Let's not forget that although it is referred to as an explosion, it's still something that took place over millions of years. It's very sudden in terms of what came before, but I could imagine that in a world full of herbivores, that the advent of even a single species which could scavenge, and eventually one to predate on others would have completely devastating consequences. An ecosystem which has been basically static is suddenly disrupted, and from the ashes the handful of survivors carve out new niches for themselves. A reduced gene pool increases what's effectively in-breeding and mutations. New environments are opened up, new behaviours develop, and there is a sudden arms race between species which adapt or perish. Like I said, I'm by no means an expert on the field, but I know that there's been a lot of time passed and a lot of research done since Darwin was published.

As far as Intelligent Design/Creation Science.... I think it's an answer looking for a question and I find it a despicable attempt by religious organisations to sneak their teachings through a back-door with dogma disguised as rational science. "It must have had something behind it which we cannot ever comprehend" is an abject antithesis of scientific methodology and should be treated with the contempt it gets. It is a wolf in sheep's clothing designed specifically to recruit children with pseudoscience in drag, and it's one of those institutional religious pieces I find genuinely distasteful.

I've been playing the snot out of War Thunder for a long time. Lots of fun, free to play, though you'll likely wind up spending a few bucks if you find yourself enjoying it.

Recently been getting my 'creative' on in Stormworks, too - that's been a bunch of fun.

Have also picked up "The Outer Worlds" as a single player space RPG thingy on sale which I haven't actually fired up yet, but I'm hoping for some fun with.

I often hear this over and over and over again.

I always get so confused when I read it.

I suppose for someone that does not see the physical evidence pointing in a different direction, the only conclusion is that there must be something in it for that person to just turn a blind eye to all the evidence.

The main reason I was compelled to begin believing in God was by listening to debates and drawing in a lot of information from opposing world-views.

I listened to everything that Hitchens, Dawkins, and many others had to say. I was not nearly as compelled by their evidence presented as I was by William Lane Craig, who I have heard referred to by Atheists as a "bull**** artist." However, Dawkins has refused direct challenges to debate him on multiple occasions.

The first time I saw a Theist win a debate against an Atheist, I was straight up shocked and confused. I didn't even realize that could happen. I had believed that Atheism was so strong for so long it really just baffled my mind to an extreme degree. His arguments were so straight-forward, so full of logic and deduction, and I couldn't see much flaw in them.

Again, it wasn't what made me feel the most comfortable or what I felt would work best. I just looked to the evidence and found it to be more compelling towards an intelligent designer. The more I read, the less I began to doubt. Everything I looked at, from all sides, just kept pointing me in the same direction again and again.

For me, I feel the same way in reverse. I can't understand how anyone can look at all the evidence and not arise to the same conclusion as me, though I definitely do not look down on them for drawing different conclusions.

For me, Theism is the more analytical logical conclusion, however, having grown up in church and in a negative environment based around that, I understand how you feel.

Religion must seem very silly to you indeed. I get it.

Yes, I have encountered this the most. For me, it is often that church is the worst place to find God.

I have talked with sooooo many people that grew up in a heavy church environment that ended up despising anything that had to do with the word God. People end up associating a long list of terrible things that people do with God. That's another reason why I dislike organized religion.

I respect that you feel it's a dogmatic position, and I don't blame you. I used to feel the same way. Now I feel the same in reverse. Generally if people challenge my beliefs I'm willing to have a honest discussion, but I find that when I point out the flaws in Atheism, people often don't even argue and just throw out ad-hominem attacks lickety split, which further convinces me even more that they are not on the side of logic and reason.

"You are stupid" just never seems like a good argument to me and when I see people saying that, it's almost always an instant red flag that they have no good information to provide. People that have strong knowledge never need to resort to name-calling, cus they can just pummel you with logic. I know not all Atheists are like that though. I also know a lot of Theists that are quite nasty indeed and are guilty of the same kind of weak argument format.

I really liked your lines about "beyond understanding."

On this we seem to agree very directly.

I've seen so much harm come from organized religion. So very much.

I have been on this forum for 20 years, and I began believing in God about 9 years ago, and still nobody on here knew that about me until this thread started. Most people that know me do not know that I believe in God. I keep it to myself, and for very good and strong reasons.

