot alike in their disrespect for anyone who disagrees with their point of view, which is ironic, but mot fun to be around.
Oh yeah, I'm with you on that. I of course, find it ironic that I dislike the extremes and the disrespect, but then actively engage in taking an extreme and disrespectful angle.
Me too. Posted by The Pixiest (Member # 1863) on :
mph wrote:
quote: I feel the same way about love -- it's much more a decision and a commitment than it is a feeling.
Wow.. Porter.. That's really sad =(
Posted by mr_porteiro_head (Member # 4644) on :
I think it's beautiful, and so does my wife.
Posted by beverly (Member # 6246) on :
Agreed. And I have found it a very rewarding course to follow.
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
Pixiest: I could be wrong, but it seems you think Porter was saying that its almost all a decision and almost devoid of any feeling. I doubt he meant it that way. If you thought the ratio was much closer and still find it sad, nevermind then.
I agree with Porter though. If love was not a decision I'd be divorced by now, because feelings are just not strong enough to carry any marriage as far as I am concerned.
Posted by Kwea (Member # 2199) on :
quote:Originally posted by The Pixiest: mph wrote:
quote: I feel the same way about love -- it's much more a decision and a commitment than it is a feeling.
Wow.. Porter.. That's really sad =(
I think it is a great thing, and my wife does as well. It doesn't mean there isn't feeling....of course there is....but I had to think long and hard about if I wanted to marry my wife. I had thought I was in love before I had met her and been wrong, so I was questioning my feelings.
Questioning those feelings only made me more sure in the end that we were made for each other.
I also cried like a baby during her walk down the aisle....so remember, just because I feel it takes positive decisions and a willingness to work things out doesn't mean there is no feeling involved. Posted by Hobbes (Member # 433) on :
Not that I agree with Jay's post, but I think the general feeling comes from the pressure so many religious people feel (real or imagined) to change their views, either by abandoning their faith entirely, or altering part of it, to correspond with scientific advancements. The push back is that, science keeps changing, why should I change my beliefs if tomorrow you could change your mind and agree with my position of today? I don't think that this discovery was anything like that kind of switch, I'm speaking in generalities now, not as it relates to this specific example.
Religion and science are different in this respect because religion can declare absolutes, where as science deals only in probable explanations and predictions. You can only theorize the real world from science, which is why it can adapt and change. Religion is declarative. In Christianity the statement that Christ is the Savior of mankind has no room for error or adaptation. Change in this principle is not possible based on new information; if it is discovered that Christ is not the Savior of mankind than the religion crumbles. In my mind the supposed conflict between science and religion is more of a sideshow than anything. The two fields overlap in such a minor way as to make it of almost no importance to me. In my religion, the important declarative statements simply can not be proved or disproved by scientific investigation. Christ being the Savior of mankind as a perfect example. The importance of evolution or creationism in my life and my religion is almost nill. Now of course that's not true for everyone, there's plenty of religious people who find, for example, that evolution plays a very important role in their life to the point that they'll spend hours arguing about it, and some even crusade for or against it. I can't speak for them, but I can think of no area where science overlaps my religion in a life-influencing way with the possible exception of dietary restrictions.
I think the real problem for most people is determining what is a defenitively true statement and what is conjecture. This comes down to each particular religion; some seem to have almost nothing as facts (I've met hundreds of Christians who seem to feel that other than the aforementioned Christ as Savior, nothing else is definitive). Others seem to feel that each iota of their religious belief, including their belief in creationism, is definitively truth, and not speculation from text. That's something each person has to determine for themselves; obviously enough people are towards the latter end to cause this fight to take place, but I think most people on this form find themselves closer to the first. A looser definition of definitive truths allows for a greater acceptance of change (obviously) but any time someone else's opinion or theory (no matter how valid) differs from a core belief conflict will ensue. The main problem there is that in general, the reason for believing the two sides of this argument (faith and science) are of a very different nature. It is difficult to convince a scientist that a higher power could answer their questions on the matter and resolve any concerns, and it's difficult to try to reason a person of faith out of something they feel came from a divine source.
Hobbes Posted by Mucus (Member # 9735) on :
quote:Originally posted by Hobbes: ... In my religion, the important declarative statements simply can not be proved or disproved by scientific investigation. Christ being the Savior of mankind as a perfect example.
"Can not" by principle or "can not" by current scientific methods? Say some scientist goes out, invents a time machine and finds out that there was no Christ and instead that Christ was actually a con man who faked his own death, that would seem to be a pretty good proof one way. On the other hand, if that same scientist found that Christ's body really did manage to disappear from his tomb and that he really was the result of a virgin birth, that would seem to be a pretty good proof the other way.
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
Nah. Obviously his god happened to work through that con man in such a way that human souls are saved anyway.
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
quote:Originally posted by Mucus:
quote:Originally posted by Hobbes: ... In my religion, the important declarative statements simply can not be proved or disproved by scientific investigation. Christ being the Savior of mankind as a perfect example.
"Can not" by principle or "can not" by current scientific methods? Say some scientist goes out, invents a time machine and finds out that there was no Christ and instead that Christ was actually a con man who faked his own death, that would seem to be a pretty good proof one way. On the other hand, if that same scientist found that Christ's body really did manage to disappear from his tomb and that he really was the result of a virgin birth, that would seem to be a pretty good proof the other way.
You are assuming of course that God is OK with somebody FINALLY proving through science that Jesus is the savior of all mankind thus removing any need for anybody to have faith.
Also if the scientist found that Christ had indeed disappeared inexplicably and was born of a virgin that would not prove that He was the savior of mankind. Scientists would all posit different explanations as to how a virgin could give birth as well as how the body might have decomposed so suddenly or disappeared.
Even if a scientist did biological tests on Jesus while he suffered for the sins of the world, it would not IMO be possible to scientifically measure what happens when a sin is atoned for. At best he would record that Jesus was under a ton of stress and bleeding through his pores.
Posted by Blayne Bradley (Member # 8565) on :
I am not literally saying I have read every scientific paper but I know the gist of the majority of the arguements to know that ID and YEC arguements seem to be easily debunked.
Posted by beverly (Member # 6246) on :
Yeah, in spite of KoM's sarcastic depiction of believers looking for other explainations, I imagine that many non-believers would be looking for alternate explainations if they found what BlackBlade describes.
Cool thoughts, Hobbes. Posted by MattP (Member # 10495) on :
quote:You are assuming of course that God is OK with somebody FINALLY proving through science that Jesus is the savior of all mankind thus removing any need for anybody to have faith.
The fact that miracles were permitted to be viewed in the first place seems to indicate that God's OK with direct observation. I don't see why the fact that our tools of observation are more powerful now should be an impediment.
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
quote:Originally posted by MattP:
quote:You are assuming of course that God is OK with somebody FINALLY proving through science that Jesus is the savior of all mankind thus removing any need for anybody to have faith.
The fact that miracles were permitted to be viewed in the first place seems to indicate that God's OK with direct observation. I don't see why the fact that our tools of observation are more powerful now should be an impediment.
IMO if a miracle happened now and God allowed our current tools to observe it, it would be because the miracle does not conclusively prove anything, and that down the road the record would not remove the need for faith in future generations of believers.
Or else it would be Jesus' second coming in which case scientific tools observing that event are hardly at the top of anybody's concern list.
Posted by MattP (Member # 10495) on :
I dunno. Biblical miracles were often pretty impressive displays. If "they would preclude faith" wasn't an argument against them then, I don't see why it's a valid argument now.
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
quote:Originally posted by MattP: I dunno. Biblical miracles were often pretty impressive displays. If "they would preclude faith" wasn't an argument against them then, I don't see why it's a valid argument now.
People in various places and time have also been more willing to believe that such things were possible. It says quite specifically that Jesus could do no miracles in certain places because people were so skeptical and unwilling to believe.
But more importantly, no matter how emphatically somebody tells me that they saw something, that does nothing to prove to me the truth of the matter. As time passes incredible events become harder and harder to believe until we simply pass them off as myths.
In terms of hard evidence, somebody's say so is hardly anything, and increasingly less so as time goes by.
Posted by Kwea (Member # 2199) on :
Well, you should let God know that! He has been holding out! Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
quote:Originally posted by Kwea: Well, you should let God know that! He has been holding out!
Not if you believe in Mormon theology he hasn't. Posted by MattP (Member # 10495) on :
quote:People in various places and time have also been more willing to believe that such things were possible. It says quite specifically that Jesus could do no miracles in certain places because people were so skeptical and unwilling to believe.
Uri Geller was unable to exercise his powers when Johnny Carson wouldn't let him touch the props. The inability/unwillingness to demonstrate power before nonbelievers is typically associated with people who don't actually have the claimed powers. That's why James Randi has never had to pay his million dollars.
By behaving in a manner which we associate with the conman, he doesn't just demand faith, but a level of credulity which in similar circumstances may end up being harmful.
Posted by beverly (Member # 6246) on :
quote:The fact that miracles were permitted to be viewed in the first place seems to indicate that God's OK with direct observation.
It is doctrine in the LDS faith that miracles are not to convince non-believers but to confirm the faith of believers. We believe that miracles will not come at all without faith.
That some miracles might be viewed by non-believers is not the issue. Scriptural accounts (some that are LDS-specific scripture) suggest that non-believers who witnessed miracles were often hardened in their non-belief rather than being converted, and thus it further impeded their progress rather than benefitting them.
Posted by Kwea (Member # 2199) on :
quote:Originally posted by MattP:
quote:People in various places and time have also been more willing to believe that such things were possible. It says quite specifically that Jesus could do no miracles in certain places because people were so skeptical and unwilling to believe.
Uri Geller was unable to exercise his powers when Johnny Carson wouldn't let him touch the props. The inability/unwillingness to demonstrate power before nonbelievers is typically associated with people who don't actually have the claimed powers. That's why James Randi has never had to pay his million dollars.
By behaving in a manner which we associate with the conman, he doesn't just demand faith, but a level of credulity which in similar circumstances may end up being harmful.
Uri Geller and Johnny Carson as a yardstick for miracles?
Posted by MattP (Member # 10495) on :
quote:Uri Geller and Johnny Carson as a yardstick for miracles?
Just an example of the "it won't work if you don't believe it" argument in modern times. Unfortunately there aren't many loftier examples. That was kinda my point.
Posted by MattP (Member # 10495) on :
quote:Scriptural accounts (some that are LDS-specific scripture) suggest that non-believers who witnessed miracles were often hardened in their non-belief rather than being converted, and thus it further impeded their progress rather than benefitting them.
Which is really really hard for me to accept. If someone claimed to have supernatural powers and them performed an act which I could not explain I might start from the assumption that they were a particularly talented illusionist, but I can't see being less convinced of the likelihood of them actually having the claimed powers than if they had not performed that act and I'm a REALLY skeptical person. Average Joe off the street is not going to be more likely than me to have his heart "hardened" by such a display.
I realize that's what the scriptures and some church leaders say, but how does that really make any sense?
[ August 27, 2007, 07:36 PM: Message edited by: MattP ]
Posted by lem (Member # 6914) on :
quote:In my religion, the important declarative statements simply can not be proved or disproved by scientific investigation. Christ being the Savior of mankind as a perfect example.
I think a perfect example would be the acceptance of the Book of Mormon as a historical document. It doesn't require faith to try to prove or disprove that particular claim.
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
True, but faith has enabled a lot of people to ignore the totally negative testimony of rather an extensive amount of archeology in the relevant area. "Oh, we just haven't looked in the right place yet, and besides it's rather smaller than the book implies."
Posted by Reshpeckobiggle (Member # 8947) on :
So how do you defend the idea that science simply has yet to explain some of the details concerning evolution? Is that not the same thing: faith?
Posted by Icarus (Member # 3162) on :
I believe that was Dick Cavett, not Johnny Carson.
-o-
I'd like to see the slander of Mother Theresa backed up.
Posted by Reshpeckobiggle (Member # 8947) on :
quote:Originally posted by Blayne Bradley:
quote:Originally posted by Reshpeckobiggle: Trolling
I am above the age of 20 and still believe Evolution is the most plausible explanation for the origins of intelligent life and I have considered all the evidence, intelligent and otherwise.
Now could someone explain this to me? How exactly am I trolling? And why am I being accused of trolling by someone who has had nothing to do with the conversation up to this point and just jumps in with a post like this?
Posted by MattP (Member # 10495) on :
quote:I believe that was Dick Cavett, not Johnny Carson.
It was definitely Johnny. The video is on YouTube.
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
MattP: Ezra Booth personally witnessed Joseph Smith heal the lame arm of a woman Booth had known to have had no use of the arm her entire life. He later left the church because he did not feel like he was seeing enough miracles in his ministry. He specifically cited the gift of tongues as lacking in missionary work as he felt missionaries should be frequently overcome with the spirit into uttering sermons.
Look at the three witnesses who saw the actual gold plates. All three of them left the church, and people make a big deal about how they never denied their testimonies of the gold plates. They may have believed perfectly that the gold plates and the Book of Mormon were from God, but that did not stop any of them from deciding that Joseph Smith was a fallen prophet who needed to be replaces by themselves or somebody more in agreement with their ideas. It also did not stop them from signing false statements that Joseph Smith and the Mormons were in open rebellion to the state of Missouri.
Posted by MattP (Member # 10495) on :
I don't see how any of that indicates that witnessing miracles caused people to lose their faith.
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
quote:Originally posted by MattP: I don't see how any of that indicates that witnessing miracles caused people to lose their faith.
You seemed to be saying that a miracle of sufficient magnitude would be a good mechanism for creating lasting faith in God. Or that regular manifestations of God's power would make the world more willing to believe in God. Is that wrong?
Posted by Hobbes (Member # 433) on :
I have personal experience with people witnessing, and sometimes participating in powerful miracles and not believing.
Hobbes Posted by Javert (Member # 3076) on :
quote:Originally posted by Hobbes: I have personal experience with people witnessing, and sometimes participating in powerful miracles and not believing.
Hobbes
Care to elaborate? Posted by Hobbes (Member # 433) on :
Not really. Sorry.
Hobbes Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote:You seemed to be saying that a miracle of sufficient magnitude would be a good mechanism for creating lasting faith in God. Or that regular manifestations of God's power would make the world more willing to believe in God.
I believe that both of these things are absolutely true, and that believers are kidding themselves when they convince themselves otherwise.
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson:
quote:You seemed to be saying that a miracle of sufficient magnitude would be a good mechanism for creating lasting faith in God. Or that regular manifestations of God's power would make the world more willing to believe in God.
I believe that both of these things are absolutely true, and that believers are kidding themselves when they convince themselves otherwise.
Well I believe both of those things are not true, and that the two stories I posted are good examples of how that method does not work. If we are to believe the story of Judas it seems that people who see alot of miracles either become stalwart supporters of the faith or become the vilest of sinners. With no spread in between.
Posted by Javert (Member # 3076) on :
quote:Originally posted by BlackBlade:
quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson:
quote:You seemed to be saying that a miracle of sufficient magnitude would be a good mechanism for creating lasting faith in God. Or that regular manifestations of God's power would make the world more willing to believe in God.
I believe that both of these things are absolutely true, and that believers are kidding themselves when they convince themselves otherwise.
Well I believe both of those things are not true, and that the two stories I posted are good examples of how that method does not work. If we are to believe the story of Judas it seems that people who see alot of miracles either become stalwart supporters of the faith or become the vilest of sinners. With no spread in between.
There is another possibility. Perhaps he was made to tell others that he had seen miracles when in fact he had not, and was tired of repeating what didn't happen.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote:I believe both of those things are not true, and that the two stories I posted are good examples of how that method does not work.
Yes, but, see, I believe both those stories are fictional. Story of Judas, too, but YMMV.
Posted by Hobbes (Member # 433) on :
Tom, I agree that miracles would make a person more likely to admit either the existence, or possibility of existance of a higher power, and I suppose that could be what was meant. However, at least to me, when I say that miracles don't engender faith I'm not talking about faith as an intellectual consent to the existance of God.
Hobbes Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
*nod* I know what you mean by that, Hobbes. And I'm sympathetic to the argument, if not convinced by it.
Posted by MattP (Member # 10495) on :
One has to also accept that faith for faith's sake is a good thing.
Posted by Hobbes (Member # 433) on :
Well I appreciate your point of view too, Tom.
Hobbes Posted by Chris Bridges (Member # 1138) on :
So how do you defend the idea that science simply has yet to explain some of the details concerning evolution? Is that not the same thing: faith?
So if science can't explain it all completely, the parts it can explain are thereby discredited and useless?
The theories of the creation of life, evolution, and natural selection are deduced from what we can observe and what we can test. Some of the theories extrapolate from those tests and guesses are made. Tests are based on those guesses; some fail, some succeed. Some succeed reliably enough to use as maxims which we can then use to make more guesses farther along into the areas we can't go and actually look at. Sometimes new evidence contradicts one of the earlier guesses in a way we couldn't see before, and all of the guesses made since get re-evaluated, resulting in stronger guesses. There is no certainty, which is what makes it open to new ideas and flexible enough to account for new discoveries.
Faith is believing in what cannot tested, cannot be proved or disproved. There is certainty, which makes it closed to new ideas and inflexible towards new discoveries.
There are certainly scientists, and religionists, that believe in some combination of science and religion. My wife is a Christian who accepts evolution with no trouble at all. And there are certainly scientists and religionists who see any doubt cast towards their beliefs as personal attacks and respond accordingly.
But science, as it should be performed, does not rely on faith.
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson:
quote:I believe both of those things are not true, and that the two stories I posted are good examples of how that method does not work.
Yes, but, see, I believe both those stories are fictional. Story of Judas, too, but YMMV.
OK, do you think the other two stories I posted are fictional? Or at the very least plausible?
MattP: That's a can of worms I'd rather not open right now.
Posted by Icarus (Member # 3162) on :
quote:Originally posted by MattP:
quote:I believe that was Dick Cavett, not Johnny Carson.
It was definitely Johnny. The video is on YouTube.
Ah, I was thinking of James Hydrick, not Uri Geller.
And it was Bob Barker, not Cavett.
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
My "bottom line" belief would not be altered if the miracles related in the gospels were proved to be of natural causes or even proved to have not happened.
quote:But science, as it should be performed, does not rely on faith.
Sure it does. At the least, we must have faith that our senses are reliable.
Posted by Chris Bridges (Member # 1138) on :
We don't, actually. That's why we don't rely on a single test, and generally request that others duplicate findings as much as possible. Get as many senses verifying the theory as possible and the likelihood of it being accurate goes up.
Granted, we do have to have faith that we're not, say, dreaming or collectively hallucinating, but I don't think faith in whether your eyesight is dependable is the same as faith in a six-day creation. If our senses are in fact being manipulated by an unknowable source we might as well give up now.
Posted by MattP (Member # 10495) on :
quote:Sure it does. At the least, we must have faith that our senses are reliable.
Much of science is dedicated to discerning truth despite the inadequacies of our senses. We can't necessarily be trusted to determine the weight of an object by holding it in our hands, but we can read the digits of a scale with reasonably consistency.
Posted by Hobbes (Member # 433) on :
I think, in line with Chris's post, I'd consider our senses functioning as more of an assumption than faith. I just can't classify my faith in God as equivalent with various assumptions about, for example, just dreaming my whole life only to wake up and find out this universe doesn't exist. Faith for me isn't assumptive, I don't use the words interchangeably.
Hobbes Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote:OK, do you think the other two stories I posted are fictional? Or at the very least plausible?
You mean the golden plates ones? I don't think they're fictional, per se; I believe that three people really did say they saw the plates. I don't have any reason to believe that they actually saw what they described, though.
Many, many people say they have communicated directly with God. I don't think all of them are lying, but neither do I think that any of them have.
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
quote:You mean the golden plates ones? I don't think they're fictional, per se; I believe that three people really did say they saw the plates. I don't have any reason to believe that they actually saw what they described, though.
OK so you are convinced that if you had a comparable experience it would sustain your faith in God and be the foundation of a lifetime of faith and good works? Could God expect perfect obedience out of you the rest of your life should he visit you man to man?
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
Which experience, specifically? If someone showed me some metal plates, then claimed as a consequence to be a prophet of God and demanded my obedience, I'd probably want significantly more proof. Plates aren't all that miraculous.
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson: Which experience, specifically? If someone showed me some metal plates, then claimed as a consequence to be a prophet of God and demanded my obedience, I'd probably want significantly more proof. Plates aren't all that miraculous.
Well according to the witnesses the plates were on a table, along with several artifacts mentioned in the Book of Mormon. An angel presented everything, and a voice identifying itself as God, sounded from heaven, and told them that what they were looking at was authentic, and that they must bear record of it to everyone in the world, and that if they ever denied the truth of this occasion that there would be hell to pay.
Good enough for you?
Posted by Hobbes (Member # 433) on :
I don't think the problem is really where's the line to be crossed where it changes from an unusual, but still ever-day event, into a miraculous experience. The main question is, does that line exist? Certainly if a person doesn't want to believe something they wont. Even if you saw the face of God and heard the trumpets of heaven blow; a man could say it was nothing but a trick of the mind, a sleight of hand apparition made by a clever imposture. It's certainly also possible for a true fence sitter to see the lights of Heaven and witness the miracles of God and be impressed to believe in Him. But what would that do? Religion is about having personal experiences with God, not witnessing strange phenomena in the world around you. Watching a neat trick of physics in a demonstration doesn't draw me close to the MC, and I doubt that witnessing a river pile up on itself, however impressive and awe inspiring that would be, would help anyone develop a personal relationship with anyone. Having faith in a Christian sense, having religion in ones life means that you know God and His Son, that you feel comfortable talking with them and feel confident not just that they can give answers, but that they do. Confident enough to follow those answers, confident enough to change not just a few outward actions or go to a few services, but change who you are. A miracle doesn't do any of this, no matter how spectacular; you will be the same person after having witnessed it as before.
Hobbes Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
quote:Originally posted by Shigosei: You saw me interacting with two small children in Las Vegas, and I didn't even take a nibble. I think that should be sufficient. I didn't short-sheet Rivka's bed, either. That must have been someone else
Yup. And the small puncture marks on my neck have almost completely healed.
Posted by Shigosei (Member # 3831) on :
Oh, good. Fangs for the memories!
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
You're just lucky I'm type O. Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote:Good enough for you?
No. Someone shows me the Great and Powerful OZ, I look for a curtain. My standard for "miracles" is fairly high.
Posted by beverly (Member # 6246) on :
quote:
quote:You seemed to be saying that a miracle of sufficient magnitude would be a good mechanism for creating lasting faith in God. Or that regular manifestations of God's power would make the world more willing to believe in God.
I believe that both of these things are absolutely true, and that believers are kidding themselves when they convince themselves otherwise.
Tom, what would be a good example of a miracle that would be magnificent enough to engender lasting faith in God?
What if it only happened once, and there were no further evidence in your life? Your miracle wouldn't be repeatable or controlable the way a scientific experiment is because it was wrought by a higher power you have no control over.
Might you question after awhile if the miracle really was so miraculous? Might you question your own perceptions and memory?
You cannot really know the answers to these questions, not unless you'd actually been through it. So many of our feelings, our passions are fleeting. We have so little real sense of perspective, we are so locked in the "now."
I believe God when He says that lasting faith is not engendered by miracles. (Except perhaps in the truly exceptional, faithful souls. King Lamoni in the Book of Mormon, for example. I think sincerity and humility were important elements there.)
Tom, I know that you believe that if the God of the Bible existed, you would not like Him and would view Him as an evil being. What use would it serve to convince you of His reality if it would result in you actively fighting against Him? You may be convinced of God's reality, but your loyalty would not be won. You would not listen to the crucial guidance only He can offer with His perspective. If we accept that God's counsel is for your own good, your newfound faith would not benefit you.
You want God to treat you as an equal. You want to understand the "why's" before trusting Him. "Because Father said so" isn't good enough for you--no matter what the miracle might have been.
I imagine you accept that your perspective is superior to your daughter's. You know you love her and want what is best for her, and you know reality and this world far better than she does. But no matter how you try, you can't get her to undertstand all of that right now. Luckily, your job is made easier by the fact that she is a trusting, loving soul, as all children tend to be.
But the day will come when she will question your wisdom and life's experience--especially when it clashes with her will and she doesn't like it. She will want to learn things for herself. She won't just take it at your word, and will experience pain because of it.
Some people are more naturally trusting the way children are, some are more naturally skeptical and questioning, like a teenager tends to be.
I believe that it is going through parenthood that helps us to understand a tiny iota of what it is like to be God. Many things about God, for me, do not make sense until you see them through that lens.
The parallel is far from perfect, but the similarities are there. The point is, God's proving to you that He exists won't get you to follow His will, not if you don't understand it, don't trust Him, don't even believe He is good. God isn't interested in us knowing beyond doubt that He exists, because it doesn't benefit us in the long run. Trusting and following Him does.
This is why I believe faith is good for faith's own sake. I believe that faith isn't just about "Does God exist?" I believe it addresses more crucial questions, "Who is God? Is He good? Can He be trusted?" That is why I believe that the "little" problem of skepticism in God's existance will be worked out just fine in the long run. In the meantime, what sorts of ideologies do we embrace? How do they measure up with Truth and Goodness? I believe we will all have a chance to accept God in our own due time and see Him for who He truly is.
Am I certain that God exists? Quite frankly, no. I haven't seen Him. Am I certain that the teachings I put my faith in are good? Yes. And through many, many subtle experiences throughout my life as I strive to ponder and adhere to them, this trust transfers over to a trust in a Divine Being and that Being begins to take clearer and clearer shape to me.
This is the part that is difficult to explain, the part that people like KoM will always try to poke holes in, though to no effect. It is beyond the reach of science, and beyond the reach of mocking. It is sacred. It is the revelation of who I truly wish to be and what I hold most dear.
Posted by Reshpeckobiggle (Member # 8947) on :
I submit that this would be an excellent end to this thread. If no one posts after me, I will delete this post.
And then subscribe to Beverly's blog, if she has one.
Posted by 0Megabyte (Member # 8624) on :
I may not be Tom, but is it okay if I answer for myself here, as I'm of a similar mind of Tom as for the rest of his statements?
" what would be a good example of a miracle that would be magnificent enough to engender lasting faith in God? "
For me, (not Tom, but he can answer later) something incontravertibly from God. That is to say, if Jesus appeared to me as clearly as he supposedly appeared to Thomas.
Of course, I don't know Jesus' face, so it would have to be rather more clear than just some person with bad scars in the right place appearing, even if they're glowing.
How about God addressing the entire planet, so that all of us, say, hear his voice, all at once? Proclaiming Himself to be God, pointing out that the Bible (or whichever book) was accurate, performing multiple miracles, perhaps having a conversation with some people, and, best of all, being recorded while doing this. At the very least, having his voice recorded, allowing the recording to work, and allowing it in multiple places at once.
Such a thing shouldn't be hard for an omnipotent deity. It would certainly be preferable to, say, sending people to eternal torment because they use the faculties He gave them, and refusing to believe on no evidence.
Oh, and him randomly picking a group of people out from the planet, in front of others, and making them materialize in a centralized location to speak to him, all while this is being recorded, while his responses could be recorded as well. And answering their questions, not vaguely, but with the gusto and clarity he seems to give in the Old Testament.
