Evolution and a supreme being.

Pedant

philologos wrote: »

I was shocked as I was reading the Bible for the first time in that there was a lot I didn't know. I would hold that that is probably true for the vast majority of Irish people. It changed my perspective on the world, because it was so convincing.

I know right. It's broad, contrived and has lots of interpretation that suits lots of different people ... not too unlike horoscopes. I believe it's called the Forer Effect.

outtagetme

....if "god" controls everything.....then why not refuse medical attention?

Next question: Christianity!

How did things operate prior to 0 AD?

Just asking, like.

mickrock

dlofnep wrote: »

An increasing number of insane Creationists? Perhaps. An increasing number of educated neuroscientists? Absolutely not.

Here's a neuroscientist who rejects the reductionist-materialistic view of consciousness:

New Book 'Brain Wars' Provides Paradigm-Shifting Evidence for the Existence of the Immaterial Mind

In 'Brain Wars,' acclaimed neuroscientist Mario Beauregard reveals compelling new evidence set to provoke a major shift in understanding of the mind-body debate: research showing that the mind and consciousness are transmitted and filtered through the brain—but are not generated by it.

http://www.prweb.com/releases/Brain/wars/prweb9422405.htm

southcentralts

is it a good argument against evolution that we have people who try to use science to prove the bible is literal, and they do not require breeding, I mean they continue to survive generation after generation passing on the traits they see fit to their young and beat them if they should ever question these beliefs. don't you dare evolve in any way or so help me god!
evolution - the often subtle changes between successive generations, or In the beginning god was vengeful, his son Jesus was more about the peace and love and not into the whole vengeance thing at all. ( I cannot even tell which side will strike first)

nozzferrahhtoo

philologos wrote: »

If people are just going to have a go at me as a person....

You can put the persecution complex away. It has nothing to do with having a go at your personally, and everything to do with calling a spade a spade.

If you are going to tell an outright bareface lie.... such as the one yesterday where you claimed atheism tells people to stop trying to find answers.... then people are going to call that lie out. Nothing to do with "having a laugh" as you paint it. The truth is just important to some people and when you warp it so then people will call you on it.

Now you can deflect this by going "Oh woe is me, everyone is out to character assassinate me, you naughty mean people you" but a lie is a lie and your deflection only erodes your credibility ever more....

philologos wrote: »

One thing I have in common with atheists is that I am concerned for what is absolutely true

.... and lets people realise that the exact OPPOSITE of the above claim is true. The only concern you appear to have for what is true is how much you feel you can get away with lying about it.

philologos wrote: »

The difference is I'm absolutely convinced for a number of reasons that it is more likely that Christianity is true rather than false.

What reasons? The ones you tried to give before were shown to be total bunk and you ran away crying from the thread when it happened.

philologos wrote: »

in the absence of God or any form of absolute standard, there is no way that anyone can say what is completely true or completely false.

Nor do we expect or even require one. So you are attempting to say there is a god by saying without one thing would be.... exactly as they are now. Are you sure you are not giving evidence that there is NO god here? Sure sounds like it to me. You may as well say something like "Of course there is a god, if there was no god the sky would be blue!!" for all the sense you are making here.

philologos wrote: »

The question is are we willing to give people a chance to explain before you call them fools

Firstly I never call anyone a fool. Your bible does that. Secondly I have given you AMPLE chance to explain. You just run away every time and find another thread, which you run away from and find another thread, which you run away from and.... you get the picture.

Aside from saying over and over that god "makes sense" to you, you have NEVER explained it. Ever.

philologos wrote: »

As a philosophy student a few years ago I had quite a number of issues.

You still do it seems. I have not seen such a poor knowledge or application of philosophy in public since I watched Gareth Peoples debate Micheal Nugent.