I find it repulsive when others push their views on you strongly. Especially when they get angry and rude or super pushy when you politely rebuke them.

The way I see it is: "If you have diamonds, you don't need to force them on people." In other words, if you have something of value, people will come asking, not the other way around.

I want everyone to make up their own minds. I never look down on others for drawing the conclusions they do. Often I feel they have super good reasons to draw the conclusions they do.

I feel like a lot of what is taught about the bible today is simply man-made religion that has been painted on top of the book through years of ideas being painted over the book orally, and in many cases, even purposeful mistranslations. If you look at the bible's source material in greek, it often says things that are significantly different than what is taught in churches today.

Some of the stuff in the bible is straight up pornagraphic. When I saw that I was like "WTF?"

There are some verses in the bible, that if I got up on a podium and read them, all the mom's would be covering their kids ears and they would freak out for sure.

And yet, that is their holy book that they themselves find disgusting and reject.

There's just so much weirdness. I could rant about it all day.

I'd love to get to your next post on the Cambrian Explosion, but I gotta crash and I'm mostly booked up for a good while after that. Hopefully I can get to it later.

Great talk.

I guess I'm happier to say "I don't know, but one day I might find out." than "Because God." As you say, there's a lot out there that we can't explain, but I fail to see any reason to put them all in a big bucket and allocate them to some cosmic intelligence that made things that way. I can't remember where it came from, but I remember something of a parable about a puddle in a pothole suddenly gaining sentience and being amazed at how well the ground underneath it contoured around its own form, how amazing it was that the sky above let more rain in to let it grow, and could come to no other conclusion that the pothole had been built specifically to house it.


I really don't go in for debating Theism or Athiesm, or holding up the likes of Dawkins as some authority on What I Don't Believe. There is a church around Athiesm in itself which I also find somewhat amusing, and I also think stems from an amount of insecurity - a need to don a label to tell the world what you think. I don't particularly care. I don't think there's any sort of God out there. If there is, it's certainly not something that I've ever seen have an actual impact on anything (beyond things done "in His name", which has been a lot, of both good and bad), and so I'm pretty comfortable to say is effectively irrelevant.
I'm yet to see any sort of actual evidence for intelligent design. I've seen a lot of supposition, a lot of misunderstanding, and a lot of cherry picking, but never anything that made me say "well yup, it must have been that way." Then there's also the uncomfortable part of it that comes in with some of the less savoury aspects of life and existence... parasites and creatures with behaviours and survival mechanisms that really make you wonder what sort of mind would have deliberately created them that way.

Oh, don't get me wrong - I quite enjoyed that at the time and it's not something I look back on with any sort of negativity or distaste. Neither of my parents were particularly religious, and although the church was "there", it's a Church of England one which is pretty light on the Eternal Damnation and a bit more focused on a nice cup of tea and perhaps a bit of a bake sale. Very tame stuff, and the ministers there were genuinely nice people. Same with the bit of exposure to Catholics I've had as well (Mum's side of the family, but very very lapsed ;) ). The people involved, particularly at the ground level, are generally wonderful. The institutions that build around them can be problematic.


I probably ought to clarify what I said... Yes, my initial reaction to hearing someone is religious is an unconscious -rep. A mild one, but it's there, I can't deny that. I usually get over it, especially if I can see where they're coming from in that. If it winds up giving me the impression that that belief comes from a closed mind, it'll stick - and that's probably where the actual annoyance comes from, so I suspect that in that respect at least we're not really all that different.

That "man made" element is pervasive throughout it. The Catholics have all those surrounds of the Confessional, of Original Sin and Communion and the idolatry of Mary which is just nowhere to be seen in there, CoE is a happy excuse for divorce, and the modern Evangelicals and "Prosperity Theology" which flies utterly in the face of what's actually in the Bible in the first place, and it's pretty plainly obviously that it largely comes down to trying to find some combination that works. But then you start throwing in the Apocrypha, and realise that work we know as The Bible has been edited and rewritten since it originated (which apparently has all also been part of that Intelligent Design - shaped by the unseen hand of God), and it's all laughable.

...and it still comes down to a story in which the hero is actually a bit of a bastard.