Perhaps some miracles, and allowing them to be observed by scientists, and shown to break known laws of physics.
That would be rather damn convincing.
After all, if God does desire our praise, all he needs is to make himself unambiguously clear.
Oh, having a billion people dissapear all at once would work the deed too.
Basically, God acting with the power he used without a problem during the Old Testament. Huge actions, booming voice.
Maybe not something that big, perhaps... but that'd definitely be adaquete to get everyone to believe in his existence. Scientists too.
"What if it only happened once, and there were no further evidence in your life? Your miracle wouldn't be repeatable or controlable the way a scientific experiment is because it was wrought by a higher power you have no control over."
Well, this huge address would be rather pervasive and convincing. Especially with it being recorded, and especially with God allowing people to record it vigorously.
"Might you question after awhile if the miracle really was so miraculous? Might you question your own perceptions and memory? "
Not if it had that unambiguous clarity.
Of course, it depends on Him asking the questions, and doing those impossible, basic laws of physics defying things, and allowing them to be recorded by reliable witnesses in multiple independant locations.
"I believe God when He says that lasting faith is not engendered by miracles. (Except perhaps in the truly exceptional, faithful souls. King Lamoni in the Book of Mormon, for example. I think sincerity and humility were important elements there.)"
The people in the faith I used to believe felt differently. Which of you is right, again?
"Tom, I know that you believe that if the God of the Bible existed, you would not like Him and would view Him as an evil being. What use would it serve to convince you of His reality if it would result in you actively fighting against Him? You may be convinced of God's reality, but your loyalty would not be won. You would not listen to the crucial guidance only He can offer with His perspective. If we accept that God's counsel is for your own good, your newfound faith would not benefit you."
While I'm not Tom, I do feel also that God as presented in the Old Testament is rather evil, what with all the genocide, murdering of children, needless slaughter, love of pain of those people who happen to not be the ones he arbitrarily chose as His people, etc.
However, during God's unambiguous presentation of himself, I mentioned having people, including atheists, being allowed to ask him questions.
My faith, at least, would depend on his answers. Why should I care if he's wishy washy on it? Why should I follow a being with ultimate power, just because of strength? If his reasons for allowing injustice in the world weren't good enough, or showed disregard for it, I'd not follow such an entity. But if his reasons were valid, such as, say, it being physically the only way for a good world to exist (which would bring new questions, which hopefully would be answered by Him) or whatever, fine.
But power alone is not enough to make something worthy of praise. He'd need some damn good reasons.
"You want God to treat you as an equal. You want to understand the "why's" before trusting Him. "Because Father said so" isn't good enough for you--no matter what the miracle might have been."
To think otherwise is obviously foolish. Take Hitler, Stalin, Moussulini, etc, as examples.
Why should we trust someone with MORE power intrinsically, just because He says he's good? That's just stupid!
Hasn't history shown that trusting leaders is kind of unwise?
"The parallel is far from perfect, but the similarities are there. The point is, God's proving to you that He exists won't get you to follow His will, not if you don't understand it, don't trust Him, don't even believe He is good. God isn't interested in us knowing beyond doubt that He exists, because it doesn't benefit us in the long run. Trusting and following Him does."
Then God did a doubly cruel thing to me. By giving me the powers to ask questions, the kind of mind that will not take things just as they are, and asks for evidence, a mind that sees the evils that come from trusting without proof, he has then, if your view is right, doomed me to be unable to trust Him as he desires it. I cannot be otherwise. I will not lie to myself, decieve myself, brainwash myself to believe something that there's no evidence for.
And, naturally, if your worldview includes a hell, He will punish me for it.
What sort of monster would do such a thing?
"This is why I believe faith is good for faith's own sake."
Because father knows best, and since you've seen the father (through faith, natch) you know it's good?
Your description of Tom being a parent is one thing.
But why should a daughter trust a parent who she has never seen?
Why should my friend Michelle, for example, trust a father she hasn't seen since he divorced her mother when she was five, and believe his words?
To expect that is perverse. But that's what you demand in this case.
" I believe that faith isn't just about "Does God exist?" I believe it addresses more crucial questions, "Who is God? Is He good? Can He be trusted?" That is why I believe that the "little" problem of skepticism in God's existance will be worked out just fine in the long run. In the meantime, what sorts of ideologies do we embrace? How do they measure up with Truth and Goodness?"
Do you suggest by listening to a book that gives suggestions on how to care for your slaves,orders you to literally kill your friends if they feel doubt, and gleefully describes genocides ordered by the God you worship?
By listening to a New Testament which states "God deems it jus to repay with affliction those who afflict you... when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with his mighty angels in flaming fire, inflicting vengeance upon those who do not know God and upon those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. They shall suffer the punishment of eternal destruction and exclusion from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might..." 2 Thesalonians 1:6-9?
For using the faculties God gave me, for using the powers he imprinted within me, that shall be my reward. Eternal destruction and exclusion. At least, that's what the New Testament proclaims!
For asking these questions, for not denying my own nature, for my observations of the world, I am to be destroyed, because I didn't just "trust" that this particular religion was right.
Hell, the chances that you'd have believed in one form of Christianity or another if you hadn't been born into it are actually really low! Most people born into Muslim families stay Muslim throughout their lives. Most Christians stay Christians. That doesn't speak well of the strength of your creed over theirs, you know.
You'd have been, say, a Muslim or a Hindu, or something else, and most likely never have converted. Adn you would have believed with the same strong faith in Allah or Krishu, and stated that faith in one of those entities that contradict the one you believe in, is the one you should have faith in, and faith in whom is good for faith's own sake.
I can't say that with certainty, but the odds are vastly on the side of the religion you were born into, and spend most of your time around.
If faith is so great, why faith in this particular entity? Other people use faith of equal strength of yours, for contradictory entities. And they use their books, and claim them to be inerrent, and claim yours to be faulty.
Why should a neutral observer of your contradictory views assume yours is correct, again?
" I believe we will all have a chance to accept God in our own due time and see Him for who He truly is."
If He appeared in the conclusive way I stated above, then we could speak.
Heck, if he appeared in any unambiguous manner, which could be recorded, we could talk.
But if this silent God that's never spoken to me no matter how hard I tried, who has never been shown to me to have appeared to anyone in a way any more convincing than a person claiming to have visitations from aliens (which used to come from Venus and Mars before people learned that they were utterly uninhabited. Now people claim they come from other galaxies, as their knowledge of the universe grows little by little), and who has also never shown any primacy over the thousands of other gods which other people believe in, which they create when they are isolated from any contact from the Jewish people (if you think otherwise, ask those people who believe in the other gods! They'll beg to differ), whose miracles in the modern day are in fact no better than the miracles of those other contradictory religions just so happens to be the real one, it's going to be an interesting afterlife, without a doubt.
"Am I certain that the teachings I put my faith in are good? Yes."
I dunno about you specifically, but many Christians believe homosexuality is wrong, and that homosexuals themselves are sinners, for their actions.
This is nothing but harmful, to millions of people, who must suffer both persecution from people who believe them wrong, and the terrible guilt that can come from being taught that falling in love with someone of the same sex makes you a bad person.
This is evil. This belief is nothing but harmful to millions of people.
Many, many christians believe that this is a good, just belief, and that homosexuality is a sin. I don't know your view on it, but many hold that one.
Many Christians, in the past, believed in slavery. And used the teachings of the Bible to support it, for nowhere in the Bible does it teach slavery as wrong.
I cannot speak on your subtle experiences. However, I had many subtle experiences too. But then I realized them for what they were, wishful thinking, thinking there was a cause to random coincidence, selection bias, and other mental tricks to make things seem to point towards a god.
When even my own mind can be tricked, and I've seen other people believe ridiculous things because of subtle personal things, from aura crystals to psychic phenomena to weirder things... why should I trust your personal experiences any more than that of one who believes in psychics?
"This is the part that is difficult to explain, the part that people like KoM will always try to poke holes in, though to no effect. It is beyond the reach of science, and beyond the reach of mocking. It is sacred. It is the revelation of who I truly wish to be and what I hold most dear. "
Of course there's no effect, if you will yourself to believe something. That's why no Muslim will listen to either of us, for example. They dont' want to.
Anyway. Forgive my argumentation. I debate for debate's sake, honestly, and don't expect to change your views. I respect the strength of your feelings, and the positive effects it has on your heart. I don't want to see your heart be hurt, or to see anyone hurt.
But god damn, I love debating things...
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
I'll answer more simply: I think the analogy between religion and parenting is a false one. I understand why it appeals, especially to Western religion, but I don't think it applies.
Central to the problem with this analogy is the question of existence -- which is what miracles directly address, after all. For all that my daughter sometimes -- and very rarely, I might add, exposing another problem with this analogy -- may not understand my rules or behavior, there's never any reason for her to doubt that I exist. She will of course draw her own conclusions as to my wisdom and benevolence, but those conclusions are based on direct experience of and conversations with me.
If we were going to compare religion to parenting, here's the analogy:
You live in a house with twelve siblings. You have never seen your father, but four of your sisters claim to speak with him regularly and occasionally relay his commands to the family. They all give a different description of him, and their commands occasionally contradict. Three of them agree that obedience to your father's commands is paramount; he's threatened to "whup" anyone who disobeys. It is said that he protects the family, but there doesn't seem to be any connection between the siblings who obey his edicts and the ones who come to bed with split lips and skinned knees. Your two oldest brothers say that he used to insist that everyone in the house wear '80s fashions and get unflattering haircuts; they beat up anyone who dares to do otherwise. You've attempted to find him to speak with him directly, but he seems to spend most of his time evading any kind of direct contact; sometimes you'll hear what might be his voice, but upon running into the next room you'll find everything just as you left it. A lot of the advice your siblings say he's left them is good stuff: eat sensibly, stay in school, that sort of thing. It's nothing that you probably couldn't've come up with on your own, but now and then it surprises you -- like that time your sister said he wanted you to take an umbrella to school on a sunny day, and it was raining when you walked home. That you've had to take the umbrella to school about six or seven times so far without any rain isn't really a problem. Sometimes, when your brothers and sisters are pulling each other's hair out over a confused interpretation of something he's said to have said, you wonder why he doesn't just pop his head into the room to clear it up. But clearly he loves you; after all, he hasn't whupped you yet.
Posted by Leonide (Member # 4157) on :
Tom, I really like you.
Posted by Javert (Member # 3076) on :
quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson: If we were going to compare religion to parenting, here's the analogy:
You live in a house with twelve siblings. You have never seen your father, but four of your sisters claim to speak with him regularly and occasionally relay his commands to the family. They all give a different description of him, and their commands occasionally contradict. Three of them agree that obedience to your father's commands is paramount; he's threatened to "whup" anyone who disobeys. It is said that he protects the family, but there doesn't seem to be any connection between the siblings who obey his edicts and the ones who come to bed with split lips and skinned knees. Your two oldest brothers say that he used to insist that everyone in the house wear '80s fashions and get unflattering haircuts; they beat up anyone who dares to do otherwise. You've attempted to find him to speak with him directly, but he seems to spend most of his time evading any kind of direct contact; sometimes you'll hear what might be his voice, but upon running into the next room you'll find everything just as you left it. A lot of the advice your siblings say he's left them is good stuff: eat sensibly, stay in school, that sort of thing. It's nothing that you probably couldn't've come up with on your own, but now and then it surprises you -- like that time your sister said he wanted you to take an umbrella to school on a sunny day, and it was raining when you walked home. That you've had to take the umbrella to school about six or seven times so far without any rain isn't really a problem. Sometimes, when your brothers and sisters are pulling each other's hair out over a confused interpretation of something he's said to have said, you wonder why he doesn't just pop his head into the room to clear it up. But clearly he loves you; after all, he hasn't whupped you yet.
That is awesome. I am tempted to steal it for my own. Instead, I think I'll just quote you from time to time. Posted by Noemon (Member # 1115) on :
quote:Originally posted by Icarus: I'd like to see the slander of Mother Theresa backed up.
Ic, did you see my post near the top of page 3? It links to an article in Time that gives more detail about what's being discussed with regard to Mother Theresa.
Posted by dkw (Member # 3264) on :
I believe the slander Ic is refering to is KoM's contention that "she did not help people, she helped herself to other people's money." The Time article is not slander.
Edited for idiotic double posting. Stupid quote button.
[ August 28, 2007, 10:07 AM: Message edited by: dkw ]
Posted by Noemon (Member # 1115) on :
Ah, okay, I missed KoM's post. I didn't think that he thought that the Time article was slander; I thought that he thought that the initial mention of her in this thread was slander.
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
The Time article was quite moving. I am glad that I read it. Thank you, Noemon, for sharing it.
Megabyte, your example of what would convince you would not convince me at all. And I am sorry that you have had such (if you'll forgive me) crappy examples of religion in your life.
Posted by camus (Member # 8052) on :
quote:You seemed to be saying that a miracle of sufficient magnitude would be a good mechanism for creating lasting faith in God.
Christ's miraculous appearance to Saul of Tarsus on the road to Damascus seemed enough to make a believer out of him. Granted, that in itself may not have created for Paul a lasting faith in God, but it obviously created a little faith, and a little faith would seem to be better than no faith at all.
Personally, I'd rather have the opportunity to experience a miracle and decide for myself how it will affect my faith instead of merely being told that I'm going to become a stalwart supporter of the faith or the vilest of sinners. After all, if God knows me so well*, surely He could think up a miracle that would be sufficient enough for me to believe he exists.
* Psalms 139:1-6: “O Lord, you have searched me and you know me. You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar. You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways. Before a word is on my tongue you know it completely. O Lord. You hem me in –behind and before; you have laid your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, lofty for me attain.”
Posted by MightyCow (Member # 9253) on :
If there is a Great Deceiver, such as the Devil, wouldn't it be just his thing to try to get people to follow rules without question?
Christianity postulates its own best argument against blind faith. Worse than blindly following a harsh and absent God is blindly following his enemy without question because you've been convinced that questioning is wrong and that evidence would somehow work against you.
Posted by Eduardo St. Elmo (Member # 9566) on :
"Question everything...or shut up and be a victim of authority"
"Everything that's treated dogmatically, is dangerous."
"Well, the truth may come in strange disguises...send the message to your mind"
My apologies if this post seems to veer off course, but to my mind these expressions - especially when combined - hold a deep meaning (at least to me). With regards to the second quote, I have to admit that I had to paraphrase it, since I do not have the original source at hand right now.
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
Questioning has always been part of my faith. I do not think that it could be otherwise for me.
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
quote:Originally posted by kmbboots: Questioning has always been part of my faith. I do not think that it could be otherwise for me.
^^ What she said.
I don't know where this blind faith argument is coming from.
1Thessalonians 5:21 "Prove all things; hold fast that which is good."
Tom: That was a very interesting analogy, I liked it alot. I don't have a ready answer for you just now, I need some time to think about it.
Posted by Javert (Member # 3076) on :
quote:Originally posted by kmbboots: Questioning has always been part of my faith. I do not think that it could be otherwise for me.
Where is it you get your answers? Because I think that might be the key difference between believers and non-believers.
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
I get answers from all sorts of sources. Books, people, inspiration, study, observation, experience, tradition, history, reason, scripture, teachings...
But the "test" of the answers I get is whether or not it seems right to me, whether it makes sense.
Posted by Javert (Member # 3076) on :
quote:Originally posted by kmbboots: I get answers from all sorts of sources. Books, people, inspiration, study, observation, experience, tradition, history, reason, scripture, teachings...
But the "test" of the answers I get is whether or not it seems right to me, whether it makes sense.
My list would be almost exactly the same, except perhaps I wouldn't include scripture. Rather, I would include scripture with books.
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
I thought about just including scripture with books. I decided it does fit into its own category, though. And it needs special interpretation.
edit to add: sorry if I blew your theory...
Posted by Javert (Member # 3076) on :
quote:Originally posted by kmbboots: I thought about just including scripture with books. I decided it does fit into its own category, though. And it needs special interpretation.
Which is where we disagree. I knew I'd find something!
Posted by MightyCow (Member # 9253) on :
quote:Originally posted by BlackBlade: I don't know where this blind faith argument is coming from.
The part where you follow the rules of an invisible man in the sky who embodies a host of contradictions.
Posted by Javert (Member # 3076) on :
quote:Originally posted by kmbboots: edit to add: sorry if I blew your theory...
No theory to blow. Thanks for correcting me.
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
The interpretation part? I think that it is important to understand that scripture is, among other things, translated from several different languages, often uses literary conventions that are unfamiliar, was written by and for people from different cultures, and was often meant to address specific issues or problems that those people were experiencing.
Most of the books I read don't require quite as much knowledge to understand them.
edit to add: MightyCow, haven't we addressd the "invisible man in the sky" thing?
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
Kate, it's worth noting that one of the reasons your "religion" is indistinguishable from most people's "philosophy" is that you use a philosophic epistemology rather than a religious one.
Posted by Javert (Member # 3076) on :
quote:Originally posted by kmbboots: The interpretation part? I think that it is important to understand that scripture is, among other things, translated from several different languages, often uses literary conventions that are unfamiliar, was written by and for people from different cultures, and was often meant to address specific issues or problems that those people were experiencing.
If that's what you mean then I agree with you. However, I would use that same form of interpretation on any book I read, which is why scripture is not separate in my mind.
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
Gee, it seem to work for religion, though!
Javert, I would also (with some need hesitation or at least need for clarification) put scripture in its own category because it is specifically an inspired record of a people's relationship with the Divine. Also, particularly the New Testament are a record of a specific person, who I believe was so in relationship to the Divine that He was, himself fully God.
There. That's probably different!
Posted by MightyCow (Member # 9253) on :
quote:Originally posted by kmbboots: edit to add: MightyCow, haven't we addressd the "invisible man in the sky" thing?
As much as we've addressed what "blind faith" is Posted by mr_porteiro_head (Member # 4644) on :
quote:Originally posted by MightyCow:
quote:Originally posted by BlackBlade: I don't know where this blind faith argument is coming from.
The part where you follow the rules of an invisible man in the sky who embodies a host of contradictions.
Why would any of those, or all of them taken together, make faith in such a being blind faith?
(Note that I don't accept that as an accurate description of God, but for this purposes of this question, it doesn't matter.)
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
MightyCow, you are arguing that people have "blind faith" in something (the invisible man in the sky) that doesn't seem to most of us to be an accurate description of the thing in which we have faith (blind or otherwise).
So I'm not really sure what you hope to achieve.
Posted by beverly (Member # 6246) on :
Tom, there are many subtle things in your post that I disagree with. For example, I reject the idea of a God that punishes arbitrarily (except, perhaps, in rare circumstances.) I realize that such things have certainly been taught, and that this is a common problem for those who take issue with religion.
This is somewhat similar to my parenting style. I don't do a lot of punishing in general, and I don't protect my children from many of the natural consequences around them. I let my children fall down. I didn't particularly freak out when my daughter burned herself this morning on the griddle she got too close to. I believe that often the natural consequences teach better than I ever could. I'm glad the burn was minor, and I will continue to take action to ensure that cascades of boiling substances never fall down upon her head.
I feel strongly about allowing in-the-short-run-harmless natural consequences, because I feel that my parents were too protective growing up, trying to sheild us so much from the natural pains that occur in life, that I didn't learn much of the wisdom I could have.
Of course, there are some natural consequences that are completely unacceptable, and I can be downright bitchy when it comes to those. But because I choose my battles so selectively, my kids know that "Crud, Mom really means business about this one!" They are more likely to work with me on those.
I am grateful, to the point of tears, for the experiences of my life and what they have taught me. If I had been sheilded from all pain and sorrow, I would be so much less than I am. Not that I welcome tribulation. But I trust that the tribulations that do come my way are known to God, and that He will help me get through them. I trust that if I approach tribulation with faith and humility, the experience can be consecrated for my growth and perhaps the growth of others.
As for whether or not God causes tribulation, I think the cause and effect relationship are far more complex than we can appreciate. It is funny, my goats aren't sufficiently intelligent to assign blame to anyone. Even if I am the one that causes their suffering, they are only capable of association. Because most of their associations with me are pleasant, they don't associate me with pain or discomfort, even if I've caused it. We humans are very concerned with blame, and I think we tend to twist things as a result. We can get so caught up in blame that we embitter our own souls.
Also, going back to your analogy, my belief in a pre-mortal existance with God is pretty important. It doesn't change the perception of the main character in your analogy one iota, but it certainly (for me) changes the tones of foreboding in your example. Certainly, with all you've given there, it is easy to doubt the Father's love and goodwill. But if you knew that all these children once lived with him and had a perfect knowledge of him and his goodness, it changes things greatly--at least for me.
As one leader of my church put it, we are in Act II of a three act play. We don't have memory of Act I, and we don't know much about Act III. We were sent away from God's presence both to be tested and to learn wisdom. For reasons not completely within our grasp, this could not be accomplished when we were in God's presence.
Tom, I know that part of the problem that you have with God is that if He exists, He by default allows terrible suffering. We have discussed this in the past, and you reject the idea that suffering in this life is "just a blip" in the eternal life of a child of God. Just an unpleasant trip to the dentist. Certainly, much of the suffering seems unnecessary. Much is caused by the evil or simply poor choices of others. But if God softened the horror of the effects of the choices of others, if the universe wore kid-gloves, had no real teeth to it, this whole mortal test would be far less real, less effective.
How would the sinner learn of the effects of their wrongdoing if no one ever suffered as a result? It is not God's arbitrary punishment that will damn the sinner, it is the sinner's own conscience when they become fully aware of the effects of their actions.
Other suffering is caused by no one. But can we know the effect on those who are touched by the suffering of another? Has not suffering brought people together in love many times? Does it not provide us an opportunity to show what kind of people we are, do we sacrifice to ease suffering in others?
By God stepping back and letting things take their natural course, we are able to step in and show what kind of beings we are.
Posted by MightyCow (Member # 9253) on :
kmbboots, you're right, I was being flippant. It does seem like blind faith when someone makes the case that a deity refuses to produce miracles, because evidence would somehow weaken people's belief. It just seems like such a cop out, and I think the mentions of mentalist being unable to reproduce their powers under controlled tests is very apt.
From the perspective of someone who doesn't consider holy books to be authoritative based on their own self-referential claims of authority, much of religious belief seems like blind faith.
The comparison has been made in this thread of having faith in our senses, or faith in what we've learned by science. I would make the distinction between faith in something which you can repeat, and which multiple observers can all experience in the same way to faith in something which is untestable, and further for which the claim has been made in this thread that it cannot possibly be shown to someone who doesn't already believe it to be true.
The reason illusionists don't repeat their tricks is that if you watch long enough, you might see how they do it. The reason mentalists can't do their voodoo under controlled experiment is because they are using trickery to produce their results. One has to wonder about a creator who follows in their footsteps.
Posted by Mucus (Member # 9735) on :
quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson: I understand why it appeals, especially to Western religion, but I don't think it applies.
I'm a bit curious as to how you would explain why it appeals in Western religion.
To relate it back to the topic a little, I wonder why a creation myth with a specific Creator that creates the universe/world is so central and controversial in Western religion.
Looking through this, it seems like a few religions do not necessarily have a Creator figure and perhaps more interestingly, they do not really seem to care/concern themselves with the question.
As examples in the list, it seems that Taoism describes a universe that can exist with nothing in it before matter (rather than a specific deity) appears. If you follow the link for Pangu, you see that a different Chinese myth added a "creator" that did not create the universe, but instead was created by the universe and dies during the creation of Earth. It is also interesting that if the article is correct, they did not really have creation myths before 200AD which is amazingly late considering the sheer number of creation myths that came before Christianity's, let alone 200 years after.
Buddhism seems to ignore the question and indeed, it seems that Buddha is something close to a strong agnostic:
quote: Conjecture about [the origin, etc., of] the world is an unconjecturable that is not to be conjectured about, that would bring madness & vexation to anyone who conjectured about it."AN IV.77, and in regard to ignoring the question of the origin of life the Buddha has said "And why are they undeclared by me? Because they are not connected with the goal, are not fundamental to the holy life. They do not lead to disenchantment, dispassion, cessation, calming, direct knowledge, self-awakening, Unbinding. That's why they are undeclared by me.
I wonder why creation in particular is so contentious in Christianity/Judaism.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote:Tom, there are many subtle things in your post that I disagree with. For example, I reject the idea of a God that punishes arbitrarily (except, perhaps, in rare circumstances.)
It's worth noting that I never claimed the "father" in that analogy punished arbitrarily. Rather, I said that some siblings said he punished in ways which evidence appeared to contradict, and others promised indefinite future whuppings.
The nature of God is completely irrelevant to the issue of whether God exists, except insofar as specific claims about God appear internally inconsistent (or the reverse).
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
Oh, and by the way, nobody responded to my varves.
Edit: Oops, that should have gone in the other thread. It's still very sad, though.
[ August 28, 2007, 01:46 PM: Message edited by: King of Men ]
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
I'm sure your varves are lovely.
edit: Ah...I suspected the varves angst may have been misplaced.
[ August 28, 2007, 01:49 PM: Message edited by: kmbboots ]
Posted by beverly (Member # 6246) on :
quote:For me, (not Tom, but he can answer later) something incontravertibly from God. That is to say, if Jesus appeared to me as clearly as he supposedly appeared to Thomas.
I love the story of Thomas. I believe many, many people will find themselves in the same position when the time comes.
quote:How about God addressing the entire planet, so that all of us, say, hear his voice, all at once? Proclaiming Himself to be God, pointing out that the Bible (or whichever book) was accurate, performing multiple miracles, perhaps having a conversation with some people, and, best of all, being recorded while doing this. At the very least, having his voice recorded, allowing the recording to work, and allowing it in multiple places at once.
Sounds a lot like the second coming of Christ. So maybe this is coming and is inevitable? Once it happens, it will certainly change our ability to live by faith. When our doubt is removed, it changes our ability to "prove" what sort of people we are when we are "in the dark."
quote:It would certainly be preferable to, say, sending people to eternal torment because they use the faculties He gave them, and refusing to believe on no evidence.
I reject your implied assumption here.
quote:After all, if God does desire our praise, all he needs is to make himself unambiguously clear.
I reject this assumption as well.
quote:The people in the faith I used to believe felt differently. Which of you is right, again?
Ours of course! ^_^ j/k
quote:But power alone is not enough to make something worthy of praise.
Oh, aye.
quote:Hasn't history shown that trusting leaders is kind of unwise?
Do you trust your parents? Do you believe they love you? What evidence do you have, is it provable? Or do you trust from thousands of individually seeming insignificant parts? (Of course, many adolescents even question this.)
Do you accept that there have been benevolent leaders as well as the monsterous?
Perhaps if you were to someday have a conversation with God (on the assumption He exists, of course) you might find him understanding of your reservations, understanding of hurt trust in the history of betrayal. After all, Thomas was not chastized for his unbelief. I imagine being willing to trust in goodness and be good yourself matters more in the long run.
quote:Then God did a doubly cruel thing to me. By giving me the powers to ask questions, the kind of mind that will not take things just as they are, and asks for evidence, a mind that sees the evils that come from trusting without proof, he has then, if your view is right, doomed me to be unable to trust Him as he desires it. I cannot be otherwise. I will not lie to myself, decieve myself, brainwash myself to believe something that there's no evidence for.