Delirium

mickrock wrote: »

Here's a neuroscientist who rejects the reductionist-materialistic view of consciousness:

New Book 'Brain Wars' Provides Paradigm-Shifting Evidence for the Existence of the Immaterial Mind

In 'Brain Wars,' acclaimed neuroscientist Mario Beauregard reveals compelling new evidence set to provoke a major shift in understanding of the mind-body debate: research showing that the mind and consciousness are transmitted and filtered through the brain—but are not generated by it.

http://www.prweb.com/releases/Brain/wars/prweb9422405.htm

Non-materialist neuroscience

From the linked page:

Non-materialist neuroscience is one of the latest fronts in the war on science. The battle has been a long time coming and it is surprising it has taken so long to get going. Modern neuroscience is rapidly reducing much of human thought, emotion and behavior into component pieces of neuronal interactions. The combination of computational modeling and non-invasive imaging of living brains has allowed researchers to begin describing how complex thought emerges from the firing patterns of neurons. In a way, neuroscience is the death knell of dualism. When materialist causes become both necessary and sufficient to explain all of human thought then parsimony dictates that references to a soul or other supernatural entities can be tossed out.

Non-materialist neuroscience is a reaction to these discoveries, a rallying cry for dualism. Like creationism and intelligent design this "new" neuroscience is a reactionary movement against science. Rather than a hypothesis that leads to predictions and experiments, it is simply a catalog of things modern neuroscience supposedly cannot yet explain.

Seachmall

Ghost Buster wrote: »

When he wanted to point out to someone that they were talking out their holes, talking shiet in other words he would rumble "You are talking philosophy"

I'm stealing that.

Ghost Buster

Seachmall wrote: »

I'm stealing that.

Personally I always feel that philosophy , after a great big 'Godwin' is the last refuge of someone losing a debate. When one can no longer debate and argue in normal, solid straight forward terms they turn to philosophy (or The Bible):cool:

Corkfeen

koth wrote: »

mickrock wrote: »

Here's a neuroscientist who rejects the reductionist-materialistic view of consciousness:

New Book 'Brain Wars' Provides Paradigm-Shifting Evidence for the Existence of the Immaterial Mind

In 'Brain Wars,' acclaimed neuroscientist Mario Beauregard reveals compelling new evidence set to provoke a major shift in understanding of the mind-body debate: research showing that the mind and consciousness are transmitted and filtered through the brain—but are not generated by it.

http://www.prweb.com/releases/Brain/wars/prweb9422405.htm

Non-materialist neuroscience

From the linked page:

Non-materialist neuroscience is one of the latest fronts in the war on science. The battle has been a long time coming and it is surprising it has taken so long to get going. Modern neuroscience is rapidly reducing much of human thought, emotion and behavior into component pieces of neuronal interactions. The combination of computational modeling and non-invasive imaging of living brains has allowed researchers to begin describing how complex thought emerges from the firing patterns of neurons. In a way, neuroscience is the death knell of dualism. When materialist causes become both necessary and sufficient to explain all of human thought then parsimony dictates that references to a soul or other supernatural entities can be tossed out.

Non-materialist neuroscience is a reaction to these discoveries, a rallying cry for dualism. Like creationism and intelligent design this "new" neuroscience is a reactionary movement against science. Rather than a hypothesis that leads to predictions and experiments, it is simply a catalog of things modern neuroscience supposedly cannot yet explain.

Now something peer reviewed... When a scientist claims to be in a war with science, you know he's crazy.

Cú Giobach

philologos wrote: »

To me, atheism makes no sense. We still have the huge problem, of where did we come from, and why we are here.

I know you're getting a lot of replies so answering everyone would be a bit much but I'll try this point again.

First, why does there have to be a meaning to life, besides making you feel good about yourself?

Second, Can you not see bringing up our present unknowns as "issues" for atheism is quite crazy, because over thousands of years as our knowledge has increased each unknown has time and time again been shown to be the result of natural processes, the works of deities have consistently been pushed further and further back, always to hover around the limits of the day, then along comes the explanation and the deity is pushed back again.