(and with that essay done, I'm off too)

mix master gerbil has spoken

/thread

that’s because there isnt any, and its not remotely a scientific concept

Which god(s)

Sent from my SM-N976U using Tapatalk

People believe in God because it gives them hope for something after they die. We're only on this planet for a short amount of time. If everyone believed you are simply gone after dying, then there would be total anarchy.

There's a difference between believing in One Mighty God and Religion. They are two separate things. The problem with religion, is once you find out about it, they tell you if you don't believe you're going to hell.

Christianity - Say the prayer accepting Jesus Christ and all your sins are gone. If you don't, you live in hell forever.
Islam - Believe or your head is cut off.

If you do join, then you are expected to serve by giving all your time and money to those who run the church and do what they say. This is the part where people despise religion.

Ngfm has won this thread so many times

#usabible2020

Sent from my SM-N976U using Tapatalk

Philosophy 101

Does he not usually post? That's cool. :)

That is perhaps one of the most ignorant statements I have ever read.

The study of the fine-tuning of the universe is highly scientific indeed.

Anyone saying otherwise simply doesn't understand what measurable, observable truths about our physical reality are.

The intelligent designer behind the creation of the universe.

Science teaches that anything that has been created must have a cause.

Science also dictates that the universe came into existence, and therefore there must be a causal agent behind it.

That is what science teaches. Science very strongly points to the existence of God.

If you believe otherwise, then you do not look much to science for your stance on the matter in my humble opinion.

Possibly one of the most blatantly incorrect widely held beliefs about belief in God.

This is why discussions on the matter are usually a waste of time.

People's knowledge base about religion is so lacking there is no room for discussion really.

Simultaneously Atheism paints a lovely sense of warmth of comfort for those adhering to it. You could just as easily make the exact same argument in reverse.

Really this argument is nothing more than hot air.

If there is a god, is our planet their favorite or are the other planets likely to have life way better somehow?

Sent from my SM-N976U using Tapatalk

when dog look up to sky

do he think on god

no, he thinking of the jet flying over.

:rofl:

Please take a look at my above two statements of fact that Pagy is attempting to humiliate and mock.

Which of the above two statements would you, the reader, refute?

Pagy is essentially saying "things can come into existence without any cause," which is the same as believing in magic.

Please provide a single example of something you know in your own experience that has spawned into existence without any cause.

If there is a cat, is his favorite toy a rubber mouse?

For anyone interested in reading more about the principle of causality that is being mocked and ridiculed as foolishness in this thread.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Causality_(physics)

"In classical physics, an effect cannot occur before its cause. In Einstein's theory of special relativity, causality means that an effect can not occur from a cause that is not in the back (past) light cone of that event."

Do I look like I **** a mushroom?

Sent from my SM-N976U using Tapatalk

#ngfm

Sent from my SM-N976U using Tapatalk

Do I like like I **** a mushroom?

Story behind that, I worked for a company where the ceo used to like to pull random people into meetings where he would be tearing someone apart. My friend was walking by his office in one of those moments and got called in, the ceo said "do I look like I **** a mushroom?" he had no answer and walked off.

Sent from my SM-N976U using Tapatalk

I believe that is the appropriate response to that...

Don't confuse cause with intent though.

All it's saying is "something happens". Relativity also tells us that we cannot measure what happened before the big bang, as we have no frame of reference from which to measure. It's not necessarily the beginning of everything, we just have no way of actually knowing what (if anything) exists outside of our little pocket of spacetime. With that in mind, proving anything about it experimentally is something of a challenge (that's the "beyond our understanding" bit), but there are a number of theories around the subject. Personally, I like M-theory, which links a whole bunch of views on string theory and posits that those strings are just flat slices of a much larger membrane ('brane') running through 11 different dimensions. (It's heavy on the maths). Part of the theory is that what we know as a big bang occurs when those membranes intersect, and that this is a common scenario, with universes being pinged off all the time - perhaps each with their own universal constants and paths, and ours is nothing particularly special other than it's the one we're in. As far as before them: who knows? Maybe something else? maybe they have always existed? If it's OK for God to just "be", then why not some more mundane construct?

I just finished running a five and a half hour DND session and I'm wiped out. I nearly slaughtered my entire group with an army of hill giants sieging a castle. :O It was wicked fun...