And, naturally, if your worldview includes a hell, He will punish me for it.
What sort of monster would do such a thing?
Again, I do think you are functioning under some incorrect assumptions.
quote:But why should a daughter trust a parent who she has never seen?
I have addressed this somewhat in my post to Tom.
a) The idea that we were with God and had a perfect knowledge of Him before this life.
b) It isn't easy to trust. But as I said, perhaps our adherance to goodness is more important in the long-run. Seeking God and trying to find out His will counts for something, I think.
quote: Do you suggest by listening to a book that gives suggestions on how to care for your slaves,orders you to literally kill your friends if they feel doubt, and gleefully describes genocides ordered by the God you worship?
I don't believe the Bible is flawless. I can't trust every word in it to be absolutely 100% true and correct. I believe in modern prophets and modern revelation. We don't know the circumstances under which past instructions were given. The New Testament tells us that Moses allowed divorce "because of the hardness of your hearts" but that "from the beginning it was not so." How many other of the Old Testaments teachings might be the same?
What is needed is an authority today, for our own time, to tell us what *we* need to know from God *now*. The past scriptures are important for context, but sometimes the context is not relevant.
(Incidentally, a leader of our church less than 6 months ago addressed this. He said that divorce is allowed now because of "the hardness of our hearts" but that the higher law that we should strive to live by is to treat marriage like a living thing--just as we wouldn't give up on trying to recussitate a human, we shouldn't give up on trying to recussitate a marriage until it is dead beyond hope.)
Anyway, I know that people hate for a believer to "pick and choose" what they like or don't like from the Bible. But honestly, that is *why* we need prophets today.
quote: By listening to a New Testament which states "God deems it jus to repay with affliction those who afflict you... when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with his mighty angels in flaming fire, inflicting vengeance upon those who do not know God and upon those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. They shall suffer the punishment of eternal destruction and exclusion from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might..." 2 Thesalonians 1:6-9?
I take something like this in context with many other scriptures, and come to the conclusion that the intent and motivations of this scripture as written may be misleading.
I can understand your concern, though.
Consider, could following the gospel of our Lord Jesus be more about what is in our hearts (goodness) rather than our outward rituals? Could this vengence refer to people who sin agains their own conscience, commiting horrible atrocaties? Certainly such people exist, neh? You assume it referrs to you and your lack of faith because of your questioning mind. Remember the unchastized Thomas.
quote:Hell, the chances that you'd have believed in one form of Christianity or another if you hadn't been born into it are actually really low! Most people born into Muslim families stay Muslim throughout their lives. Most Christians stay Christians. That doesn't speak well of the strength of your creed over theirs, you know.
And what do you know of my creeds? It is doctrine in my church that people can accept the gospel after death, that missionary work goes on after this life, that Christ Himself organized that effort when He visited the world of spirits after His death on the cross. I can give you the pertinent scriptures, if you are interested.
In our church, we perform ordinances, like baptism, oh behalf of those who have died, in temples. This practice is found deeply insulting by many, but it is our way of doing our small the gospel to all people. We believe that the corresponding efforts of teaching and explaining, are done on the other side by the dead who believe in Christ, and that the baptism done for them on earth may or may not be accepted by their free choice.
The New Testament talks about baptism for the dead.
quote:But if this silent God that's never spoken to me no matter how hard I tried, who has never been shown to me to have appeared to anyone in a way any more convincing than a person claiming to have visitations from aliens (which used to come from Venus and Mars before people learned that they were utterly uninhabited. Now people claim they come from other galaxies, as their knowledge of the universe grows little by little), and who has also never shown any primacy over the thousands of other gods which other people believe in, which they create when they are isolated from any contact from the Jewish people (if you think otherwise, ask those people who believe in the other gods! They'll beg to differ), whose miracles in the modern day are in fact no better than the miracles of those other contradictory religions just so happens to be the real one, it's going to be an interesting afterlife, without a doubt.
I am patient. Maybe when I die that will be the end and I will never know it. Things will be as they will be. For me, now I will choose to have faith.
quote:I dunno about you specifically, but many Christians believe homosexuality is wrong, and that homosexuals themselves are sinners, for their actions.
Yes, we believe that homosexual sex is not something that is sanctioned by God. (Nor, indeed, any sex outside of marriage.) I understand that you and many others believe that is harmful and causes more evil in the world. I don't expect you to easily understand the reasons for this belief.
I try my best to maintain my belief in a way that causes as little pain to others as possible. I have often pondered what would happen if one of my children found themselves attracted only to their same sex. I would teach them my beliefs, but would totally understand them falling in love with someone of their gender and wanting the fulfillment that comes from a complete union with that person. It would be difficult to say the least, for them to choose not to. I would love and respect them with either choice they made. But it is true that I would not sanction such a union. Yes, I would be causing them pain because of my beliefs, no matter how kind I was.
Posted by beverly (Member # 6246) on :
quote:It's worth noting that I never claimed the "father" in that analogy punished arbitrarily. Rather, I said that some siblings said he punished in ways which evidence appeared to contradict, and others promised indefinite future whuppings.
The nature of God is completely irrelevant to the issue of whether God exists, except insofar as specific claims about God appear internally inconsistent (or the reverse).
Noted.
Posted by camus (Member # 8052) on :
quote:Sounds a lot like the second coming of Christ. So maybe this is coming and is inevitable? Once it happens, it will certainly change our ability to live by faith. When our doubt is removed, it changes our ability to "prove" what sort of people we are when we are "in the dark."
Why is living by faith supposed to be a good thing?
Posted by Javert (Member # 3076) on :
quote:Originally posted by kmbboots: Gee, it seem to work for religion, though!
Javert, I would also (with some need hesitation or at least need for clarification) put scripture in its own category because it is specifically an inspired record of a people's relationship with the Divine. Also, particularly the New Testament are a record of a specific person, who I believe was so in relationship to the Divine that He was, himself fully God.
There. That's probably different!
That would be different, yes.
Of course, I would be fine with putting scripture in a subcategory within books. But my category would encompass all scriptures, and taken with the appropriate grains of sodium.
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
If by "salt" you mean an appropriate understanding of context, we're not too far different.
Posted by beverly (Member # 6246) on :
quote:Why is living by faith supposed to be a good thing?
Short answer: I don't know, but I have some theories.
Long answer: If we accept that an important part of living by faith is not as much a certainty in the existance of God but what kind of ideologies we strive to adhere to, then this life is a test to see if we will choose goodness on our own with a limited understanding.
The teachings of God are "out there." They can be found in the scriptures (though sometimes incomplete or altered). The same truths can be found in many places in the world around us, often in the inspiration of our fellow men.
But if we accept the idea that the only source of pure, unadulterated truth and goodness comes from God, then a belief in God and a correct understanding of His teachings and attributes can lead to a more correct understanding of the sort of person we are to become.
Since scripture can at times be fallible and even modern prophets might fail, we each are responsible to seek personal revelation, and to listen to the divine spark within us.
At the risk of suggesting that we each create and worship our own "god", I think that the sort of beliefs that we develop about God (or Goodness, if you are an atheist) speak a lot to the sort of person that we are.
Edit: Forgot to conclude! So, if having a perfect knowledge of God removes some of our agency in "seeing what we will do" in struggling to find our own sense of truth and goodness, the "test" is messed up when God pulls back the curtain and says, "Peekaboo!"
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
bev, If God is the only source of pure, unadulterated truth and goodness, why aren't most Christians better in these things than non-Christians? Why are many of them worse?
If the main goal is to develop goodness and truth, becoming a Christian would, in many instances, seem to be contrary to that goal.
Posted by Javert (Member # 3076) on :
quote:Originally posted by kmbboots: If by "salt" you mean an appropriate understanding of context, we're not too far different.
It probably comes down to you thinking that scripture, or at least your religion's scripture, is...
quote:...specifically an inspired record of a people's relationship with the Divine.
Whereas I think that all scripture is a record of what people think and/or believe is an inspired record of a relationship with the divine.
So close, and yet so far apart are we. Posted by dkw (Member # 3264) on :
quote:Originally posted by MrSquicky: bev, If God is the only source of pure, unadulterated truth and goodness, why aren't most Christians better in these things than non-Christians? Why are many of them worse?
Because Christians don't have exclusive access to God? Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
Yes, but then what is the point of being a Christian?
edit: They're, on average, more prejudiced, more dishonest, get divorced more, more authoritarian, etc. than atheists and many other religious groups.
If your goal is to not be those things and to promote this in others, Christianity seems like a pretty poor bet. And if the Christian God is the source of all goodness and truth, why is he doing such a bad job with getting it to his followers?
Posted by dkw (Member # 3264) on :
We have the best potluck dinners.
Posted by Javert (Member # 3076) on :
Oooo...atheist potluck. Now there's a plan. Posted by MattP (Member # 10495) on :
I'll bring figment food cake! Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson:
quote:You seemed to be saying that a miracle of sufficient magnitude would be a good mechanism for creating lasting faith in God. Or that regular manifestations of God's power would make the world more willing to believe in God.
I believe that both of these things are absolutely true, and that believers are kidding themselves when they convince themselves otherwise.
Who would convince themselves otherwise and why?
It sounds so painstakingly stupid on the surface.
Posted by camus (Member # 8052) on :
Bev, thank you for your response. You mention a lot of concepts that either I agree with already or would agree with if I were more religious. However, I have trouble makings sense of this part about the necessity of faith:
quote: If we accept that an important part of living by faith is not as much a certainty in the existance of God but what kind of ideologies we strive to adhere to, then this life is a test to see if we will choose goodness on our own with a limited understanding…
…if having a perfect knowledge of God removes some of our agency in "seeing what we will do" in struggling to find our own sense of truth and goodness, the "test" is messed up when God pulls back the curtain and says, "Peekaboo!"
But the test includes the threat of eternal spiritual damnation, which we are reminded of constantly throughout the scriptures. It could still be claimed that believers are good because of the threat of punishment.
A more appropriate test to see if a person really is good would be to see how a person were to act if he didn’t believe that God exists or that he won’t be punished, as opposed to seeing whether a person is good because he believes there is a chance of being punished by God.
It’s like me not stealing something even though I know I won’t be caught as opposed to me not stealing something because a camera, which may or may not actually be hooked up, is right above me. The latter scenario doesn’t actually tell whether I’m a good person, only that I don’t want to risk getting caught.
I would say the test is messed up, not when God pulls back the curtain, but when the threat of punishment for disobedience was made.
Posted by beverly (Member # 6246) on :
quote:bev, If God is the only source of pure, unadulterated truth and goodness, why aren't most Christians better in these things than non-Christians? Why are many of them worse?
If the main goal is to develop goodness and truth, becoming a Christian would, in many instances, seem to be contrary to that goal.
quote:If your goal is to not be those things and to promote this in others, Christianity seems like a pretty poor bet. And if the Christian God is the source of all goodness and truth, why is he doing such a bad job with getting it to his followers?
I don't know exactly, but I don't find it overly surprising.
If people exibit these qualities, can they be said to be Christians? Are they disciples of Christ? Are they actively trying to follow His example? Have they been led astray by their teachers, in spite of good intentions? Have they twisted the meanings of what they've been taught to fit their convenience? Do they use God to justify their behavior?
I look at what the gospel of Jesus Christ actually teaches, and I see goodness. That many "Christians" are no better off than the average person is curious. Have they not taken the message to heart?
Consider that being an atheist often means going against the grain and having to scrutinize oneself and one's behavior. Most people want to see themselves as good. Some people will strive to alter their behavior (repentance) while others will seek to justify their behavior. Does the message, "You are already saved" make people feel justified in their sins? (I believe that this message is an erroneous twisting of the gospel, BTW.) IMO, main thrust of the gospel is personal and continual repentance and scrutiny, as opposed to judging others. First take the beam out of thine own eye.
quote:They're, on average, more prejudiced, more dishonest, get divorced more, more authoritarian, etc. than atheists and many other religious groups.
Can you prove this? Or is this your own subjective observation?
Out of curiosity, what is your theory on why this might be, considering the gospel message encourages one to love their enemy, turn the other cheek, share with all, and in all other ways hold yourself to a higher standard than your neighbor?
Maybe the message is too painful to be popular.
Posted by MattP (Member # 10495) on :
quote:Originally posted by Samprimary:
quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson:
quote:You seemed to be saying that a miracle of sufficient magnitude would be a good mechanism for creating lasting faith in God. Or that regular manifestations of God's power would make the world more willing to believe in God.
I believe that both of these things are absolutely true, and that believers are kidding themselves when they convince themselves otherwise.
Who would convince themselves otherwise and why?
Anyone who wanted an internally consistent explanation for the scarcity of unambiguous/non-personal miracles.
Posted by beverly (Member # 6246) on :
quote:But the test includes the threat of eternal spiritual damnation, which we are reminded of constantly throughout the scriptures. It could still be claimed that believers are good because of the threat of punishment.
LDS in general have a very different view of Hell than the classic view. I believe that all sufferings of "hell" can be chalked up to pain of conscience, remorse, saddness for lost potential and opportunity. I believe we are being warned against an inevitable, natural consequence if we do not repent and humble ourselves and look to God for guidance. (Or if you are an athiest, your sense of Goodness.)
quote:I would say the test is messed up, not when God pulls back the curtain, but when the threat of punishment for disobedience was made.
Again, I believe you are working with erroneous information here.
Posted by MattP (Member # 10495) on :
quote:I would say the test is messed up, not when God pulls back the curtain, but when the threat of punishment for disobedience was made.
It also works on the flip side - doing things good things to obtain a reward rather than doing good things to be good.
Posted by beverly (Member # 6246) on :
I teach my children that if they practice the piano, they will be good at it. Should I not do that? Then they might not practice piano just for the sheer joy of it.
Again, I don't think it is a matter of promising a cookie, but promising "you will be happier this way."
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
beverly, this particular Catholic thinks your version of hell makes a good deal of sense. And, though I know we have some doctrinal differences, I think the rest of your posts on this thread have been pretty nifty, too.
Posted by camus (Member # 8052) on :
quote:LDS in general have a very different view of Hell than the classic view. I believe that all sufferings of "hell" can be chalked up to pain of conscience, remorse, saddness for lost potential and opportunity.
Well, I did insert "spiritual" to include the possibility of damnation of a nonphysical sort.
quote:I believe we are being warned against an inevitable, natural consequence if we do not repent and humble ourselves and look to God for guidance. (Or if you are an athiest, your sense of Goodness.)
If it's primarily a warning, then I would think a truly loving God would do all that he could to help people understand the seriousness of the warning, beginning with proving that he actually exists to give the warning.
If it's a test, I guess I don't really understand how proving his existence invalidates that test. If anything, it would seem to take away the ability to plead ignorance.
quote:Again, I believe you are working with erroneous information here.
That is likely since I'm not too familiar with LDS doctrine. Once again, I appreciate your responses. I'm not merely trying to argue with you, rather, these are some of the issues I've struggled with myself in trying to understand God.
Posted by camus (Member # 8052) on :
quote:Since scripture can at times be fallible and even modern prophets might fail
Would you include some of the laws found in the Bible to be part of the fallible aspect of the scriptures? Because there were some very severe consequences to actions several thousand years ago that that you could do today guilt-free. If those were divine laws, then those were more than just inevitable, natural consequences.
Posted by beverly (Member # 6246) on :
Thank you, Kate. I greatly respect your opinion.
quote:If it's primarily a warning, then I would think a truly loving God would do all that he could to help people understand the seriousness of the warning, beginning with proving that he actually exists to give the warning.
If it's a test, I guess I don't really understand how proving his existence invalidates that test. If anything, it would seem to take away the ability to plead ignorance.
I can give you several scriptures where pleading ignorance does indeed bring mercy. But there is also a scripture that says no one can be saved in ignorance. That is, we all have to learn in our own due time.
quote:then I would think a truly loving God would do all that he could to help people understand the seriousness of the warning, beginning with proving that he actually exists to give the warning.
Again, here is the test. We've all been given a sense of judgement, and God expects us to use it well.
We've already shown God how we will act when we know He exists. Our scriptures teach that some people didn't pass the first test (they are Satan's followers.) This is the second part of the test. I don't know if the "waiting" portion afterlife (that we happen to believe in) will be a third test of sorts, or merely an extension of this second test.
quote:I'm not merely trying to argue with you, rather, these are some of the issues I've struggled with myself in trying to understand God.
I can appreciate that. If God were as you have described Him, I imagine I wouldn't like Him e either.
Posted by Nathan2006 (Member # 9387) on :
quote:Originally posted by kmbboots: beverly, this particular Catholic thinks your version of hell makes a good deal of sense. And, though I know we have some doctrinal differences, I think the rest of your posts on this thread have been pretty nifty, too.
This 'Charasmatic' (To this day, I really have know idea what that word means in religious terms) finds both your and Beverly's posts very neat, also... Even if he doesn't know how to form a gramatically correct sentence with multiple possesives in the objective case (Or is it the nominative case?)
*Hugs*
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
Thanks, beverly.
And thanks, Nathan. (My guess, BTW, is that Charismatic refers to charisms or gifts of the Spirit.)
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
You know, one reason this debate goes back and forth is because it goes like this:
Fundamentalist: God is like X, Y, Z. Atheist: If your god is like that, then (totally unanswerable argument.) Liberal theist: Yes, but that's a strawman I don't believe in; if God were like that, I wouldn't worship it either. Fundamentalist: (Creeps quietly away, hiding behind liberals.)
All this is in any case irrelevant to the main point: You have no evidence for the existence of your god. Until you do, arguing about its nature is utterly futile.
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
I think that God's nature is rather more fundamental than whether God exists.
Ha! So there!
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
Beverly: Your post have been very well thought out and stated IMO. Certainly better then anything I could have written given the circumstances.
Posted by Noemon (Member # 1115) on :
Bev's like that.
Posted by Enigmatic (Member # 7785) on :
I've only been peeking in at out of this thread and have probably missed a page or two in the middle, so was wondering: Has Jay posted anything here other than his original post?
--Enigmatic
Posted by 0Megabyte (Member # 8624) on :
No.
Posted by beverly (Member # 6246) on :
Y'all have been very kind. I was just thinking, it's been a long time since I've engaged in the subject of religion on a forum. I tend to find it a bit exhausting.
Posted by MightyCow (Member # 9253) on :
quote:Originally posted by beverly: I teach my children that if they practice the piano, they will be good at it. Should I not do that? Then they might not practice piano just for the sheer joy of it.
Again, I don't think it is a matter of promising a cookie, but promising "you will be happier this way."
If you show your children examples of playing the piano making someone good, does that take away their agency to freely choose the piano, or their ability to do so joyously?
Posted by MattP (Member # 10495) on :
quote:I was just thinking, it's been a long time since I've engaged in the subject of religion on a forum. I tend to find it a bit exhausting.
And it annoys the pig.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote:We've all been given a sense of judgement, and God expects us to use it well.
The idea that a "good" use of our sense of judgment must result in the conclusion that God exists is something that bemuses me to no end.
-------
quote:I think that God's nature is rather more fundamental than whether God exists.
Well, yeah. But that's only because your God is irrelevant.
Posted by Reshpeckobiggle (Member # 8947) on :
quote:Originally posted by beverly: Y'all have been very kind. I was just thinking, it's been a long time since I've engaged in the subject of religion on a forum. I tend to find it a bit exhausting.
Hah! Just a bit, huh?
But I'm glad no one took my advice (why would they? it was stupid.) The thread only got better and better.
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
quote:The idea that a "good" use of our sense of judgment must result in the conclusion that God exists is something that bemuses me to no end.
Perhaps it does not come close to proving that God exists, but it is a striking difference when no other organism seems to possess it. Can't chalk it up to having opposable thumbs either.
Posted by Reshpeckobiggle (Member # 8947) on :
Okay, now in response to Tom's post, I have a question that I asked in earlier threads that I don't think has ever been properly addressed. Is it not true that evolutionists and atheists in general actively believe that they are either privy to information that we are not, or that they are simply smarter than us? Or is it that there is something wrong with us that prevents us from using our (presumed) equal intelligence to properly analyze and interpret the available information? Or is there another possibility that does not stem from/result in a sense of superiority over those who maintain this ignorant/idiotic/inferior belief in God?
[edit] for clarity (which may seem unlikely, considering the opacity of my post as it stands now.)
[edit(again)] Changed "opaqueness" to "opacity." That's what I meant.
Posted by Reshpeckobiggle (Member # 8947) on :
quote:Originally posted by BlackBlade: Perhaps it does not come close to proving that God exists, but it is a striking difference when no other organism seems to possess it. Can't chalk it up to having opposable thumbs either.
How do you know dogs don't believe in God? I know mine does. Then again, he thinks it's me...
I hope I understood your post. If my response makes no sense, then that means I did not.
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
quote:Originally posted by Reshpeckobiggle:
quote:Originally posted by BlackBlade: Perhaps it does not come close to proving that God exists, but it is a striking difference when no other organism seems to possess it. Can't chalk it up to having opposable thumbs either.
How do you know dogs don't believe in God? I know mine does. Then again, he thinks it's me...
I hope I understood your post. If my response makes no sense, then that means I did not.
You misunderstood my post. Posted by Paul Goldner (Member # 1910) on :
I'm not sure what you mean by a "sense of judgement," but many species of animals are capable of reasoning and problem solving, some animals can pass the "mirror" test of identifying themselves, and a wide variety can learn in the way that humans can learn, if not always to the same extent.
Posted by Reshpeckobiggle (Member # 8947) on :
quote:Originally posted by BlackBlade: You misunderstood my post.
Darn it.
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
quote:Originally posted by Paul Goldner: I'm not sure what you mean by a "sense of judgement," but many species of animals are capable of reasoning and problem solving, some animals can pass the "mirror" test of identifying themselves, and a wide variety can learn in the way that humans can learn, if not always to the same extent.
Problem solving yes, reasoning I am not so sure of. Self identify; sometimes, discuss or consider different perspectives; no.
Posted by MattP (Member # 10495) on :
Resh,
Personally, I believe that the human mind is an incredibly powerful pattern recognition and simulation device and that wishful thinking, confirmation bias, cultural influences and, yes, even evolutionary artifacts make it very hard for the typical human being to exist in our society and not believe in something beyond what our five senses take in.
That doesn't mean that those beliefs actually accurately describe the existence or nature of any particular entity or force.
So, it's not that I have special knowledge or superior intelligence, but that I am unwilling to accept ambiguous evidence for extraordinary claims and have not personally experienced anything which I could only explain as divine intervention.
Short answer: I believe that atheists are, in general, less credulous. I value skepticism as strongly as Christians appear to value faith.
Posted by Reshpeckobiggle (Member # 8947) on :
OK, fair enough. I don't think everyone who is an atheist actually believse that they are superior in some way. I just know that some of them (cough*Tom*hack*KoM*ahem) do.
But it seems to me that someone must (quite good-naturedly)really make an effort to come up with some way to explain how he understands something about the world that others don't without implying possession of some mental advantage. In fact, the effort usually fails, as it does in your case. You are "unwilling to accept ambiguous evidence for extraordinary claims," but I am willing, it appears. Must be something wrong with me!
Posted by Reshpeckobiggle (Member # 8947) on :
Did you add the short answer in an edit? I may have missed it. My response may have been a bit different otherwise.
Posted by Chris Bridges (Member # 1138) on :
I believe I understand something that religious folks do not. However, I am also aware that I could be wrong and that religious folks may have information I do not possess. I choose to continue through life with my own understanding, adjusting it as necessary. I don't feel especially superior.
I think science leads to greater discoveries and greater understanding. But it can't comfort worth a damn, or add meaning. That's not important to me, but it may be to others.
Posted by Reshpeckobiggle (Member # 8947) on :
What I like about my religion is that it tells me that I would do well not to start think I'm better than others. Not that everyone (myself included) follows this little bit of advice. But at any rate, I do think I am privy to knowledge and experience that non-believers are not, but this is not because of something that I have ever done. I'm just blessed by God and have him to thank.
Posted by beverly (Member # 6246) on :
Tom, when I talked about God expecting us to use our good sense of judgement, I was talking about judging right from wrong, not whether or not God exists. I will never fault someone for being skeptical about God's existance, and I can't believe that God does either. I think it can hinder us, though.
Indeed, this entire time I have been pressing the idea that the search for Good is more important than to know or even believe God exists. But that a belief in God (and naturally an adherence to Good, otherwise it is belief only, not faith) will help us along that path.
I have found in my life that humility and teachability to the spirit as I study the gospel does a great deal to help me draw closer to these ideals. I imagine meditation for an atheist could have similar benefits, but I can't say how much. I think there is something special in the relationship between the seeker and God.
I also do think that an understanding of Christ's atonement (inasmuch as we can understand it) is important. But again, I think it is not absolutely crucial for a person to take this on "faith only" for salvation, so long as they valiantly pursue goodness in their lives. Likewise, those who profess to believe and do not valiantly pursue goodness, will not receive the rewards they hope for, because those rewards are based on obedience to eternal laws (natural consequences, not arbitrary ones.)
Again, I can't stress this enough, belief without "works" is not faith at all and doesn't do a person any good.
Aside: I have recently been thinking that when God refers to Himself, He is simultaneously referring to the reality of the universe and natural law, that there often isn't a useful distinction between one and the other. I have thought that when God refers to Himself, it can be synonymous with "Good" while Satan can be synonymous with "Evil."
Posted by 0Megabyte (Member # 8624) on :
" Is it not true that evolutionists and atheists in general actively believe that they are either privy to information that we are not, or that they are simply smarter than us?"
Evolutionists and scientists are not privy to information that you can't have.
In fact, they freely make it available to look at.
The evidence makes a statement. Just like the evidence of a crime scene, the DNA evidence, fossil evidence, geological evidence, astrological evidence, evidence in the very laws of physics, all state certain things.
It's not arrogance. It's actually being humble enough to accept the evidence, and what it states, even if it disagrees with what you think is so, or should be so.
Seeing people refuse the implications of that evidence makes no sense to us. It's a signal of arrogance, too, at least to me, to refuse what all the evidence says, and instead take a stance not based on the evidence, but merely because of your beliefs and convictions.
If one doesn't look at the evidence, or refuses to look at the evidence, that's not exactly a positive trait. If one outright denies the evidence's implications, and decides to continue to live in a world where the facts don't matter, such a trait seems downright dangerous.
Posted by 0Megabyte (Member # 8624) on :
In the end, the difference is, a scientist can show you, if you wish to look, tells you what they do not know yet, and makes their methods and evidence clear.
A religion asks for faith, belief without evidence, and raises belief without evidence to a virtue. What a convenient way to escape the need for proof for their claims.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote:I have recently been thinking that when God refers to Himself, He is simultaneously referring to the reality of the universe and natural law....I have thought that when God refers to Himself, it can be synonymous with "Good" while Satan can be synonymous with "Evil."
I think, at the end of the day, this is the sanest form of religion. On the other hand, taken a little further, it ceases to be religion at all.
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
0Megabyte: To say religion offers no evidence for its claim is a pretty sweeping and untrue statement.