In What ever age you might be making this argument you would have said the same about the limits of knowledge of the day, and would have been shown to be wrong each and every time. There is nothing special about today (each generation thinks it is practically at the limits of what can be understood) and our present unknowns will eventually be explained as always, by natural processes. Then you will have to take another step back and question the new limit.
I'm sure if you could actually see this happening before your very eyes with generation after generation saying "well a god must have done that" and getting the reply "actually we just found out that that is caused by this", and with this happening over and over and over again from the time we first began to question till today, you might actually begin to see the pattern.

seamus

mickrock wrote: »

The whole matter of consciousness is a tricky business.

While it's true to say that it's a tricky business, the fact that we can medically induce a state of unconsciousness without dreaming indicates that consciousness itself is in fact a product of chemical processes in your brain.

Even more interestingly it's possible to induce a state of "unconsciousness" even while you're awake and alert. This is used in many kinds of surgery where the surgeon requires the person to be awake but feel no pain. The patient recalls being given the drug and then "waking up", but can be shown video evidence of them being awake and having conversations. A bit like being insanely drunk but without the messiness.

This muddies what we actually consider "consciousness" to be, since if you have no memory of doing something, were you actually conscious that you were doing it?

So while one can say that the origin of consciousness is a tricky issue, we know for a fact that a person's consciousness can be actively disrupted and/or completely shut down chemically, which indicates that it's solely a chemical process which does not require anything else.

outtagetme wrote: »

Why does god and the bible get a capital "g" and a capital "b"?

Proper nouns.

Jimoslimos

outtagetme wrote: »

Why does god and the bible get a capital "g" and a capital "b"?

seamus wrote: »

Proper nouns.

Fair enough, it's the capitalisation of pronouns, "He/Him/His" that really bugs me.

nozzferrahhtoo

Jimoslimos wrote: »

Fair enough, it's the capitalisation of pronouns, "He/Him/His" that really bugs me.

WAIT till you start getting DEATH threats from these people. The wanton capitalization OF JUST ABOUT EVERYTHING that they say to you IN THE NAME OF THE LORD puts the MERE capitalization of HIS glorious REFERENCES to shame.

Jimoslimos

nozzferrahhtoo wrote: »

WAIT till you start getting DEATH threats from these people. The wanton capitalization OF JUST ABOUT EVERYTHING that they say to you IN THE NAME OF THE LORD puts the MERE capitalization of HIS glorious REFERENCES to shame.

*sigh*

I know, pity grammar Nazism is against the charter:(

Calibos

outtagetme wrote: »

Why does god and the bible get a capital "g" and a capital "b"?

But more to the point.....where did Cain and Abel get their wives from?

And did the wives have belly-buttons, unlike Eve?

And did they like apples?

And snakes?

Is it not common knowledge that at the Council of Nicea in the third century when they took out the bits of the bible that they didn't like, they decided to remove the distastful bit where Cain and Abel bent their mother over the Fallen down Trunk of the tree of knowledge and said "Squeel like a pig bitch, How d'ya like dem apples!!" This is also where the non Kosher nature of pork came from.

mickrock

John Cleese on reductionism and materialism in science:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-M-vnmejwXo

Sarky

The geneticist in me just died a little.When you're using an old comedian's badly-researched sketch to back your points, something has gone terribly wrong.

smish

When one reads the bible, one most read it from the point of view that all in it is of symbolic nature.

God for catholics really is just everything around you and you! God is the one.
God is not a man up in the clouds (SMAKS FACE)
Heaven is either an advantage or an absolute blessing!
Advantage = We go into a dreamless sleep state for ever
or
Absolute Blessing = Our soul goes somewhere!

Jesus is the way. The garden of eden is not an actual place (smaks face) if you read the bible the way jesus teaches the garden of eden is EVOLUTION.

Mary wasnt really a virgin, the holy spirt is the symbol for that special something that makes the sperm join the egg.