I only posted at pagy, falhawk, and NGFM on my lunch break cus I had a short amount of time...

I still need to get to your Cambrian explosion stuff that I'm eager to read.

I think you are easily the most interesting poster in this thread and I will definitely be reading everything you wrote and replying tomorrow night.

I didn't know people as smart and knowledgeable as you even posted on this forum.

I'm curious how you came about knowing so much.

He stayed at a holiday inn express

And read Brian Greene

Sent from my SM-N976U using Tapatalk

See, when you say **** like this, that's how we know you're a sociopath. "Got mine, **** you."
Except beliefs inform actions, so we should make an effort to not cultivate beliefs that motivate harmful actions. Especially when they don't provide any unique benefits.

Why are you people always the same

" I want people to make their own decisions, I would never push my beliefs on others"

5 minutes later

"here's 40 posts in the next 5 minutes spamming about why I'm right and my beliefs are correct"

Actually yeah, reading through "The Elegant Universe" is probably the first time I actually felt like I started to 'get' relativity (and yes, I understand the book isn't really about relativity, but the way it was covered in that introductory sorta bit worked for me). He has a good way of explaining things, I think.

The TV series that came out of it is a bit... overdone? Very overly dramatic anyway, and they use an awful lot of gimmicky visuals, but it's still a pretty decent series...



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5vUzzCoArCo


...and just to put it in there, there are plenty more intelligent posters around here than me. There's some really smart folks around, most of whom tend to keep their heads down though to avoid the noise from the shouty little trolls in the peanut gallery.

It's hilarious how salty you are because religious and conservative minded folks don't buy your genderqueer pedo bull**** lmao

Oh yeah, there have been a lot of developments since then for sure.

Yes, anyone would realize that the explosion didn't happen overnight, yet it does look like a major deviation from "evolutionary protocol" comparatively speaking from the rest of the fossil record.

Yes, it could be because of the environmental traits that you describe, but we weren't there to witness it. We can only test the aftermath, which does not tell us everything we need or would want to know. There is a lot of educated guesswork involved. Of many things, we are certain, but of many others, we are simply not.

When most people describe to me what happened during the Cambrian explosion, it certainly sounds like a beautiful believable story, but that does not make it true. It's interesting to me how people can read "possible explanations" everyone will nod and accept them as truth because that is perhaps a good widely agreed upon explanation. Then, when you point out that a causal agent in the form of an intelligent creator is quite easily the best explanation for all of reality as we know it, they shrug it off like it is nothing. It comes across as a blatant double standard to me. It would seem to me that most people that prescribe to "science" are simply guided by emotion and bias, the same as everyone else, while hiding under the shield of being "science based," when they are not.

Another thing that bothers me is that people are not allowed to question guesswork.

You spoke of dogma. Why is dogma ok when it's guesswork towards one thing, and not another? It seems to me that there is a picking and choosing of what you are allowed to make an educated guess about. This double standard causes me to refer to secular humanism as a religion.

Actual Science is the best thing ever. Any true Theist would hold this opinion, because they feel that the existence of an intelligent causal agent is a sure truth. Why would they ever be afraid of something that will surely reveal that truth to everyone eventually? For me, shying away from science would be identical to shying away from the belief in a causal agent.

This is why it is always silly to me that Atheists believe that Theism is at odds with science. It is quite the opposite. Atheists tell themselves, "Well, all Theists are stupid and simply believe in God to feel comfortable" while simultaneously putting theists like Newton and Heisenberg on the tallest of pedestals.

There are those who hide their disgusting murderous nature by slapping a "holy" label on it before slaughtering thousands of innocent people. I find that to not be to my liking. Yet simultaneously people often put a "science" label on their religion. Nobody ever seems to want to own up to anything.

The other thing I do not understand is that if Darwinian Theory is such a slow and gradual process, why is most of what we see so fully formed, especially during the Cambrian Explosion when it was literally moving at the fastest rate? I would expect to see such a much wider variety of species than can be seen in the fossil record, and so many more different species developing and transitioning at that time, but that is not what we see at all. We pretty much see the opposite, everything in mostly full formation. Also, if things really can mutate out new information in terms of DNA code, than I would expect to see a lot more traits that spike strongly as being more out of the norm.

Well it's always a very deep conundrum isn't it?