Faith without evidence being a virtue? How about pride so strong it renders a body unable to look at the religious with anything but disdain or contempt? As if we have nothing of value. You act as if we should be grateful if you take a step above that stance and offer us sympathy and condescension.
Now you feel you have given religion a sufficient try and found it wanting. I can respect that. I feel I have given religion a sufficient try and found it more then I thought it could be. I see God as somebody who values humility highly, you see that as religion trying to make us all sheep. Your view seems to make you respect theists less then those who share you position. My view requires that I love you just as much as I love a fellow believer.
You atheists can poke and prod and make fun of us all night long, because people who try to share the same banner I do have done horrible things in the name of the God I worship. If I complain you can just cram my complaints down my throat, "Blah Blah Crusades, blah blah Salem Witch Trials, Blah Blah Spanish Inquisition." Yet I am required to treat all of you with respect even love.
Let's say I grant you that Christianity is utterly false. How can you deign to suggest that just because Christianity let you down that therefore all religions that could possibly exist are not worth your time looking into? How can you be so sure that God does not exist or that he might even still have plans for you that don't include organized religion? Are you smart enough to remain unfooled, but humble enough to listen if God communicates with you in an unorthodox way?
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
Tom, how are you defining "religion"?
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
quote:Yet I am required to treat all of you with respect, even love.
My heart bleeds for you. Would you like to point to a post around here which disrespects you, personally, as opposed to your beliefs? I'll make no bones about it: I do not respect your belief, because I think it is false. But that cuts both ways: You likewise do not think I am correct, and therefore do not respect my belief in any usual sense of that word. I understand that you respect my right to have that belief, but this is not the same thing, and besides, that respect is perforce returned. Now we are discussing whether we respect each other personally. Again: Would you like to point out where anybody has dissed you, as a person?
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote:Tom, how are you defining "religion"?
To make a long story short: philosophy plus supernatural elements and a clubhouse.
Posted by Eaquae Legit (Member # 3063) on :
quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson:
quote:Tom, how are you defining "religion"?
To make a long story short: philosophy plus supernatural elements and a clubhouse.
It's funny, but that's probably the most accurate and inclusive description of religion I've seen.
Posted by Icarus (Member # 3162) on :
You can't have religion without a clubhouse?
Posted by Icarus (Member # 3162) on :
quote:Originally posted by King of Men: \Would you like to point to a post around here which disrespects you, personally, as opposed to your beliefs? I'll make no bones about it: I do not respect your belief, because I think it is false. But that cuts both ways: You likewise do not think I am correct, and therefore do not respect my belief in any usual sense of that word. I understand that you respect my right to have that belief, but this is not the same thing, and besides, that respect is perforce returned. Now we are discussing whether we respect each other personally. Again: Would you like to point out where anybody has dissed you, as a person?
KoM hates the sin, but he loves the sinner.
Posted by Nathan2006 (Member # 9387) on :
Sorry... I think somebody just used the word 'dissed'.
Posted by Nathan2006 (Member # 9387) on :
I just googled Jay's recent posts, and found out that he hasn't ever posted in a thread, he just starts them... And I'm sure everybody here already knew it.
Which meant I was being an idiot when I said you guys were scary and so he may have stayed away for that reason.
Whoops. He really is a troll.
Posted by beverly (Member # 6246) on :
quote:I think, at the end of the day, this is the sanest form of religion. On the other hand, taken a little further, it ceases to be religion at all.
Would you still call it not a religion if there is still a belief in an after-life, eternal progression, and intelligent guidance along the path towards goodness, wisdom, and love?
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
quote:Originally posted by Icarus: KoM hates the sin, but he loves the sinner.
Nu, love may be a little strong. Let's say, I'm prepared to let the sinner continue to exist in the same universe as me, under appropriate supervision and perhaps paying some extra taxes.
Posted by beverly (Member # 6246) on :
BlackBlade, it is easy for religion to be mocked because it makes declarative statements that can't be proved, as Hobbes has said. Also, it is a lot easier to mock, criticize, and tear down than it is to build something, no matter what the ideology or philosophy. Science is the only thing exempt because it doesn't declare anything that is not repeatable and provable. It just comes with the territory.
Since all people believe in more than science as a function of being human, all people have beliefs that can be chipped at. While I might disagree or even disrespect other people's ideologies, I don't go around seeking to tear them down, whatever they may be. I think that is disrespectful.
I just try to clear up misconceptions where they exist, I'm not trying to convince anyone to believe as I do. Belief is a personal thing, and people gravitate towards what rings true for them.
Posted by Hobbes (Member # 433) on :
quote:A religion asks for faith, belief without evidence
No it doesn't, some religions ask for belief without evidence. Sweeping generalizations, generally, aren't true.
I think it's interesting to watch this discussion develop. The high percentage of LDS respondents on the "faith side" certainly leads the conversations in unique ways.
Hobbes Posted by rollainm (Member # 8318) on :
quote:Originally posted by Hobbes:
quote:A religion asks for faith, belief without evidence
No it doesn't, some religions ask for belief without evidence. Sweeping generalizations, generally, aren't true.
Can you name some that don't?
Posted by Hobbes (Member # 433) on :
Well, mine for one.
Hobbes Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote:Would you still call it not a religion if there is still a belief in an after-life, eternal progression, and intelligent guidance along the path towards goodness, wisdom, and love?
No. I'd call that a faith or a belief. I wouldn't call it a religion; religions incorporate beliefs, but require other things as well.
Posted by steven (Member # 8099) on :
Interesting, Tom. What about traditional tribes? I'm thinking of a Masai-related group in Africa that believes that your soul lives in your liver, or of other groups with other beliefs.
Posted by Hobbes (Member # 433) on :
Like a clubhouse?
Hobbes Posted by Reshpeckobiggle (Member # 8947) on :
quote: Originally posted by 0megabyte: If one doesn't look at the evidence, or refuses to look at the evidence, that's not exactly a positive trait. If one outright denies the evidence's implications, and decides to continue to live in a world where the facts don't matter, such a trait seems downright dangerous.
The notion you don't seem capable of entertaining (and when you are so 100% certain, why should you be capable?) is that some of us look at the evidence you present, see the parts that you are leaving out, and then determine for ourselves that you are interpreting the evidence with some basic difference that allows you to see pretty much all of existence in a completely different way.
As far as my specific denial of Macro-evolution goes, it could not be more obvious to me that it is a brilliantly designed, yet nonetheless false construct. Why? I have no choice but to conclude that, at the very least, you are not seeing something that is so apparent to me. It's hard to not feel superior, and truth be told, I do sometimes. So don't feel too bad if you feel smarter than me because you know what you do and I can't see it for some reason.
Posted by Javert (Member # 3076) on :
Resh...what's being left out? Can you please give examples? I have an open mind and would like to see for myself.
Posted by beverly (Member # 6246) on :
quote:No. I'd call that a faith or a belief. I wouldn't call it a religion; religions incorporate beliefs, but require other things as well.
Of course, I left out some other things as well that would probably qualify it as a religion in your book. A belief in canonized scritpure, priesthood authority, ordinances, living prophets, and modern revelation.
Oh, and a belief that God sent Christ to atone for our sins.
Posted by Tarrsk (Member # 332) on :
quote:Originally posted by Reshpeckobiggle:
quote: Originally posted by 0megabyte: [qb]If one doesn't look at the evidence, or refuses to look at the evidence, that's not exactly a positive trait. If one outright denies the evidence's implications, and decides to continue to live in a world where the facts don't matter, such a trait seems downright dangerous.
The notion you don't seem capable of entertaining (and when you are so 100% certain, why should you be capable?) is that some of us look at the evidence you present, see the parts that you are leaving out, and then determine for ourselves that you are interpreting the evidence with some basic difference that allows you to see pretty much all of existence in a completely different way.
I'm going to echo Javert's question. Can you point out some of this evidence that we're "leaving out"? Peer-reviewed citations only, s'il vous plait.
Based on your performance on previous threads, I anticipate that you'll either (a) trot out the same tired arguments that folks both here and elsewhere have debunked repeatedly or (b) ignore our request completely.
Incidentally, your ad hom on Tom and KoM ("I just know that some of them (cough*Tom*hack*KoM*ahem) do") earlier in the thread doesn't speak well of your own objectivity on this subject. That you keep claiming some sort of humility high ground ("evolutionists and atheists in general actively believe that they are either privy to information that we are not, or that they are simply smarter than us") in this discussion is pretty darned funny to me. For once, can you drop the delusion of victimization and actually engage us on the level of the evidence? Y'know, like you keep claiming to without actually doing so?
Posted by Mucus (Member # 9735) on :
quote:Originally posted by Reshpeckobiggle: ... As far as my specific denial of Macro-evolution goes, it could not be more obvious to me that it is a brilliantly designed, yet nonetheless false construct.
It occurs to me how wonderfully "meta" this could be. For many people, the theory of evolution is not intuitive due to the timescales and the scale of the numbers involved. Dawkins makes a brief one sentence aside to pretty much this effect in the Blind Watchmaker.
Its kind of interesting the parallel between the two statements, "creation is so complex, it must have a designer" and the "the theory of evolution is so brilliantly complex, it must have had a designer/constructor."
An interesting parallel or circularity.
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
Doesn't seem very interesting to me. Of course the theory of evolution has a designer, or rather a bunch of designers. So does any scientific theory. That doesn't say anything about its validity.
Posted by Mucus (Member # 9735) on :
*shrug* Different people are interested in different things. I find it interesting what determines what people find intuitive. Dawkins expands on that aside here.
In some sense, I would not really say that the theory of evolution is purely designed if it is true. I think of it more as a process of discovery, unearthing and understanding how the world really developed. I would contrast this with the active creative process that most people associate with the phrase "intelligently designed."
I have no idea how you're jumping to a conclusion as to whether my previous post had a stance on the validity of evolution either way.
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
I was more thinking of Resh's post with that remark.
Posted by 0Megabyte (Member # 8624) on :
As everyone else has said:
Resh: evidence? Go on. Show it. If I'm missing it, if it's as convincing as you claim, if this empirical evidence you've got that the scientists and I are all overlooking, show it.
Show the world! Come on, if it's so big, so certain, you'd almost certainly win a Nobel Prize if you just showed it in a clear manner!
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
quote:Originally posted by dkw: We have the best potluck dinners.
Do you really expect to be able to make such nonsensical claims without some sort of proof? Hmph!
quote:Originally posted by beverly: I was just thinking, it's been a long time since I've engaged in the subject of religion on a forum. I tend to find it a bit exhausting.
I know the feeling. Posted by 0Megabyte (Member # 8624) on :
To Blackblade:
My disagreements, my views, seem that venomous to you, I apologize.
But: I'd like to see some evidence. I've described why personal feelings don't work for me in the past. But I'll try to do it better now, hoping it won't upset you.
Human perception is flawed, simply. I know this through many experiences. First of all, there are my own experiences. Time my perceptions were flawed, times I thought I heard or saw something when I didn't, and further, times I've fallen into the flaws of confirmation bias. I've made connections of causation, thought coincidences meant a purpose. I've seen things that weren't there!
Understanding that the things I see, hear, feel, taste and smell are not the actual world, but my mind's simulation of the world, and that these simulations are subject to misfiring neurons, tricks of the eyes, and completely false sensations, I see how the mind can be falsified.
That's just from my own experience. Then I look at other people, both physically around me, as well as data from more objective sources. I see people around me make the same mistakes I do, and make other mistakes I do not make, while never making some of the mistakes I do. I read about how this is not just common in people I know, but in general.
I learn that electrical signals in the right part of the brain can trigger religious experience. I learn how hallucinations occur, and I learn more and more about the tricks the human mind can play on itself, both intentionally and unintentionally.
Then, seeing flawed human perception, I see something else. I notice how many contradictory views people have. People say contradictory things about the world, some people believe it's flat, some that it's round. Some that there's a God. Some that there are many gods. Some that people go to heaven or hell when you die. Some that you get reincarnated. Some that crystals have magic powers, and that people can read others minds, and that the stars affect human affairs. Some believe in a god called Allah, others in a savior named Jesus, others believe in addition some new guy in the 19th century is the first of the new prophets. Some believe that humanity started due to alien intervention, or that the trees and animals and rocks have ephemeral, intelligent spirits.
Seeing all of this, I wonder, and wondered: why do all these people believe such contradictory things? Why do they ALL (well, not all, but many of the most devout of each religion) say that they're absolutely right, and that every other one of these beliefs is in error?
They all say similar things, about feeling it, about being certain, about it helping them. About miracles, for every religion, always of a similar kind, always either coincidental, mundane things or else placebo type things, which seal the deal for them, which make them certain their religion is true.
I've probably read hundreds of testimonials, of multiple different religions. None of them have ever, ever shown any proof to be anything outside of the individual. None of them have shown, at least to me, to be anything other than the things I've seen or learned of. None.
Sure, there could be some that aren't. But whenever I ask, no one ever has them. Nobody ever shows me something that isn't more reasonably coincidence or else WANTING it to be a sign, or an illusion, hallicinations (those happen to all of us, not just crazies!) or whatever.
I mean, if strength of feeling, strength of conviction was enough to prove anything, what of the strength of conviction of all those other religions? Theirs is just as strong. They'd be just as clear that you're wrong, that they're right, and would have no less conviction that their religion is special, that their experiences are unique to their religion, that hteir truth is greater than yours.
Of course, learning this, I already knew about science. I already found that science, unlike religion, explains, gives not just anecdotal evidence, not just personal testimonies, but instead, carefully recorded data, carefully pieced together records, theories based on these pieces of data, to explain them, which are confirmed or falsified by new data, and new tests. Further, science has a great track record of actual physical results in the real world.
While prayer and 'miracles' may seem to help some people, some of the time, medical science can be objectively shown to save lives. It can reattach limbs, which no miracle has ever been shown to do. It can repair damage that would kill someone if you just prayed for them. It can do things more certainly than any miracle has ever been able to do.
Antibiotics are much more effective than prayer. That's been shown, time and again. If my life is on the line, I'll trust my life to a doctor, not a priest, of any religion, either Christianity or New Age or Hindu.
Science answers the questions religion never answered for me satisfactorily. I ask what the sun is as well as the moon and the planets and stars, science tells me, and then gives far more detail than I could ever need to know, and shows how it found out. Religion... well. Different religions say different things, and those things have changed since science came on the scene. The harmony of the spheres should sound familiar, though.
Further, science does this on pretty much every subject. From why things fall, to the makeup of the human body, to why the lights work, to the internet, to the way sound works, and further, human nature, human tendencies, how our minds work, how we act and why we're social... science gives explanations for all, rational ones, that can be tested, that I myself can go out and test myself, to see with my own eyes.
Recorded observations, thousands, millions of tests which agree with previously created theories, predictions which actually come true, not in a vague manner, but precisely, to a vast degree, and tests I can go and perform myself, as many times as needed, and the ability to change wrong theories due to new evidence... that kind of thing works for me! That kind of thing I can trust, at least, more than my easily fooled feelings. If my mind is not right for the first test, the second through twentieth tests will show otherwise. Personal experiences, though, don't usually have that capacity for testing, for observation, for recording, for outside verification.
How can I accept those personal feelings, when I've been shown something that can both explain those feelings, point out how I feel them, give good reasons as to why I possess them, show at least some of the inner workings of those feelings (and discovers more about them all the time!) shows how they're useful, and points out the ways in which they can fool me, in a manner that I can use to recognize my errors and not fall for them the next time?
That's why I don't accept the strength of personal conviction, the feelings of love and joy that comes fro mbelieving in God, the silent whispers people claim to get (others claim to get whispers from other entities, some of them contradictory to God's existence, others simply crazy), the intense feelings of rapture that I have also observed both in nonreligious activities, as well as read about being shown in the lab.
If you can show me real evidence, however. Like, say, verified evidence of a prayer having a dramatic result, say, reforming an arm, or bringing the dead back to life, in the dramatic fashion Jesus is claimed to do, please show me! I think, if Jesus could give such things during his lifetime, and feel no problem using those to prove his power, he could do so again no problem, if he's still around.
I'm like doubting Thomas. But unlike Thomas, I've not been shown something that could incontrovertable prove God or Jesus's existence. If it was okay for Thomas to ask, and recieve real, physical evidence (that's what's said, whether it's what truly happened is another question) then it should be okay for me.
I don't mean a feeling, or coincidence, or whatever. I mean physical evidence that I can count on. Something I could examine. Something others could see and examine as well. Not done in secret, but in front of witnesses, neutral ones. Such things are all over the Bible, as well as all the other scriptures of different religions.
But in the world we live in, why do they never, ever appear?
You claim my statement about religion not giving evidence is untrue.
Then show it! Real evidence! The real thing, not the same old miracles and feelings that people of contradictory religions also give as reasons for their religion's truth! Why don't you, if you have it? Why are you holding out on me?!
If it seems to you that this is pride, then so be it. You speak of your feelings, I see the flaws of human understanding, the flaws in human perception, which can produce false evidence, and respond with skepticism. You speak of your feelings, and I note that others with contradictory beliefs speak of similar feelings.
If false and true religions give the same kind of evidence, and neither of them show anything that can't be explained as something mundane and not in any way supernatural by the same processes (the scientific method) which have given us electricty, the internet, communication sattelites and the medicines that have saved the lives of me and others, how am I supposed to react? Which do you really think I would rationally put my money on? Which should I trust? The one that answers my questions in an actually satisfactory way, or the one which says that God is a mystery, and that mystery, that lack of understanding, is divine?
With what I've seen, how do you expect me to take that any more seriously than the claims of one random tribe or another that witches have extra organs, and fly around at night causing diseases? Why should I treat your claims to have felt God with any less skepticism than their claims to see the witches flying in the sky, casting curses?
I must admit, though. If strength of conviction had any bearing on truth, you Mormons would be the way to go. You're so sure. You believe so strongly. If that had a bearing on reality, yours would be the safe bet, no doubt.
But believing something has nothing to do with reality. People have believed so many things. Why trust beliefs, when I can look at evidence instead, and feel the joy of understanding the natural processes that cause everything?
Anyway, I don't care about the things done under the banner of religion per se. I rejected them as religion's fault when I was religious, I still reject them as solely religion's fault now. All I care about is evidence. Why is yours better than a new age healer's?
As for what you claim I deign... I don't deign anything. I ask the same of all religions. Until I've been shown valid evidence for one of them, why should I assume any of them are true? It has nothing to do with looking into them. I've looked, though of course not quite to the extent that I've looked into Christianity, what with being born into it and all.
It really isn't that Christianity let me down. It's that I refuse to believe something without evidence anymore! I won't believe something just because one asserts it. At least, I'll try. And religion is really conspicuous about that, and makes some pretty huge claims. So, of course I'll focus my questioning on those claims, what with their size and all.
I can't prove God doesn't exist. I can't prove any of the gods don't exist. But until I see evidence of them, why should I assume any of them are true, any more than I do not assume Santa Claus is true, or assume that string theory is true? (I don't know, I haven't read enough, I don't know any evidence about it, so I can't tell.)
My default position is to not assume something is true until evidence is shown. And if I look for evidence, especially if I make a strong search, and none is forthcoming... why act like that thing is true? If those who claim they have evidence have failed to produce something plausible, time and time agian (show me I'm wrong! I'd love that! Really!), why assume that they have it when they still claim to have evidence?
In the end, God knows how to reach me. He knows my mind and heart, and, if he's real, and is as Christianity says, knows my entire nature, and probably chose to have me come into existence, instead of the millions of other possibilites. He knows my thought processes, and knows I'd readily believe, if he showed himself.
But I won't put my life on hold while waiting, any more than I'll put my life on hold for string theory. Assume something is not true until reasonably shown it is.
But perhaps I should make my heated views on evolution clear and separate: I believed in evolution, and had an equally heated view, back when I believed in God. My reaction then is the same as now.
I've seen evidence, beyond a reasonable doubt, that evolution occurs. Those who deny it outright kind of annoy me. Especially when they use bad arguements and logical fallacies.
I like truth. I like learning truth, and I care passionately about it. To see people disregard it annoys me. It's just my nature, and was the same before as now. That hasn't changed.
Anyway, I hope that helps. When yuo see how you see God, I wonder, very curiously, where you're getting the ideas. It really makes me curious why you get these, and others get totally different messages, too, you know.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote:Of course, I left out some other things as well that would probably qualify it as a religion in your book. A belief in canonized scritpure, priesthood authority, ordinances, living prophets, and modern revelation.
In the interest of pith, I lumped all those things in with the "clubhouse" aspect of religion.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
quote:Originally posted by Reshpeckobiggle: ome of us look at the evidence you present, see the parts that you are leaving out, and then determine for ourselves that you are interpreting the evidence with some basic difference that allows you to see pretty much all of existence in a completely different way.
You wanna know the critical difference? They're using evidence. You're using the smug self-satisfaction that you're right because you know you're right.
It's all well and good to play the faith jockey and claim that your dismissal of their evidence is because you have this miraculous ability to pick it apart or tell a vast consensus of people who are actually competent in their scientific fields what they're leaving out. You offer no demonstratively plausible alternatives and when you attempt to use the paradigm of logic and scientific critiques to say 'this is why your scientific postulate is wrong,' you fall flat on your ass.
Other people would have more humble recourse. Other people would actually have enough sense to not act so smug when they've actually not done very well in being convincing and have a record as a serial flop in most all contentious debates, to a point where one starts crying foul over the volume of people telling them to shut up. But you, man, you're stumbling through this thread going "Ah, but I, Resphecobiggle, cannot help but feel Superior from time to time, I am just so Endowed with the Truth, you know" like some cartoon picador or a contemporary of Bean Counter.
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
quote:Originally posted by King of Men:
quote:Yet I am required to treat all of you with respect, even love.
My heart bleeds for you. Would you like to point to a post around here which disrespects you, personally, as opposed to your beliefs? I'll make no bones about it: I do not respect your belief, because I think it is false. But that cuts both ways: You likewise do not think I am correct, and therefore do not respect my belief in any usual sense of that word. I understand that you respect my right to have that belief, but this is not the same thing, and besides, that respect is perforce returned. Now we are discussing whether we respect each other personally. Again: Would you like to point out where anybody has dissed you, as a person?
I just spent some time looking for one thread in particular, unfortunately many threads simply say, "topic not found" and as I did not make mental notes of when I have ever been insulted personally I can't provide you with the proof you asked at this time. I can remember quite distinctly you popping into a thread to say some pretty rotten stuff to me which people called you out on, but hey you don't have to take my word for it.
I'm sure even you have to admit that on occasion you've been downright unfriendly with religious posters in this forum. I have noticed that your behavior in the last few months seemed to be markedly better. I still very much enjoy much of what you have to say KOM, but since you operate under the assumption that you can't be wrong on the question of religion, it seems futile to respond to comments you make in threads of that topic.
0Megabyte: Though I will probably post small to moderate posts throughout the day, I have not forgotten your very long post. I'll either email you directly or reply to it in thread when I get home from work. I just didn't want you to think I was ignoring you.
Posted by Teshi (Member # 5024) on :
quote:You can't have religion without a clubhouse?
Clubtent, clubtree, clubcave.
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
BB, You've called me a liar when I posted things that you didn't know about but didn't want to believe were true. I think that might be relevant to the conversation at this point.
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
quote:Originally posted by MrSquicky: BB, You've called me a liar when I posted things that you didn't know about but didn't want to believe were true. I think that might be relevant to the conversation at this point.
That occasion escapes me, I'd thank you to link me the thread, if that is not possible, quote me, or at the least give me some context to the statement.
It's not beyond the realm of possibility, but I don't call people liars lightly.
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
BB, Here's a relevant summary:
quote:Also, BB and I just had a conversation (here's another, not with BB) about the ex-gay movement and how, in it's 30 or so years of their concerted efforts to turn religious gay people who really wanted to change into heterosexuals, they've yet to be able to give evidence for success in any matter except for a questionable and vanishingly small sample. In this thread, I demonstrated that I was aware and well versed in these "therapies", which would go along with my constant demonstration that, especially when I'm talking about psychological subjects, I am well versed in the things I represent myself as well-versed in. And yet, he responded with:
quote:Thats your opinion, I think its sweepingly hasty in judgement. I seriously doubt you have extensive experience with many or even few programs designed to assist homosexuals into coming to terms with it with heterosexuality as a goal. For me to agree with you I would have to actively disagree with what I honestly believe is true. That human beings can become whatever they choose to be. You can believe that its impossible for any homosexual to cultivate feelings of attraction towards members of the opposite gender, and I would simply disagree with you.
I have to wonder, how much is it going to take?
from this thread. We go on to discuss how saying the specifc you saying that I didn't have the experience that I claimed to (you know, lying about it) a page later.
---
I've got to wonder, did you ever look into the issue like you said you would?
Posted by MattP (Member # 10495) on :
Random stuff on how I engage religious argument...
I do a fair amount of eye rolling and shoulder shrugging, but that's all on my side of the monitor. I can't help that I feel my position is more reasonable - it would be silly to hold an opinion that I don't believe is the best one I can form - but I "get" that everyone who disagrees with me feels similarly about their own opinions.
I'm married to a very faithful Mormon. We talk about religion often but fight about it never. I don't so much respect her beliefs as I respect that these are beliefs are important to her.
It's like my friend that collects McDonald's Happy Meal toys and displays them in a glass case. I ignore my normal protocol for handling cheap toys when I'm at his place because it clear that they have value to him beyond the small value that these toys have in other contexts. I can still consider (and even remark on) the poor quality of construction or cheesy design, but I ask his permission to pick them up and I handle them gingery.
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
bev,
quote:Can you prove this? Or is this your own subjective observation?
Out of curiosity, what is your theory on why this might be, considering the gospel message encourages one to love their enemy, turn the other cheek, share with all, and in all other ways hold yourself to a higher standard than your neighbor?
Maybe the message is too painful to be popular.
Do you see the majority of Christians out there heeding or giving great weight to those verses? Do you see the Sermon on the Mount as something that people have tried to model their society and their lives on? I don't. I don't think, in many cases, it is so much a matter of the dictates being too hard as it is people care or know very little about what the religion actually says.
As for my evidence and my theories, I think I covered them pretty extensively in this thread. I'm having problems figuring out exactly how to link specific parts of a thread, so I think my part of the discussion that is applicable here really starts a few pages after the part I linked. It's long though.
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
Mr S: I have ideas but am not sure what you are trying to accomplish with this. In those threads I was not trying to call you a liar, though I in fact did so do. I apologized for it, and told you that I would learn more about programs like Exodus, and the like. edit: I incidentally do know quite a bit more then I did about those sorts of programs.
What has that got to do with the price of rice in China might I ask? Or are you trying to paint me as somebody who wildly fires accusations that have little merit because I thought you overstated your credentials in one thread?
doubt edit: Or that I am not honest in what I say I will do, and therefore can be taken less seriously?
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
BB, You didn't actually appologize for calling me a liar, you know.
I'm trying to point out that your description of your past behavior and some instances of your past behavior don't match up all that well.
---
Plus, you know, I really don't like getting called a liar, especially with such little justification and I deserve an apology.
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
I didn't describe my past behavior in this thread, you did. The only things behavior wise that I have mentioned are what I am expected to do (not always what I actually do) and what I see opponents of religion doing.
quote:Plus, you know, I really don't like getting called a liar, especially with such little justification and I deserve an apology.