I blame poor teachers for Irelands decline in catholism. It really is great way to live by.

Jesus was a man who became the christ (Christ is the universe). All of us have the ablility to connect with the onesness of the universe.

Turtwig

Sarky wrote: »

The geneticist in me just died a little.When you're using an old comedian's badly-researched sketch to back your points, something has gone terribly wrong.

Agreed, I posted that video several years back.

Now, I consider it once of my worst ever posts on boards.


Biggest load of tripe ever.

Turtwig

smish wrote: »

When one reads the bible, one most read it from the point of view that all in it is of symbolic nature.

God for catholics really is just everything around you and you! God is the one.
God is not a man up in the clouds (SMAKS FACE)
Heaven is either an advantage or an absolute blessing!
Advantage = We go into a dreamless sleep state for ever
or
Absolute Blessing = Our soul goes somewhere!

Jesus is the way. The garden of eden is not an actual place (smaks face) if you read the bible the way jesus teaches the garden of eden is EVOLUTION.

Mary wasnt really a virgin, the holy spirt is the symbol for that special something that makes the sperm join the egg.

I blame poor teachers for Irelands decline in catholism. It really is great way to live by.

Jesus was a man who became the christ (Christ is the universe). All of us have the ablility to connect with the onesness of the universe.

You most certainly are NOT a Catholic as decreed by the definitions under the Roman Catholic Church.

Pushtrak

smish wrote: »

God for catholics really is just everything around you and you! God is the one.

So, Pantheism?

God is not a man up in the clouds (SMAKS FACE)

Indeed, he is a non entity nowhere. Oh, don't smack yourself in the face any more. The quality of your post definitely deteriorates from this point.

Heaven is either an advantage or an absolute blessing!

Or the carrot in a carrot and stick motivation scheme.

Advantage = We go into a dreamless sleep state for ever
or
Absolute Blessing = Our soul goes somewhere!

Pascal's Wager... *Sigh* Well, at least we had one fess to still buying in to this garbage.

You think it is a 50/50. Believe in your particular religion because you have so much to possibly gain, yada yada. Ok. That is great. But the problem is that it isn't 50/50. Well, firstly even if it were a case there was only two options that doesn't mean the possibility of either is 50/50. But it isn't just two options.

All the different religions each have their own afterlife punishment, and each one says that particular religion above all others. If we were to grant it is worth this faux belief to avoid a bad afterlife, then one ought to find the one with the worst afterlife and go with that if they bought in to Pascal's Wager.

At this point you would have to provide proof that it is the Jesus/Yahweh narrative that is true. Why is it you follow this religion other than any of the others? Could it be due to the fact you were brought up with this religion as a child? If you were born elsewhere, to parents of another faith you'd be of another faith now. Would you go to hell? The bible is pretty clear about having no other gods before... Is this symbolic? Symbolic of what?

Jesus is the way. The garden of eden is not an actual place (smaks face) if you read the bible the way jesus teaches the garden of eden is EVOLUTION.

Ouch. Your reading of symbolism is fascinating. Do you perhaps have a newsletter? Oh, and when I said you smacking yourself in the face isn't doing yourself any favours, I wasn't kidding.

Mary wasnt really a virgin, the holy spirt is the symbol for that special something that makes the sperm join the egg.
I blame poor teachers for Irelands decline in catholism. It really is great way to live by.
Jesus was a man who became the christ (Christ is the universe). All of us have the ablility to connect with the onesness of the universe.

You are a theist, a Christian, but you are not a Catholic. Not in anything other than a label you wish to apply to yourself.

The Corinthian

Pushtrak wrote: »

You are a theist, a Christian, but you are not a Catholic.

Well they may not be a Catholic, but they may be a catholic.

Not wanting to be pedantic (OK, yes, I very much want to be pedantic) the term catholic actually comes from the Greek word for 'universal'.