I think both of us would both say that the practice of foot binding is disgusting. And yet, for the person holding to such practices, you telling them that they are not allowed to do it would make you their enemy. They would see you as the evil one. In this case, we could all agree that the person mutilating someone's body from a young age would be the evil one, and it's so clear cut, but often it is never that easy.

Each side sees the other as presenting world influencing culture that is extremely violent in terms of the harm that it does.

One's distaste for the opposing party is completely founded and based on one's own assumption that they are in fact, the one that is not in error.

However, what if I am wrong? What if you are wrong? One of us surely is.

In the case of religion:

1) Brainwashing children to believe in fairy tales that aren't true.
2) Making children terrified of their own natural inheritance in the form of sexuality.
3) Terrifying someone with the notion that they will be tortured eternally if they do not do XYZ, brutalizing their psyche.
4) Murdering people that commit apostasy or excommunicating them from their family and everything they know.
5) Encouraging hatred towards others who are different, and using that as grounds for mass genocide.

In the case of atheism or secular humanism:

1) Teaching children that they have no intrinsic value and life has no meaning or purpose.
2) Teaching people that there really are no rules, no right or wrong, or objective moral truths, making room for evil acts to be debatable and potentially go completely unchecked.
3) Opening things up for survival of the fittest, that one can be superior based on genetics and committing genocide on inferior people can be ok if it improves the world.
4) Submerging the mind in the bitter darkness of "I don't know" where all of the questions about the universe go unanswered and depression deeply corrupts the mind that seeks grounding truths, leading to suicide.
5) The de-emphasis or even the demolition of the family system.

When you look at your own list, you may see it and say "Well, that might look bad, but it's the truth, so it's the right side!" Again, it holds under the assumption that your worldview is correct, which we are all convinced of.

The question is, which side is the wolf in sheep's clothing?

Right now, teaching creative design is banned in school. Secular humanism is definitely running the show when it comes to education and indoctrination. We teach all of our children the truth of Darwinian theory from when they are the youngest of babes and have been doing so for decades.

How is our society faring now in 2020?

You can go to history for comparison, but it is a difficult pool to draw from, with so many different examples of various societies failing and succeeding. Atrocities being committed by both the heavily religious and the secular humanist worldview. It's tough to analyze.

That is interesting to me, because in the case of the Cambrian explosion, you had these long complex thoughts painting your perceived reality of truth. For me, all of it seemed very believable as well. You are using a lot of evidence to move these thoughts forward.

However, the same can be done for an intelligent causal agent. One can look at the evidence and see that the universe clearly had a starting point, therefore it must have had a cause to that starting point. You can piece things together in identical fashion as you did in your previous post.

And yet, one is "smart" and the other is "dumb". It's curious to me.

I can't say I really understand what you see in terms of difference between the two.

Also, if you walk into a murder scene, where somebody has been killed, look out. Often the person that gives the first explanation gets credence. You see that effect in hollywood all the time in the movies. All you have to do is point at someone and say "They did it" and people will begin heavily considering. In much the same way, if people draw in a scene of the universe, and everyone is silent on the topic, the first person saying something like "something or someone caused this" might get a lot of attention paid to it.

I'm not saying that the first explanation is true by any means.

But I am saying, if you can't come up with any explanation, or even a viable one, more than likely you may lose out to someone that can.

People's minds are sponges or vacuums. They always seek information. If you leave them empty, something will enter in.

This is why I am often amused at people the despise Christianity. They have obviously lived such wonderful lives and have yet to learn the lesson "Things can always be worse."

If you were to remove Christianity from America, ooOooo you just wait. I would love to see what would fill its place. Believe me things can always be much much worse.

When people begin to be tossed off of buildings for being "different," it will be too late to go back. Then all of a sudden those Christians start looking really really great.

Christianity is a shield that protects this country from things that are much worse.

Atheism, as a worldview, is not strong enough to combat things like Islam, Taoism, Buddhism, and many of the other worldviews. It is woefully underpowered, as the numbers represent. We were super lucky to get Christianity.


I feel this is a highly consistent position, in lines with your own authentic thinking.

I respect the consistency in your position a great deal.

It's wonderful to see. So refreshing from the usual flip-flopping that people do.

Do you believe a painting to be evidence that a painter exists?