If the following was not what you wanted,
quote:Liar wasn't really the label I was going for. Overstater? Or exaggerator? In anycase I am willing to admit that for the time being you know more on the topic then I do, and your statement that gay therapy attempts have been fruitless is more tenable a position then my ignorance. I apologize if you felt I was going after you as a person rather then the issues you were presenting
I am sincerely sorry. It was wrong of me to so hastily call your integrity into question, even if we ignore the fact that I was wrong in my accusation. I will honestly try very hard to never make such a mistake like that ever again. I hope you will not continue to hold that mistake against me in the future.
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
BB, It's hard not to doubt how seriously you regarded this, given that you didn't even remember doing it. But, for what it's worth, I accept your apology.
---
I read you wrong. You seemed to me to be asserting that you treated people according to how you are supposed to, rather than just noting that you are supposed to treat them a certain way.
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
quote:BB, It's hard not to doubt how seriously you regarded this, given that you didn't even remember doing it. But, for what it's worth, I accept your apology.
When I read the thread it all came back to me, but I'd attribute not recalling what you were talking about more to I didn't realize that incident had not been fully resolved. I can see how that makes my apology harder to take seriously, but I mean it for what it's worth, thanks for accepting it.
quote:I read you wrong. You seemed to me to be asserting that you treated people according to how you are supposed to, rather than just noting that you are supposed to treat them a certain way.
If God rolls up and says my mimcry is perfect, you will be the first to know. Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
quote:but since you operate under the assumption that you can't be wrong on the question of religion, it seems futile to respond to comments you make in threads of that topic.
I make no such assumption. But I do make the assumption that, if people are going to convince me of something, they will be able to show some evidence. You have never done so, nor has any other theist poster. If you feel the request for evidence is an unreasonable one, please say so now and we can agree to ignore each other in religious threads, as I already do with kmb.
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
BB, That sounds like a reasonable explanation.
How did the research into Exodus go?
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
Aw...KoM, I'm hurt. And after I was so nice about your varves and everything.
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
KOM: If you only accept evidence (are you restricting evidence to that of a physical or observable nature?) as permissable I am still willing to continue discussing religion with you.
Mr S: I just sat down for a minute before my classes start but to start, I disagree with their belief that all homosexuals can be completely reoriented towards heterosexuality in this life. I am also convinced that the methods devised to accomplish rehabilitation are misguided at best and counterproductive, even reprehensible at worst. But to be fair, I really don't think that methods to accomplish that aim have had the time neccessary to be effective even if we assume that it's right to do what they want to do in the first place.
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
BB, Exodus has been around since 1976 without demonstrating that their methods work (although lying about their sucesses often enough). How much time would you consider necessary?
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
quote: KOM: If you only accept evidence (are you restricting evidence to that of a physical or observable nature?)
I'm a make a wild guess here and say something akin to rational skepticism: physical? maybe. Testable? preferably.
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
Observable by others.
Posted by Hobbes (Member # 433) on :
Well then it will be tough. Speaking only for myself, I can offer nothing but evidence that is collected, for lack of a better word, on an individual basis only. I really don't see that as an issue, things that happen only to me, or to which I'm the only one present are just as real in my life as things which are visible (or audible, or whatever) to others. However, if you want to define evidence as it relates to you that way of course that's your prerogative. I'm happy to agree that if you define evidence as something observable by others, I'll be unable to answer your request for that kind of evidence when it comes to deity.
Hobbes Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
quote:Originally posted by MrSquicky: BB, Exodus has been around since 1976 without demonstrating that their methods work (although lying about their sucesses often enough). How much time would you consider necessary?
I really can't answer that. But diciplines like psychology are still coming to terms with MANY disorders. Who knows when Aspergers syndrome, or it's bigger brother Autism will get the treatment they need?
As an aside my church just came out with a new pamphlet on homosexuality. I think it was a step in the right direction. Significant changes on previous church policy were,
1: The cause of homosexuality is not stated, and indeed it is admitted that some of the causes may never be clearly identified in this life.
2: Homosexual desires are identified as not sinful in the pamphlet, which I think is true.
3: There is a strong admonition to the membership to treat those who are homosexual in and out of the church with love and compassion. Something I think needed to be written on something official.
Here is a link if somebody wants to read the pamphlet in its entirety.
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
quote:But diciplines like psychology are still coming to terms with MANY disorders. Who knows when Aspergers syndrome or it's bigger brother Autism will get the treatment it needs.
I have no idea why that would be relevant in this specific instance. [edit:]That is, why would the inability to cure certain conditions be relevant to a 30+ year failure to do what you set out to, in the context of there just hasn't been enough time for their therapy to work.[/edit] Could you explain?
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
I merely mean, assuming homosexuality can be "cured," or at least heterosexuality can be programed into a person, (something I know you don't agree with) that perhaps Exodus is a doomed cause and they will never accomplish their aim. But 30+ years of failure his hardly long enough to deem a cause or effort pointless.
In short, I agree that Exodus' methods don't work, and 30 years is long enough to establish that. But they could revise their methodology either in minor or radical ways and possibly, maybe even reasonably expect to see major results.
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
Not that this is relevant to the discussion, but I can't help being bothered by the assumption that homosexuality is something to be "cured".
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
quote:Originally posted by kmbboots: Not that this is relevant to the discussion, but I can't help being bothered by the assumption that homosexuality is something to be "cured".
I'm sure it does bother you, but its an assumption I am keeping so I can avoid discussing the larger subject of homosexuality right or wrong.
Is there another verb that makes your more comfortable? If somebody had a disposition to say lose their temper, what would you call it if through some process that temper was brought under control?
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
quote:assuming homosexuality can be "cured," or at least heterosexuality can be programed into a person, (something I know you don't agree with)
I don't disagree that there is a possibility of this. I think, given the failure of over 30 years of very motived effort towards this, that 1) these particular methods don't work and 2) the conception of homosexuality as something that is easy to choose or not is a false one.
If you want to say that some time in the future, it is possible that someone may come up with a way of converting homosexuals to heterosexuals, I can't argue with that, but it won't be based on the assumption that underlie the current failed attempts and it most likely won't be done by the ethically flawed people who currently make up a large section of the ex-gay movement.
Posted by El JT de Spang (Member # 7742) on :
quote:Is there another verb that makes your more comfortable? If somebody had a disposition to say lose their temper, what would you call it if through some process that temper was brought under control?
Brainwashing.
(edited to add the quote)
[ August 29, 2007, 05:30 PM: Message edited by: El JT de Spang ]
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
boots, If we're talking about the effectiveness of reparative therapy, you kind of have to grant at least the perspective that homosexuality is something to be "cured".
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
Hoenst question, BB. Have you looked into Exodus or the ex-gay movement since we talked about it before? I can't tell from your rather general answers.
Posted by MattP (Member # 10495) on :
quote:Originally posted by kmbboots: Not that this is relevant to the discussion, but I can't help being bothered by the assumption that homosexuality is something to be "cured".
Same here. It may be possible to change someone's sexual orientation, but whether that's a good thing and whether people should be trying to do so is a much bigger issue to me.
Once we've "cured" homosexuality, what other defects of mind are we going to address with aggressive psychological "treatment." Atheism? Libertarianism?
Posted by 0Megabyte (Member # 8624) on :
Well, brainwashing could effect a change... but I'd be curious to see someone using those same methods to turn a heterosexual homosexual!
Depending on the strength of mind, and the willingness of the person, I wouldn't be surprised if it worked, at a similar rate of success.
But to test it would be so unethical... darn my curiosity's evil side!
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
Can I suggest that 'changed' would be a good, neutral verb? That is, Exodus has failed to change any homosexual orientations in 30 years of effort.
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
Actually, ex-gay people did just that. They did basically A Clockwork Orange conditioning on people (along with some mild torture) to try and turn them straight.
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
quote:I don't disagree that there is a possibility of this. I think, given the failure of over 30 years of very motived effort towards this, that 1) these particular methods don't work and 2) the conception of homosexuality as something that is easy to choose or not is a false one.
I can agree with this completely.
quote:If you want to say that some time in the future, it is possible that someone may come up with a way of converting homosexuals to heterosexuals, I can't argue with that, but it won't be based on the assumption that underlie the current failed attempts and it most likely won't be done by the ethically flawed people who currently make up a large section of the ex-gay movement.
Perhaps not. I don't think Exodus is going to make any break throughs in this effort.
Posted by kmbboots (Member # 8576) on :
quote:Originally posted by MrSquicky: boots, If we're talking about the effectiveness of reparative therapy, you kind of have to grant at least the perspective that homosexuality is something to be "cured".
I know. Granted for the purposes of discussion. I just wanted to be on record as thinking it's wrong.
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
quote:Originally posted by MrSquicky: Hoenst question, BB. Have you looked into Exodus or the ex-gay movement since we talked about it before? I can't tell from your rather general answers.
I went to their website and looked it over thoroughly. I considered browsing places that are critical of them but my experience with trying to find truth in sites that are critical of say my own church discouraged me from repeating the attempt with Exodus.
I am being pretty general as while I am at work the opportunity to just sit down and write well thought out posts is very limited. I would be willing to look at any materials you think are academically honest and not trying to meld facts to fit an already established conclusion.
edit: I am willing to use "change(d)" instead of "cure(ed)" for the purposes of any discussion on this topic.
Posted by 0Megabyte (Member # 8624) on :
MrSquicky:
Ahh. Yeah... I so want to see how it'd effect heterosexuals then.
I mean, I know it's not going to happen, and I wouldn't dare suggest we test it... but darn, it makes me curious.
Posted by MightyCow (Member # 9253) on :
When do we get a group to turn straight people gay? If it works one way, it should work the other.
I know some guys who could really use with some gaying up.
Posted by Kwea (Member # 2199) on :
Feelin' a bit frisky, are you? Posted by MightyCow (Member # 9253) on :
I'm as gay as I want to be already, as my girlfriend will tell you without reservation.
It's a couple of my friends who need to get a clue.
Posted by beverly (Member # 6246) on :
quote:Do you see the majority of Christians out there heeding or giving great weight to those verses? Do you see the Sermon on the Mount as something that people have tried to model their society and their lives on? I don't. I don't think, in many cases, it is so much a matter of the dictates being too hard as it is people care or know very little about what the religion actually says.
I have always been very much a part of a religious community and all my life have been very pleased with the majority of the members I have interacted with. That has been my personal experience.
Generally, people seem to view Latter-day Saints as decent people. So many times, just knowing that someone is "a Mormon" automatically people assume that they are honest, law-abiding, and kind. While not everyone lives up to that standard, that view seems to be the prevailing one amongst those who know actual members of the church.
I don't have enough experience with members of other faiths, but I live in a small, very Christian community. I have been deeply pleased again and again by the beauty of the souls of the people around me. I believe they are honest disciples of Christ who do their best to follow His teachings.
You and I must travel in very different circles.
Posted by MattP (Member # 10495) on :
I live in a predominantly Mormon community and the people, in general, don't seem particularly better or worse than the non-mormons I've lived around in the past who were of approximately the same socioeconomic status, except that there is more of a sense of in-group and out-group here.
Otherwise, middle-class suburbia seems to be about the same in Utah as it is in San Diego.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
What psychology knows about homosexuality indicates that you can't change the fundamental sexual orientation of a person.
What you can do, however, is skinner-box them until they're repressed mental train-wrecks waiting to happen who nevertheless are very forcefully conditioned to believe that they are straight, or at least be too terrified to state otherwise, which is exactly what Exodus has been accepting as a threshold of the success of their 'procedures.'
The same procedures could be used to cause a white man to insist that he is black.
Exodus is an example of very bad things done in the name of faith.
Posted by camus (Member # 8052) on :
quote:What psychology knows about homosexuality indicates that you can't change the fundamental sexual orientation of a person.
Really? I know that my definition of "attractive" is a rather fluid concept. In some instances there have been a complete reversal in my level of attraction to a person. Granted, that isn't exactly a change in fundamental sexual orientation, but where is the line between changes in sexual orientation and changes in attraction that is more subtle, like body types? I'm not so sure there is one.
Posted by MightyCow (Member # 9253) on :
Are you serious camus? There is a fundamental difference between thinking that an athletic woman is sexier than a curvy woman and deciding that you are no longer interested in women at all and want to make out with a furry, musclebound man.
Posted by camus (Member # 8052) on :
Yeah, I know there is a major difference between the two. I'm just not sure that there is a specific line that differentiates them. If some aspects of sexuality are fluid and changing, I don't see why other parts aren't as well. I don't view it as a biological switch that can't be crossed, but more like a spectrum where your position can change and definitions are blurry. I see the two examples as being a difference of scale instead of a difference in type. But I'm rather unfamiliar with the psychological studies about it, which is why I was curious about what those studies had found.
Posted by MightyCow (Member # 9253) on :
They might be different in scale, but I would suggest that most people have a fairly small range of flexibility on a fairly large scale. If being attracted to the manliest of men is 100 and being attracted to the most feminine women is 1, I might range from 1 to 35, but I doubt I'm ever going to get as far as 75. At a gut level, guys don't do anything for me, it isn't a matter of trying to be more accepting or thinking about it differently, at least not in my case.
It may happen from time to time, but I think experience has shown that relatively few people will be attracted to both men and women sexually, or more to the point, will be able to make such a drastic change from one end of the spectrum to the other.
Posted by camus (Member # 8052) on :
quote:It may happen from time to time, but I think experience has shown that relatively few people will be attracted to both men and women sexually, or more to the point, will be able to make such a drastic change from one end of the spectrum to the other.
I agree, though it wouldn't surprise me it's actually more than just a relatively few number of people.
Posted by Reshpeckobiggle (Member # 8947) on :
quote:Originally posted by Javert: Resh...what's being left out? Can you please give examples? I have an open mind and would like to see for myself.
Well, I've tried pointing them out before, but apparently they are inadmissible to the argument. Nevermind that it doesn't seem fair that the Naturalists don't get to make the rules.
Well, I guess they do, if the game is trying to convince someone that Evolution could not have happened. It goes something like, "You must prove to me that I am wrong, but you must only use arguments that can be proved, even if what you are arguing is unprovable by its nature. Meanwhile, the earth is billions of years old and that's how long it takes for evolution to happen. That's why it's unobservable!! But a proven fact, nonetheless."
Posted by Reshpeckobiggle (Member # 8947) on :
Something else that does not seem to be recognizable to the evolutionists is the fact that this incredible complex tapestry of a theory you have here (and the earlier post about it not being designed so much as something that has developed and modulated or whatever; stop kidding yourself, it has been designed) has done one thing: created a construct where if one does not scratch too deeply, one can envision a universe where all these just-so occurrences can happen that have ultimately resulted in the world as we know it today, but without the otherwise absolutely necessary invocation of some sort of creator/designer. But it certainly doesn't mean that that is what has happened, it it certainly isn't the most likely.
P.S. Don't you admire how well structured that first sentence is?
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
I'm curious, Resh: what, when you scratch a bit deeper, reveals a flaw in evolutionary theory?
Posted by Reshpeckobiggle (Member # 8947) on :
There's no one thing. I just mean that it's something I started doing a while back and now I don't believe in it. But an example would be the philosophy of Materialism which, while not required to believe in Evolution, does seem to require Evolution as an explanation for its possibility. Unless I'm mistaken, Materialism doesn't seem to hold up as a philosophy when faced with the problem of the existence of information.
Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
So because something you feel something you don't like is only possible because of evolutionary theory, evolutionary theory must be wrong?
Even assuming Materialism (whatever that is) is only possible because of evolutionary theory, and also that it doesn't "hold up as a philosophy when faced with the problem of the existence of information" (whatever that means; I've had numerous philosophy classes, and I can't parse it), that doesn't imply evolutionary theory has a problem.
That's like saying nuclear physics is incorrect because people can build nuclear bombs with it.
Posted by Reshpeckobiggle (Member # 8947) on :
Materialism is the idea that nothing exists in the universe that is not attributable to chance occurrences. The existence of information destroys the concept because all that existed prior to order in the materialist universe was matter and energy, and information is not something that is inherent to these things.
[edit] Is that parsable (my word)? What I can't parse is your analogy.
Posted by Enigmatic (Member # 7785) on :
The point of fugu's analogy is, bluntly, so what if Materialism is junk? You said yourself that materialism is not required to believe in evolution. Therefore, "disproving" materialism does nothing to disprove (or even weaken) evolution.
--Enigmatic
Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
Ah, that's not the definition used in philosophy when the term materialism is used, hence my confusion.
You seem to misunderstand the concept of information (as far as entropy in information theory is concerned, which is what you are talking about as far as I can tell). Information is inherent in any structure, however it came about. If there is energy, and even moreso if there is matter, there is information. It is not something that is separate from their existence, in some interpretations it is their existence (after all, what is a fundamental particle but a little blob of information?)
Of course, you make the fallacy of assuming the universe had a beginning. If it is merely something that exists, and always exists (which is possible, though it seems likely it periodically collapses to a singularity. We don't know enough about singularities to talk much about what happens when they become involved), then your counterargument holds no water.
Also, even if everything started out with, shall we say, minimal information, that doesn't mean local information can't increase. It is very easy to find huge amounts of local organization/information arising out of what is originally entirely disorganized (ever made salt crystals?).
Therefore your counterargument falls apart even if the universe is finite; increases in local information are driven by decreases in information elsewhere (perhaps by destruction).
Now, I think what you call materialism is wrong, myself (and yet somehow think evolutionary theory is sound), but that's another thought.
Posted by Reshpeckobiggle (Member # 8947) on :
I understood the point. It just doesn't work as an analogy.
But you're (both) right; disproving materialism does not disprove evolution. But it sure knocks some big holes in the need for keeping a dying theory like evolution on life-support.
Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
Perhaps if you could get back to the original question: why is evolutionary theory dying, according to you?
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
You are assuming your conclusion, there, namely that evolution is dying.
Posted by Reshpeckobiggle (Member # 8947) on :
You're getting it backwards, fugu. You are attributing matter to information. All matter has information, sure. But the information exists independently of matter or energy. These words are hitting your eyes because of the properties of the light from your screen. But the same information would be expressed whether the words came in the form of sound waves, or sign language, or letters in sand.
Posted by Reshpeckobiggle (Member # 8947) on :
quote:Originally posted by King of Men: You are assuming your conclusion, there, namely that evolution is dying.
I was actually just throwing that in there. But it's dying because more and more people, including some of the smartest people and best at communicating ideas, recognize how untenable it is.
[edit] I had to make an edit there. Something about genetics, biochemistry, and statistics, but I realized it was confusing and really not a pertinent point.
Posted by Javert (Member # 3076) on :
quote:Originally posted by Reshpeckobiggle:
quote:Originally posted by King of Men: You are assuming your conclusion, there, namely that evolution is dying.
I was actually just throwing that in there. But it's dying because more and more people, including some of the smartest people and best at communicating ideas, recognize how untenable it is.
Whether or not an idea is popular has nothing to do with its truth.
But I'll bite. Please name some of these smartest people so we can see their arguments.
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
quote:But it's dying because more and more people, including some of the smartest people and best at communicating ideas, recognize how untenable it is.
This is what is known as an 'inaccuracy'.
quote:You are attributing matter to information. All matter has information, sure. But the information exists independently of matter or energy.
Please define 'information' before you say anything about it. What is the information contained in this:
AACGAGTAAT
and how did you measure it?
Posted by Reshpeckobiggle (Member # 8947) on :
Javert, I'd probably have to put Bill Dembski up there near the top.
quote:Originally posted by King of Men:
quote:But it's dying because more and more people, including some of the smartest people and best at communicating ideas, recognize how untenable it is.
This is what is known as an 'inaccuracy'.
quote:You are attributing matter to information. All matter has information, sure. But the information exists independently of matter or energy.
Please define 'information' before you say anything about it. What is the information contained in this:
AACGAGTAAT
and how did you measure it?
I don't know if it's inaccurate. I mean, you say it is, but that doean't really prove anything to me.
And there isn't a whole lot of information contained in that tiny string of DNA, but what is there has nothing to do with the fact that the molecules happen to be made of matter. Their effects are only expressed because of their chemical composition, but the language itself does not contain the meaning. What was your point, anyway?
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
My point is that until you provide a definition of information, we cannot usefully discuss it. As for the inaccuracy, you haven't provided any documentation for your earlier statement that I was responding to, either, so we're even.
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
Oh, and Dembski: Have you seen what happened to the guy during the Dover case? I suggest you read up on it, it's rather instructive.
Posted by MattP (Member # 10495) on :
quote:I'd probably have to put Bill Dembski up there near the top.
Can you point out something that Dembski has done which you believe qualifies him for that list of "smartest people"?
Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
This would be couldn't get hired as a statistician until the Discovery Institute paid his bill Dembski?
The one who says a particular concept mathematically proves ID, but then says about that concept
quote:I'm not and never have been in the business of offering a strict mathematical proof for the inability of material mechanisms to generate specified complexity
Note, he says he's a mathematician, and according to you is a genius, but a sort of key aspect -- that what he says needs to arise couldn't arise from purely material things -- is unproven. By 'sort of key aspect' I mean, of course, 'bit that even if the rest of his mathematical arguments -- which have been shown by mathematicians to be nonsense -- are true, means that they still fail to show what he says show'.
Of course, I should realize that those mathematicians who bother to critique him are lying about how math works in order to support the cult of evolution.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote:Materialism is the idea that nothing exists in the universe that is not attributable to chance occurrences. The existence of information destroys the concept because all that existed prior to order in the materialist universe was matter and energy, and information is not something that is inherent to these things.
As a materialist and an information specialist, I feel compelled to point out that you're misusing both words.
Posted by Tarrsk (Member # 332) on :
quote:Originally posted by King of Men: Oh, and Dembski: Have you seen what happened to the guy during the Dover case? I suggest you read up on it, it's rather instructive.
In case Resh still can't summon the wherewithall to spend a few hours on Wikipedia, allow me to sum it up simply:
Dembski ran away from a chance to defend his claims like a scared little girl.
Posted by DevilDreamt (Member # 10242) on :
In the great war between Science and Christianity, I would like to point out an important factor that seems to get overlooked. I'm sure if we can get the word out, the majority of Americans will abandon their superstitious beliefs in favor of rational thought.
Science is sexy. Christianity is not sexy.
It's that simple.
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
Dude, have you thought about what those nuns wear under their robes? Not to mention all that cool crux SM stuff. Yeah, baby, I'll nail you up any day.
Posted by scholar (Member # 9232) on :
Scared little girls don't run away, they claw your eyes out.
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
So in fact, Dembski did worse than your average scared little girl; I'm pretty sure the judge would have mentioned it in his judgement if any eye-clawing had been going on. I understand they tend to get a bit stuffy about that sort of thing in their courtrooms.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
AND NOW AN ARTFUL DODGING SESSION WITH SCIENTIFIC ILLITERATE RESHPECKOBIGGLE
quote:Q. Resh...what's being left out? Can you please give examples? I have an open mind and would like to see for myself.
quote:A. Well, I've tried pointing them out before, but apparently they are inadmissible to the argument.
TRANSLATION: I'm not going to show what's being left out by pretending that I somehow can't.
quote:Q. I'm curious, Resh: what, when you scratch a bit deeper, reveals a flaw in evolutionary theory?
quote:A. There's no one thing. I just mean that it's something I started doing a while back and now I don't believe in it.
TRANSLATION: I don't actually have anything to show to prove my last statement, but I believe my last statement and therefore it's how I manifest it must be true.
quote:Q. Please name some of these smartest people so we can see their arguments.
quote:A. I'd probably have to put Bill Dembski up there near the top.
TRANSLATION: I am a sucker for punishment.
Posted by MightyCow (Member # 9253) on :
quote:Originally posted by DevilDreamt: Science is sexy. Christianity is not sexy.
I see a clearcut winner, and she's not holding an elephant.
Posted by Reshpeckobiggle (Member # 8947) on :
Hey Sam. If anyone goes back and reads past the first sentence in my responses, they can see that I actually do follow up. Why are you being dishonest? And I don't really care much about what people who already consider anyone who denies evolution to be an ignoramus think about Bill Dembski. And I'm certainly not going to lend any credence to arguments made against a "right-winger" on Wiki. All I know is that I've read his books and they are brilliant. You think I'm praising someone who has already been shown to be beneath consideration. But that's what happens to anyone who does not toe the evolutionary line. Another sign of the bankruptcy of Evolutionary theory: squelch all dissent.
Posted by Kwea (Member # 2199) on :
Resh...you haven't, at all.
We don't have to squelch anything, really. Most of it is nonsense, so it does it for us.
Claiming that your beliefs, when talking about scientific theories regarding how things do or do not evolve, are unprovable by their nature doesn't mean they are correct. Not even close. It makes it not even worth discussing...at least in a science class.
I personally don't have any problems considering myself a person of faith who believes in science, and in evolution. I don't believe for an instant that they are mutually exclusive.
I just don't try to use my religious beliefs to change biology curriculums in public schools. Nor do I try to teach my beliefs as scientific theories, because I know BY DEFINITION scientific means measurable and independently repeatable.
Posted by Reshpeckobiggle (Member # 8947) on :
So how do you measure and repeat evolution?
Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
You don't repeat evolution, you independently repeat experiments that demonstrate the plausibility of evolutionary explanations.
As for measurements, there're certainly a lot of things to measure. We can count the speciations we've seen in the short time we've been on the planet, we can count mutation rates, we can look and measure similarities between fossils, all sorts of things.
Back to Dembski, I'm going to assume you aren't aware that several specific things he says in his books (such as about what evolutionary theory says) are specifically false. That, is there is no interpretation problem. He's either incredibly mistaken or lying.
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
quote:You don't repeat evolution, you independently repeat experiments that demonstrate the plausibility of evolutionary explanations.
Well, that's not quite true. You can certainly reliably repeat speciation events, gain-of-particular-behaviour events, and suchlike.
Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
AFAIK we haven't experimentally repeated any speciation event (except maybe polyploidy? but that feels like cheating ), but that's not a bad thing, given the time scales the earth has been around.
Behavioral changes, sure, there are lots of parts of evolution we've repeated.
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
Totally offtopic: I'm seeing funny little browser-doesn't-recognise-this-character thingies scattered through your post. Are you doing anything special?
Ontopic: We haven't repeated, say, the chimp/human split, sure, because we don't have the ancestor around. But I believe that we can create speciation events in fruit flies pretty much at will.
Posted by Kwea (Member # 2199) on :
You breed dogs, or fruit flies because of their brief generational lives, or even green beans for god's sake! You take things you CAN measure, that have a strong relationship with the things you want to examine, and apply what you find though trial and error.
Then you make a hypothesis and extrapolate.
Most of all, if you find out your explanation was wrong, you don't get pissed and defend it even though the evidence is against you. You adapt your hypothesis, and start applying it again.
You know, the very thing this thread was created to mock.
It's called the scientific method for a reason, you know. If it involves faith in the face of contrary evidence (or lack of any scientific evidence, at least), it's called religion.
Posted by Strider (Member # 1807) on :
KoM, I've noticed those in fugu's posts over the last few days. not sure what they are.
Are you typing up your posts somewhere else and pasting them into the reply box fugu?