As such, while the Roman Catholic Church commonly uses this term to the point that it is syngamous with said church, many other Christian denominations will use it too, because naturally they believe that theirs is 'universal' also, given they all believe their flavour of Christianity is the true and all-encompassing one.

How can two religious denominations be true and 'universal'? Fortunately, this paradox can be explained through M-theory, which allows for a multiverse, which by extension could accommodate multiple 'universal' truths.

Turtwig

The Corinthian wrote: »

Well they may not be a Catholic, but they may be a catholic.

Not wanting to be pedantic (OK, yes, I very much want to be pedantic) the term catholic actually comes from the Greek word for 'universal'.

As such, while the Roman Catholic Church commonly uses this term to the point that it is syngamous with said church, many other Christian denominations will use it too, because naturally they believe that theirs is 'universal' also, given they all believe their flavour of Christianity is the true and all-encompassing one.

How can two religious denominations be true and 'universal'? Fortunately, this paradox can be explained through M-theory, which allows for a multiverse, which by extension could accommodate multiple 'universal' truths.

Sorry but the internet being what it is and I've rarely encountered your posts before. That last paragraph is sarcasm right?

The Corinthian

Jernal wrote: »

Sorry but the internet being what it is and I've rarely encountered your posts before. That last paragraph is sarcasm right?

My apologies, I should have used a smiley.

Come to think of it, if smilies had been around three thousand years ago, it may have saved us all a lot of bother.

Seachmall

The Corinthian wrote: »

My apologies, I should have used a smiley.

Come to think of it, if smilies had been around three thousand years ago, it may have saved us all a lot of bother.

"In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth :pac:"

mylastparadigm

So, things I've learned so far from this thread:

1. Generally, people did not stick to the topic in the original post. Thank you to the bare handful that did.


2. The folks that don't believe in a God spend more time talking about it than the folks that do.

Its definately a great motivator, a red rag to a bull. I would have expected the believers to be more motivated to argue but not so. Possible fear of ridicule. Some of the comments are very harsh. Whatever your opinion, I definatly think we need to respect each other, and each others stance. There is an element of belief in science too.


So, things I've learned from life so far:

Certainty scares the **** out of me. Anyone who insists that they are sure of the existence of a deity, one way or another, is having a laugh.
Certainty itself is a redundant notion. Why? I'll give two examples.

First: all geometry (and thus measurement) is based on the unproven presumption that the shortest distance between two points is a straight line (in 2D space). Believe it or not, practically all science is based on an unproven assumption. Look it up, it is unproven.

Secondly: anyone ever hear of the heisenberg uncertainty principle. More or less, it means you cant define the position and velocity of an electron simultaneously. On a deeper understanding, this means that uncertainty underlies the most fundamental functional particle in our universe.

So, while science and logic definately point us in a direction, at the Nth degree, science leans a little on belief too. It must to allow us to carry on.

Belief that the shortest distance between two points is a straight line. Belief, that even though there is so much uncertainty fundamental to the electron, it still works predictably in the natural world.

At the end of the day, both science and religion, in their purest forms, seek truth. I see so much overlap, but parties at either extreme of the spectrum really ruin that conversation.

These things are true. I'd urge you to check if you have your doubts, before subjecting me to the diatribe that is so quickly loosed around here.

Turtwig

Every scientific statement allows for a margin of error. Every religious one is absolutely true. As far as science is concerned, you can never prove the Sun is larger than the Earth. As far Religion is concerned ,if the Sun is decreed to be a tesseract then, so be it, is it is a tesseract and all who disagree burn in hell for eternity!

Science is the virtue of doubt; religion is the ignorance of doubts.

nozzferrahhtoo

mylastparadigm wrote: »

I would have expected the believers to be more motivated to argue but not so.

Not sure I share your expectations any more. Having used the internet for some time now, since the days of usenet and mailing lists rather than forums and chat rooms, I can certainly say I have personally noticed a vast reduction in the number of people capable of debating the theism side of things.