If no, why not?

If yes, why so?

Have you ever seen a painting and thought, "it's likely that no form of intelligence created this"? If so, were you a fool for doing that?

Have you ever seen a painting and thought, "this was created by something intelligent"? If so, were you a fool for doing so?


Wow, that sounds really great. You were lucky. I've heard many horror stories.

Churches seem to be quite hit or miss as it would seem.

I wonder if mosques are the same? Someone chime in?

I actually react quite positively to hearing someone is an Atheist, as I used to be one a long number of years and I find their ideas to be different, interesting, and exciting. I often learn a lot from interacting with them too.

It's the nasty ones that can't refrain from asserting their worldview and leaving others in peace, and after baiting them into an argument just insult them constantly, talk super loudly, constantly interrupt, and resort to 100% mockery and humiliation that I have a distaste for.

I've seen some straight up nasty religious people too. They attempt to provoke people to anger as strongly as they can. So full of disgusting pride. Then, after treating people as poorly as they can, they say that they "did it in love." Imagine that...

I agree very much so on the man-made religion discussion.

However, it's only the English translations that have been edited and destroyed.

The original manuscripts of the bible have somehow remained intact.

The dead sea scrolls showed us that the book of Isaiah has held up over thousands of years with not even one letter or jot in error. Crazy that...

If you want to know what they were reading in 900 B.C., you can look at that now today in 2020. The greek septuigant has also been proven to hold up for nearly 2000 years now. The only question is whether or not you believe the original source material that began popping up in the first century is legit or not.

However, the English translations you will look at, have indeed had quite colorful translations on them in my opinion. This is where the religion of man plays a sinister roll.

What people do is come in and change and tweak the meanings of words. Words that are so archaic that nobody knows the meaning of anymore like "arsenokoites" just get chalked up as being "homosexual" or "pimp" or "slave-seller" or I don't even know. But there are so many archaic words that they don't know the meanings of that they translated colorfully. There is another word that they don't know the meaning of that can be loosly translated as "effeminate" that they have had very creative leisure on. Many of these old words literally nobody today actually knows what they mean, it's just guesswork.

Think if 2000 years ago you read the word "salty" in a book. Would you really be able to figure it out that it means "bitter from losing a video game?" Yeah, good luck with that. So much educated guesswork there.

There's lots of other stuff like that too.

They will change the word "desire" that is a purely neutral word to be "lust" which has obvious negative nuance. They pretty much do as they like with the bible. It's horrible.

That being said, if you want to learn ancient greek, you can read the new testament as it was written roughly 1,980 years ago.

Overall most of it is translated pretty good, but when you get into key controversial passages, they are often tweaked when read in English.

For example, the whole "woman should be silent" thing. That word silent doesn't mean quite what people think. There are two words for silence in greek, one meaning the absence of sound, another meaning something along the lines of "mild-tempered" or "good listener", mimicking the relationship of a student going along with its teacher. People, not knowing anything about language, read that passage and immediately freak out. The telephone game is always a blast.

Some verses are dropped entirely. Some are added depending on the bible. There is controversy with the king james bible as well, despite it being one of the most widely used and accepted ones.

I could go on and on about it, but I suppose most of it is fine as a translation. If you read it in English, you would get a general accurate impression of what is written in the bible, minus here and there. If you had the motivation to look at the Greek, Hebrew, and Aramaic, you would certainly know what the bible was saying for the most part.

The meanings of words are sooooo deathly important to conveying accurate meaning however. One subtle twist turns something good into something really really bad mega fast. That's the issue with books and knowledge. This happens with vocal communication too with voice tones.

You can say "You have a wonderful smile" but if you say it in the wrong way, it gets real uncomfortable really fast doesn't it?

Same team dude, no friendly fire.

You supposed to hold hands with him and battle against foolish individuals such as myself with mockery and powerful condescension!

Good luck with that one...

In your worldview, there is no such thing as right and wrong, or good and evil, so you have no compass to guide you. You could argue that you have the rendering benefits you can see physically, but those are often highly deceptive and can develop into something over-time unexpected. Also they are entirely subject to opinion and perspective. Everyone will argue which one is actually good or bad. It will not work out very well.

Society needs a solid static standard of which to follow, lest it spirals into darkness rather fast.