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
quote: Hey Sam. If anyone goes back and reads past the first sentence in my responses, they can see that I actually do follow up.
Checking ..
checking ..
checking ..
checking ..
ANALYSIS: Your statement is UNTRUE. There exists no 'follow-up.' The same ambiguities exist that I point out, the same unanswered questions are at issue.
quote:And I don't really care much about what people who already consider anyone who denies evolution to be an ignoramus think about Bill Dembski.
TRANSLATION: "I am going to invent an untrue supposition of your beliefs, by saying that you think anyone who denies evolution is an 'ignoramus.' This isn't true, but I think it is, and will use that as a pretty hollow dismissal of any valid critiques you might have of my empty, fractured claims."
quote:And I'm certainly not going to lend any credence to arguments made against a "right-winger" on Wiki.
TRANSLATION: "I am intent on standing by a presupposed validity of Dembski's works, to the extent that I am going to throw out any consideration of valid critiques of a person I am intent on believing to be right where others are wrong."
quote:Another sign of the bankruptcy of Evolutionary theory: squelch all dissent.
TRANSLATION: "I totally skipped over the part where various universities talked candidly about how individuals even like Behe are freely and openly sanctioned to hold their beliefs and present academic critiques and submit new scientific postulates. I have to, because if I don't, I'm arguing from a position that I would already heavily doubt. I'm not in the business of doubting myself whenever I'm sure I'm true, to the point of purposefully huge mental dissonances. In fact, I have no mechanism for compensating for the fact that science largely has no desire to teach things that are not science, as science. The best I can do is to assume that people like me are only not given 'equal time' because we are squelched by some giant imaginary conspiracy against the academic peer-reviewed research that we never submitted in the first place, an attempt to squelch the postulates we were never able to prove. I ignore the fact that if it actually existed, it would be the world's most pointless cover-up in existence."
this has been part two of 'abuse of paraphrase theatre' -- stay tuned for edition 3
Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
No, those are some bizarre artifact of a relatively new (and completely basic and normal) keyboard I acquired. For some reason it occasionally inserts unicode fragments. I've experimented some, and cannot determined why. At some point I'll just get another keyboard.
We've never recreated a fruit fly speciation; there have only been a few really solid ones. We have recreated what could be the start of a speciation event, but without strong enough reproductive separation to call it speciation.
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
I guess we must be talking past each other, because when you say "There have only been a few strong [speciations]", that says to me that we have successfully repeated this experiment.
Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
No, one just happened and was noticed, and none of them (depending on how you count, I think there were two or three total; there have been several more 'near speciations') was reproductively assortative for the same reasons (largely because they were all pretty different experiments).
Presumably we can only call something the reproduction of an experiment if the procedure is at least vaguely similar, particularly when the results are only superficially similar.
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
I think that depends on what you want to show. For the purposes of this discussion, the null hypothesis is "No speciation takes place", and any speciation at all will refute it, so any two speciation events are a repeatable experiment. If your null hypothesis was "Speciation cannot be done by means X", then you'd have to do it the same way twice.
Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
No, any two speciation events are not a repeatable experiment. Experiments are not 'stuff that happens' and a repeat experiment is not merely 'the same stuff happening twice'.
An experiment is not defined by its null hypothesis, either. Were it so, we wouldn't need all those burdensome procedures when trying to replicate experiments that have remarkably simple null hypotheses. While there is no hard and fast line, an experiment bearing little relation to another besides the presence of fruit flies and the same general goal can hardly be said to be a repeat of the other experiment.
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
I feel there is a difference between repeating the experiment - we made fruit flies speciate under these particular conditions and with this method - and repeating the result - we made fruit flies speciate. I'm more interested in the latter.
Posted by Tarrsk (Member # 332) on :
Resh, see what's happening there? KoM and fugu disagree on what constitutes acceptable evidence, and rather than blustering about imaginary conspiracies and scientific elitism, they're actually having a civil discussion on the validity of their respective viewpoints.
In fact, fugu is actually taking a position that would refuse to admit KoM's claim of evidence in favor of evolution, even though, as you know quite well, fugu accepts evolutionary theory. That is science properly done, in action. No ego, no ideological bias, just analysis of the data and an honest approach towards reconciliation between two interpretations of said data. That is, in fact, the exact type of exacting analysis that has lead to the widespread of evolutionary theory in the scientific community.
The simple fact of the matter is that, no matter what we throw at it (and believe me, scientists do experiments that could potentially falsify evolution all the time), evolution just works. All of the data sticks, and all of the criticisms miss the target. That is why evolution is as strong a theory as any in science, and that is why scientists so vociferously support it. Your continual insistence that there is some sort of concerted effort by EEEEVILutionists to suppress data is complete and utter delusion.
Incidentally, you still haven't answered our request for some of that conflicting data, despite virtually every participant in this thread having personally asked you for it. So: are you gonna put your money where your mouth is?
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
Let me put it another way, with an example from my own field: Suppose I wanted to measure the mass of the D0. This can only be done by measuring the momenta of its decay products, and it can decay in a lot of different ways; generally speaking, you're going to have to choose just one or two of the possible decay paths, because your detector will be best suited to those products, or there's a background that confuses your measurement in some but not all channels, or you just plain don't have the time and studentpower to check all the channels for systematics. So let's say I measure the D0 mass using the decay Kspipi, and you (maybe with a different detector) are using pipipi0. Our experimental approach is going to be fairly different, because you've got the pi0 in there which needs to be reconstructed from its two-photon decay, and that smears out your measurement, but on the other hand you've got more statistics because your decay is more common, so you can demand better quality of your tracks... and so on and so forth. Nevertheless, we are measuring the same thing, and if we get the same result, then I'll call that a repeated experiment.
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
That's not a repeated experiment. It's actually better than a repeated experiment in some ways -- it's two different but related experiments providing evidence of the same thing.
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
Well, ok, but that's just what I'm saying with the speciation. I think we're just disagreeing on nomenclature.
Posted by Kwea (Member # 2199) on :
fugu said that they weren't the same experiment, and he is correct. In some ways what you are discribing would be better, because it provides TWO angles of observation of the same event/data set, but in no way would that be the same experiment, by definition.
And if it is not the same experiment, then it has not been repeated, by definition.
I worked on 13 medical studies for USAMRIID while I was in the Army, and what you are discribing would not have been accepted as a confirming study, although they would have been happy for the extra confirming data. If someone had submitted a similar idea as confirmation of a study's result, it would not have passed peer review, as it had not been repeated.
So while I understand where you are coming from, it is more than disagreeing on nomenclature.
[ September 02, 2007, 10:24 AM: Message edited by: Kwea ]
Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
Yeah, I think it is a nomenclature thing (edit: mostly). I agree that speciation is repeated, I just don't think we've (edit: scientifically) repeated speciation (in the sense of having done the same thing twice; we've gotten similar results in dissimilar experiments).
Once "scientifically" gets tacked on there, there's a new burden before something can be called repeated.
Posted by 0Megabyte (Member # 8624) on :
True. But the changes in DNA are random.
You can't get, necessarily, the same mutation each time, as it's based on mistakes in DNA, right?
What you'd really need is to create a specific, closed ecosystem, with several "challenges", and put in certain species of animals, the same species, say, in each of the different places. Give a number of them the same challenge, a different equal number a different challenge, etc, and observe over a good million years.
Then you'd see some interesting things, at least.
Heck, with rapidly reproducing species, you probably wouldn't need that long, and only thousands of years.
Posted by Kwea (Member # 2199) on :
Even more than that......there are an tremendous amount of of sets spread out over the whole earth at any given time....so not only do you have to account for the unfathomable amount of time it takes, but the billions and trillons of sets at each time as well.
If you were trying to prove it on any real accurate scope, that is. Posted by Reshpeckobiggle (Member # 8947) on :
quote:Originally posted by Tarrsk: Resh, see what's happening there? KoM and fugu disagree on what constitutes acceptable evidence, and rather than blustering about imaginary conspiracies and scientific elitism, they're actually having a civil discussion on the validity of their respective viewpoints.
In fact, fugu is actually taking a position that would refuse to admit KoM's claim of evidence in favor of evolution, even though, as you know quite well, fugu accepts evolutionary theory. That is science properly done, in action. No ego, no ideological bias, just analysis of the data and an honest approach towards reconciliation between two interpretations of said data. That is, in fact, the exact type of exacting analysis that has lead to the widespread of evolutionary theory in the scientific community.
The simple fact of the matter is that, no matter what we throw at it (and believe me, scientists do experiments that could potentially falsify evolution all the time), evolution just works. All of the data sticks, and all of the criticisms miss the target. That is why evolution is as strong a theory as any in science, and that is why scientists so vociferously support it. Your continual insistence that there is some sort of concerted effort by EEEEVILutionists to suppress data is complete and utter delusion.
Incidentally, you still haven't answered our request for some of that conflicting data, despite virtually every participant in this thread having personally asked you for it. So: are you gonna put your money where your mouth is?
Well, that civil discourse only happens when you have two people who fundamentally agree that evolution is a fact, and that particular matter is not up for debate.
But regardless of how much lip-service is paid to the open exchange of ideas within the scientific community, I think the fact that Behe and Dembski are pariahs in the scientific community has less to do with their methodology and more to do with their ability to dismantle the arguments of evolutionists in a way that is intelligible to people like me.
Speaking of, having a bunch of jargon thrown at you and then being told that you are too ignorant to understand is not a winning method for convincing people of something that is sooooooo obviously true, but still sooooooo hard to explain convincingly to a true skeptic. I may not have the years of indoctrination--- I mean, schooling--- that most scientists have, but my b.s. detector is just as good as the next guy's. Now maybe evolution isn't an empty template which has never proven a thing about existence, despite its proponents constantly insisting that it has. But obsfucation requires a lot of words, and my denial of evolution requires only one.
Entropy.
But oh, different levels of energy, in a closed system, and there's millions of years, so information hasn't really been increasing, et cetera, et cetera. Sorry. Anyone can see with his plain sight that things don't get built up, they break down. It is only through the efforts of our intelligence that we can ward of this most fundamental of natural influences. And this most definitely goes for information. DNA code does not just get longer and more detailed. It breaks down, it loses information. Show where the reverse has happened, a single time, and you might have something.
It is because I am willing to entertain the notion that we were not brought about by accident that this is so obviously apparent to me. If you refuse this possibility, then you have no choice but to cling to this mythology. So open your mind a little. Maybe we aren't an insignificant accident with no reason to exist.
Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
You think mathematics journals won't publish people because of their thoughts about biology? I've heard of several mathematicians who've been creationists, so I rather doubt that.
He has published a tiny percentage of the articles expected of someone that far out of grad school (far less than would be expected in one year of a moderately productive person), and none of them are on the field he claims he is making expert judgements of evolution using.
Allow me to cite some examples of local entropy decreasing that we see all the time: plants, humans, salt crystals.
Or are you saying that plants have more entropy than dirt, humans have more entropy than plants (and the other things we're made of), and salt crystals have more entropy than salt water?
Your argument is so much nonsense it isn't even funny. Even several creationist sites tell advocates to stop using the entropy argument, its so obviously bad.
Posted by MattP (Member # 10495) on :
quote:I think the fact that Behe and Dembski are pariahs in the scientific community has less to do with their methodology and more to do with their ability to dismantle the arguments of evolutionists in a way that is intelligible to people like me.
Have you considered the possibility that said dismantlement is tailor-made to sound plausible to those who lack the scientific background to recognize the technical and logical flaws?
I'm familiar with most of Behe's and Dembski's "work" (there's rather very little of it) and I'd be happy to point out why their ideas don't fly. Why don't you pick your favorite evolution dismantling argument and we'll discuss it. We can do Behe's blood clotting cascade irreducible complexity or Dembski's No Free Lunch or whatever you'd like to talk about.
Posted by Reshpeckobiggle (Member # 8947) on :
What creation sites say that? I don't believe you.
The argument is that things that are designed are able to ward off entropy. Salt crystals; that is at about the level that entropy has an appearance of reduction as a result of an imbalance of energy levels within a system. Trying to extrapolate this principle to the entire biosphere as a result of the difference in energy between the sun and the earth, or however the argument goes, now that is nonsense.
Besides, you still aren't taking into account the concept of information. Is information not subject to the concept of entropy , either? Regardless of the material processes that DNA takes part in, that has no bearing on the incredible expansion of the information contained therein. Evolution has not, and I daresay will not explain the massive amounts of data our DNA has encoded within.
Posted by Morbo (Member # 5309) on :
Resh, you should get that BS detector checked, because both Behe and Dembski are obscurantists, who needlessly complicate arguments to obscure facts.
Posted by Reshpeckobiggle (Member # 8947) on :
Irreducible complexity. How about it? How do the separate parts develop separately, and then come together, Matt? And I don't want conceivable postulations. How did it happen, with the bacterial flagellum, the blood clotting cascade, the mammalian eye, or any other system of your choosing? And not only must you explain this in a mechanical sense, but in a genetic sense. How did the DNA code restructure itself in such a precise way that all the coding for these separate parts with completely different functions changed so that we now have a new, perfectly working system that 1) replaces a system that presumably was working just fine earlier or 2) performs a completely novel new function?
Posted by Reshpeckobiggle (Member # 8947) on :
quote:Originally posted by Morbo: Resh, you should get that BS detector checked, because both Behe and Dembski are obscurantists, who needlessly complicate arguments to obscure facts.
Sorry, its going off right now. Because I have read their stuff, and its all pretty clear to me. Their arguments are much more straightforward than anything I have read by Dawkins or my High School textbooks. You might want to get that b.s stealth function upgraded.
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
quote:Originally posted by Reshpeckobiggle: Irreducible complexity. How about it? How do the separate parts develop separately, and then come together, Matt? And I don't want conceivable postulations. How did it happen, with the bacterial flagellum, the blood clotting cascade, the mammalian eye, or any other system of your choosing? And not only must you explain this in a mechanical sense, but in a genetic sense. How did the DNA code restructure itself in such a precise way that all the coding for these separate parts with completely different functions changed so that we now have a new, perfectly working system that 1) replaces a system that presumably was working just fine earlier or 2) performs a completely novel new function?
Then at least come up with BETTER arguments. Posted by MattP (Member # 10495) on :
Resh, please provide the definition of information that you are working with. Most anti-evolution arguments which deal with information fail to actually provide a definition and therefore are rather meaningless since they are obviously wrong if conventional definitions of information are used.
quote:And I don't what conceivable postulations.
Why not? When "I can't conceive of how this could have happened." is the extent of your argument, it's easily countered by "But I can."
You can't have it both ways - requiring step-by-step, mutation-by-mutation reconstruction of a complex process which is postulated to take hundreds of thousands of years while at the same time stating that it's not important how something came to be designed or what mechanisms and methods were used in the design process.
Posted by Leonide (Member # 4157) on :
I think you misunderstand evolution, resh.
Evolution doesn't have a "purpose" in mind, it isn't purposeful, although you can often find purpose in it, as a plant or animal species changes to fit a niche in nature. To speak of something replacing something else "that was working just fine" presumes that the thing was "replaced" because there was an intention towards "doing it better" -- which is, of course, not the case. Even if something was working "just fine" -- and obviously it was working fine, or it wouldn't be working at all! -- that doesn't mean it couldn't change. If the random change was for the better, then gradual selection took place towards that "better" change. If not, then not. And to say that something performs a "novel, new function" presumes so many things I don't even know where to begin!
Posted by Reshpeckobiggle (Member # 8947) on :
Yikes. 117 minutes. No I didn't watch it, but I participated in the thread because I didn't argue with the video, I'm arguing with the posts in the thread. And also, I'm generally not making my own arguments, I'm only explaining why I personally find the arguments of others more or less convincing. I will try to watch the video when I have time, though.
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
So I take it you're not willing to invest the time to watch the video? (BTW, the last 20-30 minutes is Q&A. The actual meat of Dr. Miller's talk is about 90 minutes. He's also quite amusing.) Even to listen to it while doing other things online?
Then don't be surprised when people are unwilling to invest the time to respond to your posts.
Posted by Javert (Member # 3076) on :
quote:Originally posted by Reshpeckobiggle: Yikes. 117 minutes. No I didn't watch it, but I participated in the thread because I didn't argue with the video, I'm arguing with the posts in the thread. And also, I'm generally not making my own arguments, I'm only explaining why I personally find the arguments of others more or less convincing. I will try to watch the video when I have time, though.
Just watch it. Or do what I did the first time; I listened to it while doing data entry at work.
If nothing else, Miller is a great lecturer.
Posted by Reshpeckobiggle (Member # 8947) on :
I said in the last sentence that I will when I have time. Is that what you mean by not investing the time to read my posts?
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
Nice try. Editing in a comment and then claiming I missed it hardly shows good faith.
Posted by Reshpeckobiggle (Member # 8947) on :
quote:Originally posted by rivka: Nice try. Editing in a comment and then claiming I missed it hardly shows good faith.
I didn't do that.
[edit] Or maybe I did. If I did, it was right after. I'm doing about ten different things right now and am easily distracted.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
quote:But obsfucation requires a lot of words, and my denial of evolution requires only one.
Entropy.
Yes it is a good thing that the earth is not an essentially closed system with energy being locally increased by anything resembling a giant ball of fire.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote:How did it happen, with the bacterial flagellum, the blood clotting cascade, the mammalian eye....
Ironically, we have pretty good mechanisms for all three of those processes. I'll tell you what I tell all the non-scientists who try to defend Behe: if you're going to criticize gaps in evolution based on irreducible mechanisms, stick to asking about winged flight. Because we're pretty certain how the eye, blood-clotting, and flagella evolved, actually.
Posted by rollainm (Member # 8318) on :
I've gotta hand it to you, Resh. It takes talent to maintain your level of ignorance.
Posted by MattP (Member # 10495) on :
quote:Originally posted by rollainm: I've gotta hand it to you, Resh. It takes talent to maintain your level of ignorance.
It's more of a determination thing, I think.
Posted by fugu13 (Member # 2859) on :
Starting with information, information in the sense you are using it has nothing to do with entropy in the sense of the laws of entropy (particularly, that which always increases over time).
Information theoretic entropy is a separate concept that is metaphorically related (though there are philosophical arguments for a deeper connection).
If you are talking about the entropy which is talked about in the second law of thermodynamics, you are talking nonsense.
As for 'warding off entropy', nothing does that. That's why they are called laws. We would rather notice if anything didn't follow them (there are exceptions to their absolute formulation, but nothing we would notice macroscopically). In every one of the examples I cited, local entropy decreases at the cost of entropy elsewhere. That happens constantly, all over the place, including on the scale of entire galaxies. That constantly observed behavior is all that is required for evolution to be possible by the laws of thermodynamics (and only the scale of the earth, even).
As for creationist sites warning people off entropy, you may be right, I was thinking in particular of one letter that had been posted on the front page of AiG. It might be that the recent interest in Dembski has led people to start hauling out the old canard.
I offer as something else to look at, a statement from an evangelical christian about how the use of thermodynamics by his creationist friends is often incorrect:
It is particularly handy in listing things creationists have said about the definition of entropy that the people who formulated it didn't (thus making the laws inapplicable to the imagined form of 'entropy').
Posted by 0Megabyte (Member # 8624) on :
"How did the DNA code restructure itself in such a precise way that all the coding for these separate parts with completely different functions changed so that we now have a new, perfectly working system that 1) replaces a system that presumably was working just fine earlier or 2) performs a completely novel new function? "
Easily, actually.
DNA coding is imperfect. Sometimes, the process of replicating DNA makes mistakes, and there are a variety of different mistakes it can make.
Since the cell follows the functions within the DNA, it will create the proteins and other things based on its reading of the DNA.
When the DNA code changes, it will act differently, create different proteins and so forth.
Most of the time, those changes are harmful. Most of the time, they can even kill you.
At the basic level, everything the body does is a simple (or not so simple) chemical reaction. The eye sees because photons from light of a specific wavelength hit the specific molecules produced by the cones of the eyes, which then change shape, triggering a signal which is sent to the brain. When a bunch of molecules from one kind of cone, for there are multiple kinds, are hit and change, the brain interprets that the light is of, say, the color green, or some variation. Or blue, or whatever.
The DNA instructs the cones on which particular molecule to create. Different molecules are affected by different wavelengths of light, if I remember correctyl. A change in the DNA would cause the cells to create a different molecule, a different kind.
If, say, when you have a kid, a mistake occurs on the gene that controls the kind of molecule created by a certain number of the cones of the eye, the eye may make molecules that don't work. Or, by chance, it might make, in that new subset of cones, a molecule that detects a different wavelength of light, that is straightened by a slightly different set of wavelengths.
That child's vision will change. They may see more kinds of colors, be better able to differentiate between colors... or, if the change makes the molecule useless, or the same as another kind (more likely) the kid's color vision is inferior to one whose DNA didn't mess up.
That's one, single thing. At that basic level, everything is simple. Everything is based on molecules, and the chemical reactions between them.
It's just that there are many, many, many, many, many kinds of chemical reactions, all doing idfferent things.
It takes a looooooooooong time for such diferentiation to occur. But it does. Everything's simple, at a molecular level. But the cumulative effect is massive, and awe-inspiring. It takes many, many, many changes to bring enough cumulative changes to go from a single celled organism to a human being.
But it can happen, if you look at things at a simple, chemical level, one change, one kind of molecule, and the effect of that kind of molecule, at a time.
(Am I wrong anywhere, guys who are more knowledgable than me?)
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
A correction to what I said before: only the first 70 minutes of the almost two hours is actually Dr. Miller's lecture. The remainder is Q&A, and you won't miss much if you skip it.
Posted by Reshpeckobiggle (Member # 8947) on :
Thanks for contributing, rollainm.
Tom, that isn't ironic, and you still haven't shown anything. No one has yet. Because no one knows. It's all a bunch of unproven speculation. You see, Megabyte, the evolutionary "scientists" consider the simple envisioning, withing their own creative minds, of some way that some particular evolutionary process could occur, that that in fact constitutes evidence. But nothing has ever been replicated in a lab. Extrapolating the results of natural section within a species to a chance process that would have to take millions of years is not science. It is mythology.
There is simply no evidence for Macroevolution, and if you're honest with yourself, you will realize that. In fact, the evidence is a complete denial, but denial is also the state of the Materialists who get to decide what is and is not science. And you are all falling for it, for some reason. No biggie; I fell for it too. I mean, who am I to question the scientists? But it never happened.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote:Tom, that isn't ironic, and you still haven't shown anything. No one has yet. Because no one knows. It's all a bunch of unproven speculation.... There is simply no evidence for Macroevolution, and if you're honest with yourself, you will realize that.
*beats head against wall* Resh, will you at least stop pretending to be open-minded? Because you're aggressively ignorant on this topic.
Posted by Tarrsk (Member # 332) on :
quote:Originally posted by 0Megabyte: ...
(Am I wrong anywhere, guys who are more knowledgable than me?)
That's an excellent basic summary, although I would add that a common mechanism through which evolutionary branching points occur (that is, when one molecular system begins to diverge into two), is when gene/ chromosome/ genome duplications happen. Due to the nature of DNA replication, these events occur surprisingly often, and through mechanisms unrelated to simple point mutation. The result in each case is that you now have two redundant versions of the same gene(s)... each of which then evolves independently of the other. In the case of a gene duplication, one copy might continue to act in its usual role, while the other evolves an entirely new function. Or both copies might develop into two new roles. Or the two copies might both continue to serve in their existing role, but become specialized to act at a certain time or location within the organism. Pretty much anything can happen at this point, because once you have two copies of a gene, their natural selection is uncoupled.
One particularly cool example that I've mentioned in other threads is that of homeotic genes, which are responsible for patterning the anterior-posterior axis during development. Put more simply, these genes control which end of the embryo becomes the head and which end becomes the anus. If you look at their amino acid sequences, they demonstrate a striking homology that indicates that they all originated from one ancestral gene, even though each homeotic gene now has a specific, unique role- for example, one gene might oversee head development, while another oversees tail development. But all of these genes clearly originated from one primordial patterning gene, which underwent multiple rounds of gene duplication.
What's really awesome is that you can actually observe the evolutionary timeline of homeotic genes by looking at the homeobox region (the area of the chromosome which contains the homeotic genes) in different organisms. As predicted by the fossil record and what we know of evolutionary history, "older" forms of life such as flatworms and arthropods have fewer homeotic genes than more recently-evolved lineages. And what's more, by comparing the sequences of individual homeotic genes between species, we can actually track which homeotic genes observed in older clades are the ancestors of the homeotic genes observed in mammals and other vertebrates. We can, just by looking at the sequences, figure out that homeotic gene A in nematodes underwent a duplication event approximately X million years ago, resulting in the homeotic genes A1 and A2 observed in arthropods, and that A2 later underwent a series of duplications of its own, leading to the genes A2A, A2B, and A2C observed in vertebrates.
And it doesn't end there. We've also found a situation in which gene B appears in nematodes, but not insects or mammals. Again using sequence comparison, we can figure out that after the divergence between the nematode lineage and the lineage that would eventually give rise to both arthropods and mammals, gene A duplicated again, resulting in the formation of gene B. And again, we can pinpoint with surprising precision when that happened in time.
[ September 04, 2007, 12:56 AM: Message edited by: Tarrsk ]
Posted by rollainm (Member # 8318) on :
quote:Originally posted by Reshpeckobiggle: Thanks for contributing, rollainm.
No prob. Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
quote:You see, Megabyte, the evolutionary "scientists" consider the simple envisioning, withing their own creative minds, of some way that some particular evolutionary process could occur, that that in fact constitutes evidence.
This is not true. There are two points to consider: One, your words were "This cannot possibly happen, there is no mechanism for it". When we then say "Yes there is, goes like so", you cannot shift the goalposts to wanting proof that that was what really did happen. If you say "X is impossible", then showing that it is possible is sufficient to defeat your argument.
Second point, for the evolution of the eye we actually do have some really excellent lineages and intermediate steps, alive in the world today. Similary for the flagellum.
Posted by Reshpeckobiggle (Member # 8947) on :
So you say, KoM. But what are they? I'm calling your bluff.
Tom, I address your post by pointing to Tarrsk's directly following. "Due to the nature of DNA replication, these events occur surprisingly often, and through mechanisms unrelated to simple point mutation. The result in each case is that you now have two redundant versions of the same gene(s)... each of which then evolves independently of the other..."
Is any of this science? Or is it exactly what I described it as?
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
quote:So you say, KoM. But what are they? I'm calling your bluff.
Because I suspect you of arguing dishonestly, I will, before linking, ask you to acknowledge that by showing a plausible evolutionary path, your argument of "That can't happen" is refuted.
Posted by Reshpeckobiggle (Member # 8947) on :
Link if you want, accuse me of dishonesty if you want, I don't care. If you provide compelling evidence, I will look at it. This, to me, is not about winning or losing. I'm searching for truth, and I think I've found an absolute dead end with evolutionary theory.
Rather than linking, why not just tell me in your own words what the evidence is. I'm only using my own words, and that's pretty much all I ever do. Nearly every book I've ever read on the subject I've checked out from the library, and I only argue from memory (with the occasional google search to verify that I am not accidentally making something up.) I do this because that's all you've got when it comes to face-to-face encounters, which I'm sure I've said before is when it really matters. So yeah, why don't you just tell me what you think.