There are a few set arguments for theism and all of them have been repeatedly and systematically addressed and crushed to the point there quite literally is no pro-god arguments left. For obvious reasons no new ones are being created either to my knowledge.

So it is hardly a surprise I guess that those that fight that corner are showing their face on threads like this less and less. You just get the odd user who does not know their argument has been destroyed before who still wanders in and harps on about first cause, pascals wager or some comical attempt at shifting the burden of proof to the negative.

What you tend to get more often these days is an attempt to dilute words like "god" and "Super natural" to almost meaningless levels in an attempt to sell a kind of "God lite" as a wedge to then pour the old stuff like "Jesus is the son of god" in once the foot is in the door.

mylastparadigm wrote: »

I definatly think we need to respect each other

Absolutely!

mylastparadigm wrote: »

and each others stance.

Absolutely not!

We should respect people AND their right to hold ideas of their own.

There is no onus on us however to respect the actual ideas in any way shape or form and they are fair game for disagreement, destruction and even ridicule.

Alas this does indeed get clouded by the facts that there will always be people who will attack the person rather than the idea, and there will always be people who will get offended vicariously on behalf of attacked ideas. Neither of which aids open, honest, intellectual discourse at all.

mylastparadigm

Jernal wrote: »

Every scientific statement allows for a margin of error. Every religious one is absolutely true. As far as science is concerned, you can never prove the Sun is larger than the Earth. As far Religion is concerned ,if the Sun is decreed to be a tesseract then, so be it, is it is a tesseract and all who disagree burn in hell for eternity!

Science is the virtue of doubt; religion is the ignorance of doubts.

thats not true in my experience. people dont believe blindly. you have to allow that all men share the same credibility as you allow yourself. You chose in good faith so you have to allow that to everyone else. many struggle with the idea of a god, find it hard to believe, maybe dont believe at all but want to.

i dont think you should write off 85-90% of the worlds population (theists) as blind sheep. just like you should not write off anyone here who does not believe in a diety, equally.

with regard to science being the virtue of doubt, i see very few posters here giving an inch to admit that he or she might be wrong, atheists and theists alike.

mylastparadigm

nozzferrahhtoo wrote: »

Not sure I share your expectations any more. Having used the internet for some time now, since the days of usenet and mailing lists rather than forums and chat rooms, I can certainly say I have personally noticed a vast reduction in the number of people capable of debating the theism side of things.

There are a few set arguments for theism and all of them have been repeatedly and systematically addressed and crushed to the point there quite literally is no pro-god arguments left. For obvious reasons no new ones are being created either to my knowledge.

So it is hardly a surprise I guess that those that fight that corner are showing their face on threads like this less and less. You just get the odd user who does not know their argument has been destroyed before who still wanders in and harps on about first cause, pascals wager or some comical attempt at shifting the burden of proof to the negative.

What you tend to get more often these days is an attempt to dilute words like "god" and "Super natural" to almost meaningless levels in an attempt to sell a kind of "God lite" as a wedge to then pour the old stuff like "Jesus is the son of god" in once the foot is in the door.



Absolutely!



Absolutely not!

We should respect people AND their right to hold ideas of their own.

There is no onus on us however to respect the actual ideas in any way shape or form and they are fair game for disagreement, destruction and even ridicule.

Alas this does indeed get clouded by the facts that there will always be people who will attack the person rather than the idea, and there will always be people who will get offended vicariously on behalf of attacked ideas. Neither of which aids open, honest, intellectual discourse at all.

by respect i mean just not being nasty to each other, keeping in mind that belief makes up a fundamental part of both science and religion.

you said a few things there about theists not arguing on forums like this. you kinda took a swipe at them by saying they weren't capable. i dont think that was fair. surely you have to allow for the fact that these arguements get very ugly quickly and its just not worth it.

can you comment on why you think atheists are so vocal about something, that by definition, they are not part of?