Ok, so making posts in one thread that nobody is even remotely forcing you to read after 9 years of complete silence on the matter is me "pushing my beliefs on others" and being super aggressive? I guess I should have waited 20, or 30, or oh wait, I get it. I'm not allowed to talk about religion without being accused of such, I see.

I also noticed you had nothing to say about the people arguing in favor of the worldview that you yourself have. Hrmmm, curious that one... I suppose they should be allowed to talk about such matters as freely as they like without being accused of such, but not me right? They must be popular. Dang, sucks to be the uncool kid in school.

You are more than welcome to call me out and accuse me of such, but I strongly encourage you to press the "ignore" button on me at your leisure. If me having a good time talking random bull**** in a time-wasting thread is something that you dislike, you can simply push a button and *poof* it's gone. Nobody is forcing you. Quite the opposite. I encourage you to delete me.

I'm 100% sincere in my above quote. I wouldn't want you to endure something you wouldn't want to hear. I'm just having fun talking with interesting people that seem to be interested in interacting with me.

I did not enter this thread with any hopes of changing anyone's mind. My intention was to share my opinion that these discussions are a waste of time and after that, I got roped in by "GG, thanks for your ultimate surrender" lol, which is a classic line now. I really love that line and will probably use it much in the future. Go back to page 2 and you can confirm this.

If I had a time machine, I would go back and tell myself not to reply to Amadeus. It was a giant waste of time.

I do very strongly encourage you to place my name on ignore.

How many super pushy types have you bumped in that have said that to you before?

If this is just "Atheists are allowed to talk about religion, but not Theists" then fine. I respect your opinion, though I don't feel the same way in reverse.

p.s. do not reply or chomp on the bait, just press ignore, trust me. This thread is a waste of your time.

We also can't witness gravity, or electromagnitism, or any other force - only their effects. We can't witness subatomic particles. There's a lot of things which we cannot directly witness, but can only infer from what happens around them. That's the real difference though: those 'possible explanations' follow the scientific method. They can be subjected to experimentation to test those possibilities and disprove them. That's the big part where ID falls down, it's not a theory which can truly be tested. That's why it's not accepted as scientific: because it fails in the scientific method.

Sorry, but that's simply not true. That is an absolutely fundamental part of science - that an experiment is repeatable. Questioning other people's research is exactly why scientific theories are published. "Educated guesses" are absolutely acceptable - but if and when those guesses are shown to be incorrect, then we must be willing to revise them to accommodate those new truths. "Educated guesses" which are unable to be tested are fine, but there needs to be some valid and reasonable logical path towards that guess: but it's still largely worthless as anything but a thought experiment unless and until there is some way to actually investigate it. Again, ID comes at it from the wrong direction, it starts with the answer it wants and then tries to work back towards it, cherry picking what is and is not convenient to that answer.

It's banned in the US because it was recognised as having been devised as a trojan horse to teach religion (and a specific religion) in schools, in violation of the US Constitution. We teach science as a system of knowledge and learning. Intelligent Design is not that. Intelligent Design is "Because God."


1: "We are all made of star stuff," as Carl Sagan stated. We are an inherent part of the universe, running back to the beginning of time and forward until its end. Saying science teaches people have no value and life has no meaning is utterly absurd. You're talking about spirituality in there, and science has absolutely no place in that discussion one way or the other. It doesn't tell you that you have some mystic 'value' to your life, but at the same time it certainly doesn't try to say you don't. That's not science's job.

2: Again, no. Science has no dog in that fight. Ethics and morality are not something which science can or should be engaged to deal with, these are philosophical constructs. Science does not teach these things, one way or the other.

3: Third 'no'. You are again trying to suggest moral judgements where none are made. Science teaches simply what is and what is not, it does not try to make justifications and judgments on what is and is not "ok". I'd actually suggest that religion has been a far greater perpetrator of evils in this matter than science ever has.