Meanwhile, why don't you tell me if you think that any of what Tarrsk wrote qualifies as science?
Posted by 0Megabyte (Member # 8624) on :
"Rather than linking, why not just tell me in your own words what the evidence is. I'm only using my own words"
That doesn't work with you! I'm not KoM, but I just DID what you ask KoM to do, spoke about a small piece of the evidenc in my own words, and you dismissed it utterly, without any thought.
You did the same thing to Tarrsk.
Which is easy, as long as we aren't dealing with actual evidence. You can always say "you're just full of it!"
Why should we play your game, and not bring out actual pieces of physical evidence, if you're just going to flat out dismiss it?
Posted by 0Megabyte (Member # 8624) on :
So, let me begin with this: It's gonna take awhile.
"It's all a bunch of unproven speculation. You see, Megabyte, the evolutionary "scientists" consider the simple envisioning, withing their own creative minds, of some way that some particular evolutionary process could occur, that that in fact constitutes evidence. But nothing has ever been replicated in a lab. Extrapolating the results of natural section within a species to a chance process that would have to take millions of years is not science. It is mythology.
There is simply no evidence for Macroevolution, and if you're honest with yourself, you will realize that. In fact, the evidence is a complete denial, but denial is also the state of the Materialists who get to decide what is and is not science. And you are all falling for it, for some reason. No biggie; I fell for it too. I mean, who am I to question the scientists? But it never happened. "
Response forthcoming.
Posted by MightyCow (Member # 9253) on :
quote:Originally posted by Reshpeckobiggle: I'm searching for truth
I'm searching for the milk that just shot out my nose.
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
You could link him to things, and have him ignore them instead. I mean, I'm sure he'd read them when he had time.
Posted by 0Megabyte (Member # 8624) on :
First:
"you still haven't shown anything. No one has yet. Because no one knows. It's all a bunch of unproven speculation."
That's not true. We've shown plenty. The theory of common descent, the theory of evolution, has plenty of evidence for it.
To begin, let's start with what evolution is, and what it is not.
Evolution is "a change in the gene pool of a population over time."
First. We have observed this. We have observed changing in the gnee pool of populations over time. Even you cannot deny that. (if you do, I'll bring specific examples. It might take me longer, but it will be worth it. I have all night, after all.)
We have observed the gene frequencies, the traits of certain species, including ourselves, change over time.
This, of course, doesn't in and of itself require there to be new traits to come about. It could just be, as you could rightly say, a trait that already exists becoming more common. True.
Evolution requires genetic variation, however. There need to BE other kinds of traits, for such changes, which have been observed, to occur. For one to become more common than another, for black wings on a moth to become more common than white, the black wing traits must exist.
The question then, is, what causes these traits to exist? What causes white wings, and what causes black wings?
The answer is simple: The entity's DNA! The deoxyribonucleic acid which exists in the nucleus of every cell. As I've said elsewhere, this drives every single solitary chemical reaction within the body (and everything within the body is a chemical reaction, at the most basic level. This, again, you do not deny, and can't.) is controlled by the DNA.
The variation exists. We can find the place on the DNA where, say, the blood type is controlled, or where eye color is controlled, or many, many, many other things.
You do not argue against this, correct?
So. In the creation of each cell, the DNA in the cell is copied, and the new copy becomes part of the cell that splits off. This has been observed.
What has also been observed, is that such copying is not always perfect. This is true for many reasons. Basically, mistakes can be made. Mistakes ARE made. Many genetic anomalies in children, those children who are malformed in body or mind, are caused by such mistakes. The genes are different in many cases, due to a mistake.
Some diseases are caused because of genes that already existed, but NOT all. Some are new, mistakes made due to an error during meiosis. This, again, from genetic disorders of some humans, you should also admit is true.
Now, as I said before, each piece of DNA controls a certain thing. A certian protein. Do you deny this? The mistakes cause a different protein, or no protein, to be made. The instructions are changed.
This is why my eyes are a mixture of colors, and not any one color. The DNA code controlling my eye color messed up while I was being made, and the proteins that that portion of DNA ordered are different than they would have been if there had not been a mistake. The newly changed orders make my body create a mixture of pigments. My eyes are partly blue, partly brown, partly hazel, with even a hint of green in there as well. My right eye has more blue than my left.
And the reason my eyes are not normal, is because the DNA code, for some reason, messed up. That is fact. That is a mutation. A new mutation, most likely, and not something that was already part of the population. It's something new. A new gene, caused by an error in copying. Luckily for me, it's not harmful, and is actually pretty cool.
Do you deny any of this so far? We're still in the realm of observable facts, by the way.
So far, we have the meaning of evolution, change in a gene pool over time. We have what the gene pool is. We see how the change occurs. We see how new changes occur.
Sometimes, the changes are bad for you. Like the genetic changes in many diseases, they kill or harm the person who has them. Adn those people don't have many children, do they? Certainly fewer than those without the error.
What has been observed is that some traits are not useful in some situations. To use the classic moth example, in an area where white moths stand out, say, around a coal factory where the ground is covered in black soot, and are able to be caught more often by predators, those moths that have the genes for black wings will be less likely to die.
That's natural selection. Those traits that are beneficial will become more common, because those that do not have said trait will not be able to survive as often, and will not be able to reproduce as often. Thus, evolution, as defined above, occurs, and soon most of the moths are black.
Again, this does not require a new trait, just a trait that's already there. However, as we've also covered, the mechanism for the creation of new traits is clear. I see it every time I look in the mirror, as my eyes themselves are physical evidence of new mutation that did not occur before.
Now. We know what natural selection is, and what evolution is. We've seen it occur. We've seen natural selection (which is NOT random!) occur, we've seen evolution, as defined above, occur. Do you disagree?
Next, we define species.
A species is a group of individual creatures that can reproduce with each other. That's it. If you can reproduce with it, and create viable offspring, which can also have offspring of their own, you're the same species. Would you not agree? That's basically the definition scientists use, by the way.
Now, the reason, say, a tiger and a lion cannot create a child that can reproduce is that, while thier genetic code is similar enough to fuse and create a new being, this new being's genetic code works well enough for itself, but it cannot do the processes needed for reproduction. The combination of genes just don't mesh well enough for that. The same is true of mules.
I'm being very simplistic, but that's due to time. It's still true. Do you disagree with this?
Anyway. A species can have a number of different traits. Look at dogs, for example. But they're still the same species, because they can still interbreed. For all their differences, they could look like different entities! They're certainly farther apart than many species.
Big and small, short hair and large, different structures of the face, different proportions for body structure... but they're still, pretty much, the same species.
Look at the difference between a dauschund and a great dane and a St. Bernard. These differences are more than between some distinct species! At least, in the outward physical properties, at least.
Can the creation of these animals, many of the differing breeds having been made in historical times, not show how easily differences can occur and accumulate?
I should get back to species for a moment, and accumulation of changes.
Anyway. The shift of one species to another has been observed. That's another fact. That is to say, there is a population of, say, flies, from which a portion are isolated. Over time, they eventually are unable to mate with the original group.
This kind of thing has occured, and has been witnessed more than once. A group of a species, after a number of generations, being unable to mate and create offspring with other members of the original species, and have become able to mate only with each other.
That's speciation. Do you disagree with this so far?
It occurs because of an accumulation of genetic changes. That is to say, new viable beneficial or neutral genetic changes occured in the isolated population. Enough of them occured that, when mating with the original population, their genes are different enough that they cannot create viable offspring.
This has been observed. Disagree yet?
So. We see that species can become isolated from each other. We see that they can separate, their genes never to mix again. And from that point, they continue diverging, with new mutations occuring in both populations.
But. Isolation is required. Or at least, isolation is important. This isolation can be geological. This isolation can be becaues all the members of the species, or most of them, that didn't have a specific trait all died out. Whatever the reason, isolation is important, for this divergence, this genetic drift, to occur.
The effects of this isolation has been seen. Further, there are many causes of such isolation in nature. It happens. And speciation happens.
To get back to dogs for a second: The differences in their traits is vast. At least, the differences in certain traits. Given enough time, purabred breeds could become separate species.
For the same reason that a daschund looks different from a St. Bernard and a Great Dane, different species begin to look very, very different. Selection of particular traits.
In the dogs, humans are and were doing the selection of traits. In nature, humans don't, or weren't, but it happens because certain traits are more beneficial for a certain environment than others.
We can see the changes in DNA.
We see how DNA works. Remember, as I said above, each piece of DNA, at least, each piece that is read, codes a specific protein. Each word, each sentence of chemical letters orders something different. When a change occurs, a different protein with a different effect is made. Sometimes, the change is small. Sometimes, entire sections of DNA are copied or changed at once, due to the kinds of mistakes that can occur.
As I said in a previous post, the colors that the eye can see is a good example. They've in fact observed the change in genetic code that causes colorblindness, unless I'm very much mistaken. The thing that is changed is an error, which causes the creation of the wrong proteins, or at least proteins that do not allow the creation of molecules that detect the difference between green and red wavelenghts of photons, at least.
This has been observed. My description of the specific chemical reactions is rather general, and unclear, but it's been observed, regardless of my faults in describing it.
All that I have said so far has been observed. Dogs look and can act differently based on the traits that selective pressures (in this case, us) puts upon them. If they were properly isolated, the continued changes (which we now see can and do happen) will result in their being unable to mate with other breeds of dogs (this speciation has also been seen, and does happen.)
That's not just evolution, it's speciation. And from there, evolution continues based on the selective pressures.
This is all observed. This is all evident.
This is NOT unproven speculation. Not in the least. Do you disagree?
So far, we've seen that small changes, new species, can occur. We've seen that changes can be rather large, thanks to changes in DNA, as in dogs. We've seen that isolation can allow mutations to accumulate in the population, to the point where the DNA is too different to combine to create viable offspring with the old population, much like is true with tigers and lions.
Now. There are multiple points you can use in response to this. For example, that ther hasn't been enough time for the kind of changes seen. That this is just microevolution, and not the kind of thing that can create eyes from nothing. That this does not prove that we all share common descent with other animals. Many points. It's gonna take me awhile to get through them all, honestly. But I'm still going to continue. But for now, consider this first post in a series, complete.
Posted by 0Megabyte (Member # 8624) on :
Hopefully, King of Men, you can provide said evidence of eyes and whatnot.
This is gonna take me awhile to complete.
Posted by Kwea (Member # 2199) on :
quote:Originally posted by Reshpeckobiggle: Link if you want, accuse me of dishonesty if you want, I don't care. If you provide compelling evidence, I will look at it. This, to me, is not about winning or losing.
That would possible be a first, then . . .
See? You are evolving! Posted by 0Megabyte (Member # 8624) on :
Second post begins now:
We have observed what you would probably call microevolution, which is stated above. All those things have been observed.
We have also observed above what scientists would call macroevolution (but which you probably would not) but I'll get to that in a moment.
Let's define microevolution, as Dougles Thobald has, as "relatively small scale change in the functional and genetic constituencies of populations of organisms."
Microevolution would include my multicolored eyes, if they became common through the procreations of my descendents.
Macroevolution is a term that is originally used by scientists. This is what scientists mean by it (since they invented it, I think it's fair that we should use their meaning, don't you?) "In evolutionary biology today, macroevolution is used to refer to any evolutionary change at or above the level of species."
That is what macroevolution means. At least, that is what it originally means. If it is changed by creationists, than so be it. But I'll use the actual definition, thank you very much.
To be clear, this definition means, at least, the splitting of a species into two. In other words, macroevolution is speciation, what I mentioned before.
It also means changes at a higher level, kingdom, phyla, etc. But it is not limited to it.
Notice, an example of macroevolution would be any speciation event. We have observed speciation events. Therefor, since speciation is one level of macroevolution, we've witnessed macroevolution at the level of species.
I understand you use the word to mean something different. you also use the words theory, science, evolution, species, and other words in different ways. But that's not the way scientists use it. It helps to know what scientists are saying, and how they define the words they created, and to udnerstand what they're saying.
There's plenty of arguement about micro and macro evolution, even in science. (it's not all that monolithic as you think, after all) but the details of that are not important to this discussion.
You state there is no evidence for macroevolution.
First, based on the actual definition of macroevolution, as given above, yes there has.
Second, you basically give the arguement, and have in the past, that the vast changes, like the creation of the eye, cannot occur due to these small cumulative genetic changes.
First, it's good to know how often mutations happen. In fact, experimental evidence of rates of mutation have been recorded since the 1910's. Apparently, rates of mutation occur around 0.1-1.5 per zygote. In other words, there are between one tenth and one and a half mutations per person on average, mathematically speaking. This is based on the observations. Do you disagree with it?
Something, honestly, that has interested me is chromosomes. I have always wondered how those differ, and change over time, and what mutations can create different numbers of them. I am not quite as clear about chromosomes, but from what I've read, chromosomes can fuse, and the number of chromosomes can change, and interbreeding is still possible, because DNA aligns by the local sequences, not the chromosome structure.
I don't know a lot about it, but I intend to learn more about chromosomes. For now, I'll have to trust the observations of others.
But the changes in chromosomes is not a challenge, if it is true that differing numbers of chromosomes does not make interbreeding impossible in and of itself. (which is what the evidence says, apparently.)
Anyway.
Remember, once one change occurs, further changes can also occur. Not only can individual genes and groups of genes change due to mistakes, but chromosomes can change, and be lost. Down's Syndrome, or another disease of its kind, adds an additional chromosome in humans. However, that mutation is harmful. Not all mutations are harmful, though. Sometimes, they can be of benefit.
Now, before we get any farther, we need to deal with the rates of mutation.
They're much too slow to account for the amount of diversity on the Earth today, if the world is only 6000 years old or so.
So, let's segue into the age of the earth for a moment.
what evidence is there for the age of the earth, and what does it state?
There's a ton of it, and I really don't want to spend ALL night listing it, but let's get some general things out of the way:
Astronomy, geology, physics and mathematics, cosmology, paleontology and the other sciences all independantly point towards an old planet, much older than 6,000 years.
From what we know about the creation of solar systems, from observing other stars, we can deduce at least something of how our solar system came about. From the speed of light, which has been measured, and the distance of stars, we can know that at least the universe itself wasn't made 6,000 years ago.
We have all sorts of evidence from astronomy that the world is older.
Geology shows many pieces of evidence as well. So do the basic laws of nature, such as the decay of radiactive elements.
By the way, there's no evidence for change in the rate of radioactive decay, though if it was objectively found the physicists would all be incredibly interested, and they'd be studying this new finding with great interest and enthusiasm. If you proved it, of course.
To be honest, this is not in any way an adaquete description of the evidence for an old earth. Not at all. I accept that. But I don't have enough time to give everything an in-depth view. I simply don't know enough of the many millions of details to give you strong arguements about every branch of science. I am fallible, and I do not know a great deal.
But regardless, the evidence I've seen hints very strongly that the earth is really old, and the universe is even older.
I know you will not assume this is true, just because I say it is. But if you'll deny the different pieces of evidence from unrelated scientists, all working on different fields, most of which are unrelated to evolution in any way... I really can't change anything.
You probably won't trust my assertion that it's so. But if you assume that the laws of nature were in the past as they are now, then the evidence suggests strongly a very old earth indeed.
Now, back to the point:
We've seen microevolution, and what scientists call macroevolution. Now we'll focus on the reasons to believe that all beings descend from a common ancestor.
First, we accept the fact of speciation, which has been observed.
We also observe the different kinds of species, the many millions of species of plants and animals on the planet today.
How did they come about? Why are they similar in some cases, different in others? Finally, I'm going from observed data to theory. (but I'll be back to observed data in a minute!)
Knowing that speciation occurs, and microevolution occurs, and admitting that the earth is billions of years old, we see that there is a long time for evolution to occur.
But that doesn't say anything. Even if ther eare billions of years, and evolution does occur as stated above, it doesn't prove either common descent or that we were created that long ago.
But, there are multiple threads of evidence, from different fields.
There's comparative morphology and anatomy, comparing the features of animals and plants and fungus and whatnot, and noticing the similarities and differences. There's comparative biochemical and genetic studies, where the genes, DNA, and so forth of the different animals are compared for similarities and differences. There is the study of patters of biogeography, how species are different from one area to another. Then there's the fossil record, which goes back many millions of years.
Interestingly, species that look similar, that is, species morphologists suggest are closely related, happen to have very similar genetic sequences.
In fact, said similar seeming species are similar in ways that they don't need to be, if they were not related. As one source states, "often, the same codon specifies a given amino acid in two related species, even though alternate codons could serve functionally as well."
In other words, the species are similar in ways they need not be. In ways that could be arbitrarily changed with no effect. Why would they be the same in species that seem similar, which have very similar genetic codes?
Further, closely related species (using the above morphological and genetic similarities as guides) are usually found close together, geographically speaking. This is especially true if it's hard for the species to move far away, such as in islands or island continents.
Further, if species evolved from previous species, there would be hints of what we can call jury-rigged systems. Stuff that isn't needed at the moment, but may have by their ancestors.
A great example is this: "In lizards of the genus Cnemodophorus, females reproduce parthenogenetically. Fertility in these lizards is increased when a female mounts another female and simulates copulation. These lizards evolved from sexual lizards whose hormones were aroused by sexual behavior. Now, although the sexual mode of reproduction has been lost, the means of getting aroused (and hence fertile) has been retained. "
Though this particular quote assumes evolutio nto be true, the point remains: Why would this animal act like this? Why would intentional design make them this way?
Further. Dealing with fossils.
First of all, fossils found in one layer do not appear in lower or higher layers. However, other fossils appear, sometimes with very similar characteristics, or characteristics similar to multiple kinds of fossils found in later times, or with traits that exist in fossils found in lower layers, which share traits with other fossils found at the same place as the first.
The evidence suggests that the deeper layers are older than the layers closer to the surface. And, in fact, when you look at the fossils from the higher layers, multiple kinds of species do share traits from an earlier species of fossil, which possesses some traits from both fossils which are sopposedly later.
To the arguement that there are no transitional fossils? You should know that ALL fossils are transitional. And further, there have been multiple clear sequences found, of the sort I describe above.
Due to my growing tiredness, and fading ability to concentrate, I'll allow the next piece of evidence to be given as a cut and paste. Forgive this, but this person describes it better than I:
"The strongest evidence for macroevolution comes from the fact that suites of traits in biological entities fall into a nested pattern. For example, plants can be divided into two broad categories, non- vascular (ex. mosses) and vascular. Vascular plants can be divided into seedless (ex. ferns) and seeded. Vascular seeded plants can be divided into gymnosperms (ex. pines) and flowering plants (angiosperms). Angiosperms can be divided into monocots and dicots. Each of these types of plants have several characters that distinguish them from other plants. Traits are not mixed and matched in groups of organisms. For example, flowers are only seen in plants that carry several other characters that distinguish them as angiosperms. This is the expected pattern of common descent. All the species in a group will share traits they inherited from their common ancestor. But, each subgroup will have evolved unique traits of its own. Similarities bind groups together. Differences show how they are subdivided."
These large swathes of evidence, of which there are many, many individual pieces.
Millions of pieces of evidence. I've only seen a small amount of them, because I can't look at them all.
When you combine all those pieces of evidence with the facts of evolution as scientists define it, and the fact of speciation, it seems to me, at least, that the theory of common descent is a pretty darn good bet.
But that's just me.
So far, I haven't dealt with your challenge to KoM, about specific evidence for the evolution of the eye. I might deal with those things later. However, you said "there is simply no evidence for Macroevolution, and if you're honest with yourself, you will realize that"
Your statement is false! I've seen the evidence with my own two eyes. I've seen how science works, what science does, and knowing these things, I see that evolution and common descent is truly a good theory. (This means it both conforms to evidence, and makes accurate predictions. This theory does both.)
Being honest with myself, I see evidence so much stronger than the evidence we people normally use to believe something is true, that it's rediculous. Millions of pieces of mutually supporting evidence, from many different and in some cased unrelated fields of science. The evidence is absurdly strong, and would be even if you got rid of either the genetic or the fossil evidence. Having both, along with the other evidence, simply makes it even more certain.
How can you, in a blanket statement, dismiss all of this, and dismiss the very underpinnings of the scientific method?
Posted by 0Megabyte (Member # 8624) on :
"That would possible be a first, then . . .
See? You are evolving! "
But evolution cannot occur within individuals, only within groups, via reproduction.
Posted by 0Megabyte (Member # 8624) on :
Oh, and, there's this:
"Extrapolating the results of natural section within a species to a chance process that would have to take millions of years is not science. It's mythology."
You don't understand science.
Extrapolating the results of natural selection within and between species, observing the differences over both space as well as time, observing the genetic codes and the similarities, and all the fossil evidence, and deducing from all of that and many other things that living things change through time through the observed phenomenon of mutation, over millions of years, of which we have records of, is not mythology at all, but what science is.
Simply put, Resh, you're not showing, in your arguements, any evidence of understanding what science is.
Posted by Troubadour (Member # 83) on :
Am I the only one who really wants to see a photo of 0Megabyte's eyes?
Posted by El JT de Spang (Member # 7742) on :
I despise the willful ignorance shown here.
But I can't seem to come up with any way to prevent people from talking about subjects that are far beyond their comprehension that doesn't violate our Constitution is some serious ways.
Stupid Bill of Rights.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
In two other threads I have linked Reshpeckobiggle to explicit documents showing how speciation has been recreated in labs. Multiple times. I have linked Reshpeckobiggle to lists of recorded speciations witnessed by humans, both inside and outside of laboratory conditions, both created and observed. Other people did too. There was even the use of bolding and ALLCAPS! to do everything that is possible in this text-based medium to assure Resh that a distinct and incontrovertible counterpoint to his positions existed and that he had to account for them.
I note that we are here again in the exact same spot and that Reshpeckobiggle is not actually progressing, but in fact he is regressing, which is an insane concept that I can hardly believe but it's really true, right here, we found it, the holy grail of willful ignorance, with Reshpeckobiggle retreating into basic long-discredited concepts such as how 'entropy renders evolution impossible' or 'Behe and Dembski are credible and the rest of the scientific institutions are not' and so on so forth.
You don't see this. Not normally. This is the stuff of legend, right here, and while I grew up in a sophomoric, rowdy e-culture that was more than capable of enjoying a good ol' creationist roast we've all sort of (partially) grown up at least enough to feel horrified on behalf of all the Christians who end up being unintentionally represented by this, the squeakiest and most obnoxious wheel, impervious to grace or grease.
Reshpeckobiggle may be the most unintentionally effective argument against creationism that I have ever seen, since his attempts to argue in favor of it are inexorably associating it as being reliant on violently willful ignorance, intellectual dishonesty, copious fallacy, and base scientific illiteracy.
Some people are so talented at debate that they can make something totally wrong seem very compelling. Others, like Resh, are so inept at debate that they can make a faith dear and intrinsic to our country's history seem like Timecube.
Posted by Nato (Member # 1448) on :
Nice posts, 0Megabyte.
quote:Originally posted by Troubadour: Am I the only one who really wants to see a photo of 0Megabyte's eyes?
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
quote:Originally posted by 0Megabyte: Hopefully, King of Men, you can provide said evidence of eyes and whatnot.
This is gonna take me awhile to complete.
I wish you happiness therewith, but as for me, I'm not going to bother with Resh until he shows some signs of honest debate. Starting with acknowledging what possible argument would overturn his position if shown to be true, even if he doesn't believe that they actually are true. And because he is Resh, I want it in writing.
Posted by Reshpeckobiggle (Member # 8947) on :
Megabyte, I want to express my thanks to you for make a true effort to explain something as best you can to someone who you believe does not or will not understand. I'm certain it is out of a sincere desire to enlighten someone, and it is a noble effort.
I don't want to take away from what you are attempting to do here, and I definitely don't want to imply that you wasted your time writing all of that (although the guys jeering from the sidelines right now most assuredly think that you are). However, you have not told me anything that I did not already know, nor am I forgetting any of these things when I write my posts.
What you are unfortunately unable to do (so far) is imagine yourself as someone like me who understands all these things (and more), and yet still does not believe any of it. What's missing? What more do I need? Well, I'll show you, by quoting you:
"So far, I haven't dealt with your challenge to KoM, about specific evidence for the evolution of the eye. I might deal with those things later."
That's it. No one has. Not in any book, on any website, ever. And I'm not talking just about thee eye here. This is our major complaint. We constantly hear about all the hard evidence, but then it's never presented.
I understand speciation. In fact, I believe that it explains the vast diversity of flora and fauna on this planet. But I don't believe in it the same way you do. I believe that there were originally many different types ---let's call them "kinds"--- of animals as little as a few thousand years ago, though possibly as much as millions of years ago, or more. Now something happened, maybe some sort of canopy in the atmosphere, fell to earth and now none of these species were protected from all the harmful rays of the sun. Or maybe something else happened. Or maybe nothing happened. Whatever, but now these different kinds of life start incurring mutations in their DNA. This, coupled with natural selection, caused a massive across-the-board speciation event that resulted in far more specific types of animals than, say, one could fit on a big-ass boat. I'm leaving out a lot of details here, but hey, it's my own personal theory, and I'm still developing it.
Here's the thing about what I think may have happened. All the things that evolution looks at as evidence, like about similarites in structures and DNA code, and natural selection in isolated populations, and the tired old moth example, this is all perfectly compatible with my theory. However, I don't have the burden of trying to show how all this complexity came about in the first place, which is something that is incumbent upon the evolutionists, and quite frankly, can not be explained no matter how creative one tries to be in weaving the story. That is why the claims of "here comes the evidence" for evolution always falls just short of actually producing said evidence.
Be serious here. Take take these two possibilities as equal in the absence of any evidence whatsoever: Unguided, random occurrences resulted in the incredible complexity that is life, or that complexity was designed in some way. NOW add the evidence. Is not the second option much more likely?
As for all the old earth stuff, I posted something about this elsewhere, but it wasn't really related to the thread topic. This should definitely go on the Young earth thread, so I'm gonna post it over there also. They found a dinosaur bone with soft tissue in it. How has that been explained?
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
Resh, what do you consider "specific evidence" on the eye? I ask because the evolutionary mechanism of the eye is actually very well understood, so I want to make sure that my selection of links will be useful to you.
quote:Unguided, random occurrences resulted in the incredible complexity that is life, or that complexity was designed in some way. NOW add the evidence. Is not the second option much more likely?
Are you saying that you have scientific evidence of the second option? Actual scientific proof of a designer or design method? Show me.
Posted by Reshpeckobiggle (Member # 8947) on :
Jeez, I don't know, Tom. I actually don't know that much about the eye. I do know that a bunch of nice little stories that explain how a little patch of photo-receptive cells on a worm could have turned into the human eye does not equal a scientific explanation of how it actually happened. So if you've got links that show how the process actually occurred, well, I'd love to see that.
Posted by Reshpeckobiggle (Member # 8947) on :
quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson: Resh, what do you consider "specific evidence" on the eye? I ask because the evolutionary mechanism of the eye is actually very well understood, so I want to make sure that my selection of links will be useful to you.
quote:Unguided, random occurrences resulted in the incredible complexity that is life, or that complexity was designed in some way. NOW add the evidence. Is not the second option much more likely?