4: Not sure what to say about this one. I'd suggest that that view (which is an individual, personal one) is more down to the understanding and expectations of the individual. "I don't know" is not inherently depressing. While you may see that as a gloomy proposition and crave that certainty of purpose, others may (and do) find absolute joy in the prospect that there is a world of the undiscovered out there in which to adventure. In either case though, it is not the role of science to provide meaning to your life. If you are looking to science to give you that certainty in your life, you are fundamentally misunderstanding what it is about and looking in the wrong place, that's a question of philosophy. Again, this is why I say I'm fine with people finding that comfort in religion: that's largely what it's about, seeking shelter from the abyss of the unknown. Others may seek that comfort in secular philosophies, but religion does it for plenty, too.

5: How? Again, that's not its role. It can explain reproduction and genetics, it can investigate how we learn, how we grow, and all sorts of things about sociological, biological and cognitive functions, but it cannot and does not make a call on "family values" or whatever it is you mean by that term. It seems like you're looking to science to provide answers to every facet of life, and that's simply its place.


Yes, there are questions which religion answers which science does not, and cannot. Science is limited by its definition. It deals with what is and what is not. It does not attempt to judge, it does not look to give meaning or value, simply inform in what is fundamentally true and what is not. Religion takes the unexplained and works to explain it in a way we can comfortably understand and be at peace with. Science works to find what is correct, whether we like it or not. In that respect, science does not oppose religion - 'good' and 'evil' are constructs which are inherently subjective. That's where philosophy and religion comes into play. However, when religion suggests something about the physical world which can be scientifically shown to be objectively false, we must acknowledge that.

It kinda sounds like you're looking for answers in the wrong place. Science can't tell you how you should live your life. It can't tell you that the wicked will fall, why you should respect your grandparents, or even why you should get out of bed in the morning. That's not what it's there for. If you want to know how the world was formed though, how things came to be the way they are or where they might be headed, though... Yes, absolutely. Science can help you out with that. It might not have all the answers just yet, but it has the pieces in place to get to the next step in understanding that.

Ok, everything has a cause? What caused the "intelligent causal agent"?

That's the difference.

Sure, and then someone says "no, he couldn't have, he was over there when it happened," and they discount him and move on to someone else. That's the scientific method. A hypothesis, analysis, and revision.

I wonder what the shamanic indigenous population thought of that last sentence. Also, your "tossing people off buildings" bit is horribly biased. There have been utterly horrific acts perpetrated in the name of Christianity in the past and present. If that's a dig at Islam, I'll happily chime in and note that some of the most genuinely kind and tolerant people I've ever met have been devout muslims. Again, not to say that horrible acts have happened in its name, but you can't really call out one and then excuse the other. As I said, both great and despicable acts have taken place in the names of all sorts of religions.

The USA is, by 'western' standards, highly conservative in the influence that organised religion plays in its society and politics. It's certainly shaped the country, but whether those effects have been for good or ill depends largely on your point of view. I'd argue that for example, any woman who's fallen pregnant to a case of **** may not be particularly enthusiastic about the latest supreme court appointment.


This comes back to that 'puddle' analogy. You're trying to take all of existence as you understand it from the perspective of something into which you fit, rather than yourself as a product and part of that system. You see a deliberate, formed 'painting' of creation in which everything is miraculously in proportion and harmony, and assume intent where, given the appropriate inputs, that painting is a completely natural product of universal constants. Yes, there may be a painter, but that painting is entirely possible without one, and there's really nothing other than the painting to go on. There's no way to know either way, so why are we adding in the extra complexity where there's nothing to say it exists? It's adding "times one" to the end of an equation, it's simply not needed for it to make sense.

I'd probably suggest that those others were unlucky. I think for the vast majority of adherents, the experience is a positive one - that's kinda why it persists. Like anything involving us fickle human beings though, there are exceptions that ruin it.


The issue there is about equality. Obviously, it's a product of its time and everything, but I'd say that with modern thought in mind, the distinction between the meaning of the word 'silent' is of secondary concern to the fact that that direction is being applied only to women. Sounds like being a good listener is good advice for anyone.

As to the other bits towards the end there: if you aren't already familiar with it, go read the poem 'Desiderata'... it's a nice bit of philosophy I think you might like.

Religious people bring this up all the time. Why do we need a superstition to let us know right from wrong?

Social contract theory...

Sent from my SM-N976U using Tapatalk

"Empathy."

wall of text - this even beats gun threads :rofl:

Sounds like something for ***** libcuck sjw snowflake ******s. GO TRUMP!


..am i doing it right???