Are you saying that you have scientific evidence of the second option? Actual scientific proof of a designer or design method? Show me.
Of course not. Do you have evidence that all of this came about by accident? I think that's the whole debate here. You claim that you do, I say I don't think your claim is valid. But you're missing the point. I'm saying that if you start with the presumption that both possibilities have equal weight, and then you apply the evidence, I'm sure the design option would be WAAAY in the lead. In fact, I believe that the only people who would take the side of randomness would be the people who were dead set against the design possibility from the get-go.
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
Oh well, just because I don't want anyone to get the impression I'm wriggling out of hard challenges, here's Darwin on the subject of eyes:
I know Resh won't read it, of course, but at least he can't accuse me of ignoring him. Hmm, I wonder what would happen if I just started spouting random lolcat links in these debates? Would anyone notice?
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote:I do know that a bunch of nice little stories that explain how a little patch of photo-receptive cells on a worm could have turned into the human eye does not equal a scientific explanation of how it actually happened.
Resh, I'll be clearer: what is your definition of a "scientific explanation?"
-------
quote:I'm saying that if you start with the presumption that both possibilities have equal weight, and then you apply the evidence, I'm sure the design option would be WAAAY in the lead.
I'm not sure I understand how that's possible, since there's no actual evidence for design. Which evidence would you apply to these two possibilities of equal weight that puts design over the top, given that you do not have -- as you just admitted -- any evidence for a designer or the method of design?
Posted by Reshpeckobiggle (Member # 8947) on :
I'll read it, KoM.
I don't need evidence for a designer, here, Tom. Just the design. If the SETI guys pick up a steady stream of prime numbers from outer space like in Contact, are they required to dismiss it because they don't know what sent it? Or can they assume that some extra-terrestrial intelligence sent it?
The evidence for design lies in what you evolutionists call "apparent design." I'm saying it's not just apparent, it is.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote:I don't need evidence for a designer, here, Tom. Just the design.
And...? Where's your evidence for the design of the mammalian eye, then? By what method was it designed? Who designed it? Can we duplicate this method?
What you're saying is that "I don't know how this happened" constitutes evidence for design. Which is pretty ridiculous. Consider the "Giant's Steps" in Ireland. They certainly look manmade, and lots of legends indicate that they were manmade. Should we have assumed, based on their look, that the legends were true?
Posted by Reshpeckobiggle (Member # 8947) on :
My evidence? If you were to encounter anything approaching the complexity found in biology, outside of biology, like a space shuttle or a supercomputer (which do not even approach the complexity of the simplest life form), you would not need to try very hard to prove that it was designed. So when I point to DNA, I don't think I need to try very hard to prove it was designed. No, one must try very hard to prove that is was not.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
That doesn't follow, Resh. Do you understand why?
Let me repeat myself: your "evidence" for design boils down to saying "I personally don't understand how this could have happened without a designer."
That's fundamentally unscientific. It's downright incurious.
Posted by MattP (Member # 10495) on :
quote:I don't need evidence for a designer, here, Tom. Just the design. If the SETI guys pick up a steady stream of prime numbers from outer space like in Contact, are they required to dismiss it because they don't know what sent it? Or can they assume that some extra-terrestrial intelligence sent it?
We would recognize it as being from sentient beings with some attributes in common with ourselves because we know enough about ourselves to know that we would send something like that.
The "design inference" there is based on familiarity with the capabilities and nature of a specific designer - us, not with any kind of rigorous method of detecting "design" absent knowledge of the designer. If the aliens are communicating in a way that we have not anticipated, then we will not recognize the communication.
Posted by swbarnes2 (Member # 10225) on :
quote: That's it. No one has. Not in any book, on any website, ever.
"A pessimistic estimate of the time required for an eye to evolve."
New perspectives on eye development and the evolution of eyes and photoreceptors.
The genetic control of eye development and its implications for the evolution of the various eye-types.
Cubozoan jellyfish: an Evo/Devo model for eyes and other sensory systems.
Pax genes in eye development and evolution.
Eye evolution: a question of genetic promiscuity.
That took me a total of two minutes to find those papers. Surely someone spending a little more time will find many more.
So what should a person believe, your claim that these papers simply don't exist, or our lying eyes?
quote:Now something happened, maybe some sort of canopy in the atmosphere, fell to earth
Okay, so what was the canopy? What was it made of?
And did it fall to earth thousands, or millions of years ago?
quote:Or maybe something else happened. Or maybe nothing happened.
Or maybe the tooth fairy happened?
quote:Whatever, but now these different kinds of life start incurring mutations in their DNA.
So where is the evidence that the non-environmental forms of mutations (transposons, gene duplication, polymerase mistakes, etc) weren't happening up to this point?
quote:This, coupled with natural selection, caused a massive across-the-board speciation event that resulted in far more specific types of animals than, say, one could fit on a big-ass boat.
Your post appears to have been cut off. This was where you were supposed to link to papers with evidence describing how a scant few million years ago, there was a massive increase in speciation.
We expect that you will fix this oversight quickly.
quote:I'm leaving out a lot of details here, but hey, it's my own personal theory, and I'm still developing it.
Well, if you provide everyone to the links where the physical eidence supporting your theory can be found, then everyone can help, and your "theory" will be completeed much sooner.
It is, after all, one of the classic signs of crackpottery that the lone innovator absolutely refuses to share their data with their scientific peers.
quote:However, I don't have the burden of trying to show how all this complexity came about in the first place, which is something that is incumbent upon the evolutionists, and quite frankly, can not be explained no matter how creative one tries to be in weaving the story.
Sorry, but complexity isn't a problem for evolution. Eyes are pretty complex, and there are a whole lot of papers explaining how they came to be that way. Step by step, over lots of time.
quote:That is why the claims of "here comes the evidence" for evolution always falls just short of actually producing said evidence.
Hardly. You ask for evidence of eye evolution, you will get it. Then you will complain that its not evidence for something else, like the origin of life.
quote:Be serious here. Take take these two possibilities as equal in the absence of any evidence whatsoever: Unguided, random occurrences resulted in the incredible complexity that is life, or that complexity was designed in some way. NOW add the evidence. Is not the second option much more likely?
Your first option is your own pig-ignorant understanding of evolution, not the real scientific theory that everyone else is talking about. And your second...well, show us a designer, (and not in the Bible, but evidenced in the scientific literature) then you'll have an argument.
quote:They found a dinosaur bone with soft tissue in it. How has that been explained?
Ah, your post got cut off again. Surely you intended to include a link to the orignal report:
Tell us, how many fossils with intact soft tissue have YECs dug up? If the world really is only a few thousand years old, shouldn't all fossils have soft tisue like that? How many more do they intend to dig up in the future? When can we expect to see them publish their scientific evidence in Science?
Posted by Chris Bridges (Member # 1138) on :
Thing is, if you start from the assumption -- possibly so bone-deep that "assumption" is a pale definition -- that there is an assigned purpose to our lives, the "it just happened" theory is maddening.
Say you're exploring new territory down by a river untouched by man and you find a stone wedged into a crack in a larger rock. The size and shape of the stone are perfect. The odds of that specific stone happening to hit that specific crack are astronomical. Someone believing in evolution and natural selection would assume that thousands, million of rocks have hit the crack over the years and this is just the one that stuck, having no other significance than that. In fact, it may have stuck out more initially but countless years of water working at it may have eroded it into that perfect shape. You could do experiments and speculate, but you couldn't determine exactly what happened and you may not be able to duplicate it by throwing rocks at cracks yourself. Still, it seems pretty obvious what happened, and while you're investigating it you might discover a few things about geology that seem to work even if that don't tell you when and how the stone got there.
If, however, you assume that the purpose of that particular stone was to fill that particular crack, your mind boggles at how it could have come about and the idea that someone clearly must have carved the stone to precisely the right shape and placed it there seems plausible, even necessary, if a bit baffling.
Or, a bit more succinctly: the odds that I will win the lottery are vanishingly small, but the odds that someone will win the lottery are closer to even. If I did win, an evolutionist would know that it was pure chance it happened. An IDer would "know" that it was God's will for me to have the money, because how else could I have beaten the odds like that?
[ September 04, 2007, 03:57 PM: Message edited by: Chris Bridges ]
Posted by Leonide (Member # 4157) on :
Well put, Chris.
Posted by Strider (Member # 1807) on :
chris, I think you need to flip flop the percentages in you lottery example!!!
Posted by Chris Bridges (Member # 1138) on :
I can dream...
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
It's not soft tissue; it's wet clay with cell-sized lumps. It's an important distinction.
Posted by 0Megabyte (Member # 8624) on :
First, Resh:
What WOULD you consider evidence? What is your definition of decent, convincing evidence of evolution?
Give it to me precisely. I'm very interested how you define the term. I'll respodn to the rest later. But I really, really want to know how you define evidence, and the way your theories fit this definition of evidence, the way my evidence does not.
You say that there's absolutely no evidence for evolution. Obviously, we have different definitions of the word. Enlighten me, please.
Posted by 0Megabyte (Member # 8624) on :
Second:
"That's it. No one has. Not in any book, on any website, ever. And I'm not talking just about thee eye here. This is our major complaint. We constantly hear about all the hard evidence, but then it's never presented. "
You jerk! You ask, specifically for an arguement in my own words, without links to anything else, which is the only way to bring evidence as I can't walk over to your house and SHOW you and you then dare to use this as ammunition against my arguements!
And, further, you use the fact that I intend to bring evidence later, and twisted that intention into a rhetorical attack against me.
How dare you. You twist my words, and use them to support a lie, and disregard four hours of carefully (not pefectly at the end, though) crafted arguements based on data, due to said lie.
This is absurd.
Posted by 0Megabyte (Member # 8624) on :
Third:
Since you complain about evidence, I think it's fair to say I will too. Of course, remember, please answer my question as to what you consider evidence before dealing with this, as it's important.
" But I don't believe in it the same way you do. I believe that there were originally many different types ---let's call them "kinds"--- of animals as little as a few thousand years ago, though possibly as much as millions of years ago, or more."
Based on what genetic, fossil and morphological evidence? Further, how does this account for the similarities and apparent ancestral connections which continually go back, without stopping, hundreds of millions of years into the past?
" Now something happened, maybe some sort of canopy in the atmosphere, fell to earth and now none of these species were protected from all the harmful rays of the sun."
Is there any geological evidence from which this claim is founded? Any astronomical evidence, or evidence in the laws of physics? Where is the evidence for this? What observations support it?
"Or maybe something else happened. Or maybe nothing happened. Whatever, but now these different kinds of life start incurring mutations in their DNA."
How do you account for the fact that the mutations show evidence of occuring before the time you suppose? That is to say, the changes in fossils over millions of years? The species did not stagnate, you know.
"This, coupled with natural selection, caused a massive across-the-board speciation event that resulted in far more specific types of animals than, say, one could fit on a big-ass boat."
But I TOLD you the recorded measurements of rate of mutation. At that rate, which has stayed constant for a whole century, it is impossible for your claim to have happened in the time you give it.
Further, where is your evidence of a massive explosion of speciation recently?
Can you show me where it shows this? If there is, in fact, physicl evidence of such a thing, it might at least help a bit, wouldn't it?
Really, you demand evidence, but do you have any for your own claims?
"Here's the thing about what I think may have happened. All the things that evolution looks at as evidence, like about similarites in structures and DNA code, and natural selection in isolated populations, and the tired old moth example, this is all perfectly compatible with my theory. "
Maybe it's compatible, if you can pony up the archeological evidence, DNA evidence, geological evidence and evidence in the laws of physics to support your claim.
But even if your theory Is compatible with everything, and this is the key part, does it predict it?
You say to look at your theory and common descent, and then look at the evidence.
Historically, the theory of common descent predicted the similarities of DNA among morphologically similar creatures, predicted]/i] the fossil similarities, [i]predicted mutations, and all the rest.
If we go by just your theory, and pretend, honestly, that we were back in 1850... would your current theory have predicted, and DOES it in fact predict, any of the evidence found?
It's all well and good to say something accounts for the current evidence. Fine. But a scientific theory predicts.
What does your theory predict? I'd love to know. Because then, we could go out and test it.
Posted by Strider (Member # 1807) on :
Megabyte, I'm finding your posts extremely interesting to read, even though I'm personally acquainted with a good bit of the knowledge within them. But seriously, stop wasting your time putting so much effort into conversing with someone who is at best willfully ignoring everything you have to say, if he's even bothering to read it.
Posted by 0Megabyte (Member # 8624) on :
It doesn't matter, honestly. My discussion has improved my understanding a little bit, and I even learned a few new things from looking information up. Describing evolution and the reasoning for believing it step by step is incredibly valuable. And now, I'll never have to do it again in my own mind, as, darn it, I've made my case explicit in my own mind.
It's been valuable, at least to me. And, further, I'm hoping at least some other people enjoy them, if not the person I intend them for.
Also, I appreciate your statements, Strider. I'm hoping that I understand the concepts well enough. I'm just an amateur, after all.
Posted by Strider (Member # 1807) on :
well, me too, so if you're wrong about something in particular I wouldn't know it.
But I agree with you. I find having repeated conversations about something I believe, or some theory or piece of knowledge I'm familiar with, always helps me further cement and understand my thoughts on something, often causing me to question "why" I think something or "how" I know something. So in that since, even if you get no response, or an ignorant response, it's still helped you in the long run.
Posted by 0Megabyte (Member # 8624) on :
Yes. Yes it did. Now I need to just wait for Resh's response to my three points.
I wonder if he will respond at all...
Posted by Reshpeckobiggle (Member # 8947) on :
I will. I just briefly scanned through everything, but I'm between classes right now. I might not get back to you for a while though. Hang in there!
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
Heh. So I was re-reading the Darwin text I linked to above, and found a place where the poor guy was in the wrong! He says:
quote:But it may be urged that when several closely-allied species inhabit the same territory we surely ought to find at the present time many transitional forms. Let us take a simple case: in travelling from north to south over a continent, we generally meet at successive intervals with closely allied or representative species, evidently filling nearly the same place in the natural economy of the land. These representative species often meet and interlock; and as the one becomes rarer and rarer, the other becomes more and more frequent, till the one replaces the other. But if we compare these species where they intermingle, they are generally as absolutely distinct from each other in every detail of structure as are specimens taken from the metropolis inhabited by each. By my theory these allied species have descended from a common parent; and during the process of modification, each has become adapted to the conditions of life of its own region, and has supplanted and exterminated its original parent and all the transitional varieties between its past and present states. Hence we ought not to expect at the present time to meet with numerous transitional varieties in each region, though they must have existed there, and may be embedded there in a fossil condition. But in the intermediate region, having intermediate conditions of life, why do we not now find closely-linking intermediate varieties? This difficulty for a long time quite confounded me. But I think it can be in large part explained.
His explanation isn't bad, but it's clear that he would have benefited from knowing about ring species, which weren't discovered until rather later. So this is a point where his theory has gotten stronger by the addition of evidence.
Posted by 0Megabyte (Member # 8624) on :
"So what should a person believe, your claim that these papers simply don't exist, or our lying eyes?"
Oh, we all know that every single one of those authors you cited is part of the conspiracy. Those don't count! Posted by Morbo (Member # 5309) on :
Wait, I'm confused: are our eyes lying about the nonexistent papers, the theory of evolution, or a hypothetical G-d?
Posted by 0Megabyte (Member # 8624) on :
The nonexistent papers AND the theory of evolution.
The fact that we believe we see them is of course another part of the conspiracy. It can't possibly be because the other side doesn't bother to look at them, after all. Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
Just a bump so Resh won't feel all lonely and unloved.
Posted by 0Megabyte (Member # 8624) on :
I was coming online just now to do the same thing.
Another bump, so he doesn't.
Just to recap, he needs to do several things for me:
First, define evidence, in a clear and concise manner, as it means for him. Further, define what convincing evidence for a theory would be.
Second, give evidence, as based on his definition of convincing evidence above, or at least show some evidence at all, to back up his many claims, showing what evidence he has to the increased rate of mutation, showing when the mutation rate slowed down again, showing geological, astrological evidence and/or evidence in the laws of physics for the canopy layer, show evidence for his claimed floods, account for how and why things such as isotope decay have changed, show that the isotope decay HAS changed, period, among other... interesting claims.
That would all be wonderful.
Further, I expect to know what sort of things his theories would predict, and whether it would have predicted the things we've found in the fossil record, DNA record, etc. Further, show where the DNA hints that animals were all created as a set of pre-fabricated designs, that then evolved, period, and weren't all descendants of the same earlier entity, the branches meeting again and again farther and farther back.
In other words... back it up, man!
Posted by 0Megabyte (Member # 8624) on :
Actually, I don't even need physicla evidence... just show how it could plausibly explain these things, and how it would have predicted the things we found, if we did not know them.
That's kind of necessary. Einstein's theory of relativity could predict Newton's gravity theory, and in fact predict everything within it, to more perfect accuracy.
You know... that's the kind of thing needed.
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
Oh, and he still hasn't defined 'information'. In fact, now that I think about it, since entropy seems so important to him, he should likewise define entropy.
Posted by Morbo (Member # 5309) on :
Bump like me!
Posted by 0Megabyte (Member # 8624) on :
Yes. Still curious to see Resh's response.
Posted by 0Megabyte (Member # 8624) on :
Now, just to be clear:
Not bringing forth the evidence yourself, at this particular moment, is of course not evidence in and of itself that a person does not have any. There are a thousand other factors, considering that we are not in an official scientific environment, and that this is an unofficial, voluntary forum, with life taking precedence, and where we have no real obligation to prove any of our statements.
But even so, I'm actually very curious, and really want to know Resh's response. I want to know what he has got, and his views on evidence.
I won't take this as a victory, that he's not responding, but I am definitely wondering why he isn't. If he has what I asked and just isn't showing it, fine. If he has nothing at all, and that's why he's not responding, then that DOES mean something significant.
But I don't know which it is, and would like to know what he has, so I can try to understand it. What a pity he's not there.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
I guess I should also make a prod.
quote:Originally posted by Samprimary:
quote:Originally posted by Reshpeckobiggle: That's not how it works, at least as far as I believe, Matt. All data is interpreted according to Evolutionary theory. Nothing is invalidated; it is just shaped and fitted accordingly. On the flip side, there are many things that should have been invalidated, such as the geologic column, uniformitarianism, or the various age-dating techniques, that are still in use because they prop up the theory.
Prove it. Prove that you have any idea what you are talking about. Back this up.
Posted by Kwea (Member # 2199) on :
quote:Originally posted by Reshpeckobiggle:
I don't need evidence for a designer, here, Tom. Just the design.
And here...at the very beginning...is where we deviate from actual reality and enter something called the imagination.
Imagination is a wonderful thing....but in and of itself it is not a replacement for logical, rational thought.
Without imagination, not much can happen.
Oddly enough, with only imagination, the result is the same. Posted by Reshpeckobiggle (Member # 8947) on :
Wow, you guys must be waiting on pins and needles for my response. I'm actually honored. But this is the first time I've logged on in about a week, maybe more. Don't worry, I'll get back to it when I can, or I'll just jump onto the next thread that deals with the subject (because you know there will be one.)
Posted by rollainm (Member # 8318) on :
Or you could directly address the specific questions asked of you here.
Just a thought.
Posted by Morbo (Member # 5309) on :
Resh, you can continue the shuffle and dodge routine for only so long, on this thread or it's nth iteration.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
quote:or I'll just jump onto the next thread that deals with the subject (because you know there will be one.)
Ah, and here we see the exotic Mustela Respheckii, known for its constant wavering motions.
[ September 15, 2007, 05:11 AM: Message edited by: Samprimary ]
Posted by 0Megabyte (Member # 8624) on :
No, don't just jump onto the next thread that deals with this subject.
I'll be there, sure, you know I will, but that will be a different discussion. Here, this thread is hanging on your answering my detailed questions, as well as Samprimary's. (Though I like my questions better, due to my natural bias towards myself. Don't take it as anything other, Samp!)
As it is, I know I want my questions answered directly. I believe I gave them clearly and unambiguously enough for everyone's benefit, so we all know what's going on.
I understand the whole "real life" thing, of course. But I hope you have that time very soon, for, as you said, I am on pins and needles, and will not stop bothering you until you answer my questions, honestly.
This thread shall be kept on life support until you bring the goods. It's not going away. Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
quote:Though I like my questions better, due to my natural bias towards myself. [Big Grin] Don't take it as anything other, Samp!
Oh man I'm with you on that one. I want to see his answers to you more than I want to see his answers to my own questions.
Posted by 0Megabyte (Member # 8624) on :
Bump again.
(further, to Samp, I could have sworn I'd responded to you. I wanted to say thanks, and I don't know why my words didn't appear)
Posted by dkw (Member # 3264) on :
Guys, why don't you just let it go and bump it if/when Resh shows up in a thread like this again?
That would serve the same purpose without needlessly annoying the rest of the forum and cluttering up the front page with a challenge that he isn't going to meet.
Posted by rollainm (Member # 8318) on :
Well, it is mildly entertaining.
Posted by 0Megabyte (Member # 8624) on :
Needlessly annoying?
I wasn't aware that I was being annoying.
Of course, it's beginning to become clear that he isn't going to meet it, which is a pity. Still, I don't see what the big deal is, it's not like this thread is offensive or anything.
Posted by dkw (Member # 3264) on :
Not offensive, just tedious. And as far as it "becoming clear" that he's not going to answer, that was clear before this thread even started to anyone who has any memory of his participation in past threads.
You know he doesn't have a good answer to your questions, so why waste time and space on the front page poking him? One or two bumps I can see, but how long do you seriously intend to keep it up? When the thread has two full pages of "hey are you going to answer this" bumps will you let it go?
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
Well, here's the problem --
some dolts such as myself are immensely entertained by this, or we try actively to make these vindications as pronounced as possible because they are, tactically, valuable. Or both. Right now I am glad that the thread won't die because in all honesty I want to see how deep the rabbit hole goes. I take note of these interactions because it is a fundamentally important thing to know how to deal with the fundamentally incurious, the ferrous cranius.
Posted by 0Megabyte (Member # 8624) on :
"You know he doesn't have a good answer to your questions, so why waste time and space on the front page poking him?"
Because I don't actually know that. He said he's going to respond. I'm holding him to it.
Besides, I probably won't bump this thing too often, but I will not let it die. This is important, you see. I won't assume that his silence means he has no answer. If this was something official, I would. But not here, in this informal environment.
Also, what Samp said.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote:This is important, you see.
Why? To whom?
Posted by 0Megabyte (Member # 8624) on :
Well, to me, I guess.
Maybe I've not dealt with Resh enough to know that the words of the others about the guy are true. But I truly wish to see. I guess I'll just bring it up agian on the next thread about the subject, but I want to see him back up his claims.
Posted by mr_porteiro_head (Member # 4644) on :
Get used to disappointment.
Posted by 0Megabyte (Member # 8624) on :
Ahh.
Well, I guess I'm too used to reading from and speaking to scientists and whatnot, who are perfectrly willing to back up claims with physical evidence, even with their human failings. Oh, well.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
quote:Why? To whom?
People intending to contradict or dismiss him when he inevetably stinks up a future thread.
Holding him to task creates a textual "Exhibit A" for future dismissal of Resh's commentary. Even if someone is reasonably certain that no discussion is not going to change Resh's mind, there is still the matter of testing his credibility, which some people still want to do.
Also, for some it is entertaining.
Posted by El JT de Spang (Member # 7742) on :
We already have, like, exhibits A-E with Resh.
I think that's the point that dkw was getting at. He has no credibility to anyone who's been paying attention to these threads.
Posted by scholar (Member # 9232) on :
You could create a new thread since Resh says he'll talk in the next thread. Post the same questions and Resh's name in the subject. Posted by Reshpeckobiggle (Member # 8947) on :
What some of you view as my tucking-tail-and-runing from the other threads is actually my inability to devote as much time here as I would like. I always get involved in a thread like this and after a while one or two of the other optional things that I put off start calling my name again, and so I have to take a hiatus. This is true for many things, like reading, music, video games, TV series on DVD, and what not. Recently I've been doing a lot of reading in my free time. And watching Curb Your Enthusiasm. Anyway, when I return, the thread is usually pretty much dead, and so I jump onto the next one that grabs my interest. But if this one is still viable, I'll stick to it. But logging on during my lunch break like I'm doing now is not sufficient time for me to respond. I'm sorry, but I have to prioritize.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
quote:What some of you view as my tucking-tail-and-runing from the other threads is actually my inability to devote as much time here as I would like.
Yeah but you don't really answer many challenges in the time you do devote to these threads.
Mainly you make pronouncements, talk about being right, and then fade away from counterarguments to talk some more about how you have to be right because of some presupposition or another. Then, like clockwork, you stumble into another thread to make the same borkum arguments and throw out the same defunct criticisms.
The problem is not at all in how much time you have to 'devote' to the arguments you choose to invest yourself in initially. The problem is that you never were terribly interested in or able to refute challenges to your position and/or back up your claims.
This can not be dismissed by saying 'Ah, but I just do not have the time -- look, I read a book this week, see.' Scores of people invested in all of the same arguments as yours have managed to fundamentally address all of the burdens that you shakily refuse to concern yourself with, not because they type larger or denser blocks of text than you or because they spent less time having a life outside of the internet. No amount of energy invested in writing text is going to somehow clarify an argument made if you can't make the argument credible.
This is why I'm thinking it's a good thing to hold you in one thread and get you to put up or shut up -- as long as you remain similarly detached from the logical process and 'drift' between threads to contribute your noisome lot, you become a smellier sort of Midas touch, able to freeze and wreck otherwise decent debate. This challenge isn't just about finding out trying to convince you that your 'scientific' opinions are patently wrong, it's about trying to keep you from dragging other threads back into the stone age every time you want to 'contribute' in your precarious fashion.
Posted by Strider (Member # 1807) on :
quote:What some of you view as my tucking-tail-and-runing from the other threads is actually my inability to devote as much time here as I would like. I always get involved in a thread like this and after a while one or two of the other optional things that I put off start calling my name again, and so I have to take a hiatus.
...
Anyway, when I return, the thread is usually pretty much dead, and so I jump onto the next one that grabs my interest.
I've got an idea. Next time you come back and feel the need to jump into a new thread(regardless of the state of this one), don't. Just open up this thread and spend all the time you would've spent posting in that other thread to reply in this thread. Take responsibility for your words.
This way you're devoting the same amount of time you were planning on, without putting any unnecessary strain on yourself to post in too many threads, solving your conundrum of not being able "to devote as much time here as I would like".
Posted by MattP (Member # 10495) on :
Bump!
Heh, just kidding. I just came across a really interesting article by Dawkins on the subject of information and evolution. It covers accepted definitions of information and how, by those definitions, evolution can increase information content.
Resh, rather than producing a definition for information which you apparently estimate to be enormously time consuming, perhaps you could just state how you disagree with Dawkins' use of the term.
Posted by 0Megabyte (Member # 8624) on :
I have to admit... I love reading Dawkins. He's one of the most interesting and accessible scientists I've ever read. (and I've read a number.) He's one of the clearest, too.
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Funny how they forget that when discussing science, isn't it?
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