Root of all evil
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BoE Posse
Member # 112
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written Saturday, January 29 2005 19:28
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quote:See, that's impossible if you start from the mindset that ANYTHING remotely possible in the material world is infinitely more likely than a supernatural occurance, which seems to be your stance. If someone witnesses a miracle, he was hallucinating. If multiple people witness a miracle, they're lying. You demand a standard of proof far beyond what you would demand to prove that, say, the Earth is round or that man landed on the moon. (If I've misunderstood you, forgive me.) [ Saturday, January 29, 2005 19:31: Message edited by: The Creator ] -------------------- Rate my scenarios! Areni Revenge To Live in Fear Deadly Goblins Ugantan Nightmare Isle of Boredom Posts: 1423 | Registered: Sunday, October 7 2001 07:00 |
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The Establishment
Member # 6
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written Saturday, January 29 2005 19:44
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Creator -- The site you bring is a dubious one from the scientific communities perspective. I can find many reasons to distrust much of the information on AiG and in their journal. Just read the obvious editorialization in the article. More disturbing is the fact the article does not site any peer reviewed journals where this has been discussed. Surely the quick growing of gemstones would have a place in mainstream scientific journalism. So I ask you, where may I find this in a mainstream scientific journal? That being asked, I'm not sure how this proves anything in any way. We have made gemstones such as rubies and emeralds in a laboratory setting before in a fraction of the time it would occur naturally. I don't have the references in front of me, but I do remember hearing about it. I do not doubt with human intervention and an understanding of chemical processes, we can manufacture opals as well. Unfortunately, I have been unable to verify the credentials of Dr. Cram and where he got his PhD from. He appears to be more of a commercial figure than a "great scientist" from my brief internet search. I will assume he is legitimate and his degree is more than honory as is the case with many religious scientists. Also, the article you site does not However, all respect to Dr. Cram, but he is just one scientist and a very minor one at that. You can find a handful of scientists with personal religious convictions in any scientific field. I can name many more like him if you want me to, but it will serve little use. I was hoping for someone a little more prominent in a broad area of scientific inquiry. Nobel prize caliber is preferrable. -------------------- Your flower power is no match for my glower power!! Posts: 3726 | Registered: Tuesday, September 18 2001 07:00 |
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The Establishment
Member # 6
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written Saturday, January 29 2005 19:57
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quote:To the contrary, proving the Earth is round or man walked on the moon is relatively easy. I can propose experiments for both. Earth is round: Let us launch an unarmed ICBM in one direction into orbit. If we see it come back from the other side we have substantiated the Earth is round. Sure, we could postulate magic faeries moved it to make it appear as such, but Occam's Razor comes to the rescue. Man walked on the moon: This one is a little more difficult, but it is the in the realm of possibility. However, we have these pesky little moon rocks. An isotopic analysis of their compositon and features of micrometeroite formation processes shows that they could not have formed on Earth. How did they get here, well we could postuate they rained down on Earth from meteorite impacts and this is quite likely, so we need a little bit more. We could send a space probe to the sites where the landings occurred and look for evidence. Neither one of these experiments PROVES that the Earth is round or we went to the moon, but gives good evidence for it. The standard of proof is that we can devise experiments to validate hypotheses. Let us take the God hypothesis. What experiment can we run to find evidence to support it? Make sure you define the exact nature of God in your proposal. That is the kind of proof that is sought. -------------------- Your flower power is no match for my glower power!! Posts: 3726 | Registered: Tuesday, September 18 2001 07:00 |
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Shock Trooper
Member # 4445
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written Saturday, January 29 2005 20:11
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quote:The Resurrection, for one. Lazarus, as a subsidiary example. Don't bother trashing the bible, I know it's coming; you don't believe anything from that book. So, for more modern examples, there have been several healing miracles performed with water from Lourdes. A Latin-American priest, either already a saint or in the process of becoming one, named Padre Pio, when asked to pray for a terminally ill person, whom he had never seen, did so, and they were healed. That, I might add, happened on more than one occasion, and each time doctors were completely unable to explain the patient's recovery. Finally, one priest, whose faith had begun to waver, prayed for a sign as he celebrated the Eucharist. As he performed the ceremony, the bread in his hand literally became flesh, and the wine in the chalice similarly became blood. The resulting flesh has been preserved as a relic of the Church, and tests performed on it have revealed that it was cardiac tissue from a man who had died at the age of 33 and one-half, or the age of Jesus when he was crucified. quote:God is omnipresent, so he did cause your flat tire, but so did the nail (don't reply to this). On to Occam's Razor. I think you missed the qualifier, about traipsing through meta-science. While it (the good old Razor) is indeed against a single instance of divine intervention, the existence of a God is the simplest explanation for the existence of an infinite collection of laws governing almost all natural phenomena, as well as for anomalous phenomena, which we shall label "miracles." So, really, my argumentation here is more Deist than my natural Catholic, except for the part about the occasional miracle but, let's face it, it's nice to be unconditionally loved, and it's also motivation to live morally, in the quest for eternal reward. Finally, on to why there is absolutely no parallel between God and cartoon characters. No adult believes that Wile E. Coyote exists as anything but an animation on the television screen. No one has credited Wile E. Coyote with saving him/her from alcoholism, cancer, or suicide. Even temporarily, for the sake of argument, assuming that God is a figment of the imagination, Wile E. Coyote does not cause the same amount of wacky neurochemical or psychosomatic effects. Once again, belief in Wile E. Coyote has driven no one to hallucinate or speak in tongues, so they differ entirely in terms of their intensity as constructs of the human mind. Lastly, in a bit of a darker vein, no crusades or inquistions have taken place in the name of Wile E. Coyote. Since this difference seems entirely obvious, at least to me, you seem to be making that comparison, not to make any actual logical point, but to insult and belittle anyone who would be so stupid as to believe in a god. [Off-topic, pointless little addendum] No one has used the argument, brought up earlier, of "Can He make a stone so heavy..." His "stone so heavy" is humanity. He gave us free will so that there would be something in His universe outside of his control.[/Off-topic, pointless little addendum] Posts: 293 | Registered: Saturday, May 29 2004 07:00 |
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BoE Posse
Member # 112
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written Saturday, January 29 2005 20:26
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quote:To be honest, I dunno. I know little about the scientific community and which publications are considered the most reputable and what their websites are and whatever. I'd be surprised if there wasn't a fair bit out there - probably buried in the archives. IIRC (and as evidenced by my messing up his name, I may not), he received his Ph.d from the University of Sydney for his achievement in creating opals - I believe he has no University education. This may (or may not) make him less credible in your eyes - I think it makes him way cool. quote:Agreed. It proves nothing other than that opals, like other gemstones, do not require vast timespans to form, merely the right conditions. I didn't mean to suggest anything else. One minor point of disagreement - you say "We have made gemstones such as rubies and emeralds in a laboratory setting before in a fraction of the time it would occur naturally." Wouldn't it be accurate to say that you have no way of knowing that those gemstones formed naturally took longer than those made in the lab? It would just take some pretty extreme conditions. quote:Care to finish the sentence? quote:Sorry, I didn't read the thread properly and misunderstood the points that were attempting to be made. Unfortunately, I'm pretty unequipped to answer the question. As mentioned above, my knowledge of the scientific community is pretty limited. I probably couldn't name a Nobel Prize winner in the last 20 years, let alone tell you what their personal beliefs are (I do know a few historical cases, though, such as Michael Faraday and the obvious example of Newton). I brought up Cram because he was an example of a recent scientist who made a fairly major discovery as a direct result of applying his religious beliefs to scientific study. Again, apologies for missing the point. -------------------- Rate my scenarios! Areni Revenge To Live in Fear Deadly Goblins Ugantan Nightmare Isle of Boredom Posts: 1423 | Registered: Sunday, October 7 2001 07:00 |
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BoE Posse
Member # 112
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written Saturday, January 29 2005 20:46
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quote:For the purposes of this discussion, let us define God as "A supernatural force that occasionally does stuff that that would otherwise not be possible (or 'miracles')." This is something that should be testable - if we can find evidence of miraculous occurances, then God=true, otherwise false. Trouble is, can we agree on what counts as valid evidence? Apparently, the story I posted earlier doesn't in your view. How many people need to witness something for it to be considered credible? How much evidence does there need to be for you to believe that it actually happened and was not falsified? E.g. if a man came back from the dead, would the account of multiple witnesses that he was cold and stiff before and video evidence of him walking around now be sufficient for you? Would you need a Death Certificate from a doctor? Would one doctor's opinion be enough? Would you need to smell the rotting flesh and see him get up yourself? [ Saturday, January 29, 2005 20:49: Message edited by: The Creator ] -------------------- Rate my scenarios! Areni Revenge To Live in Fear Deadly Goblins Ugantan Nightmare Isle of Boredom Posts: 1423 | Registered: Sunday, October 7 2001 07:00 |
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The Establishment
Member # 6
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written Saturday, January 29 2005 20:47
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Fair enough. The sentence, to be honest, I thought I erased, but only partially. My apologies for the confusion. Respected journals are like Scientific American, Nature, or anything published by a professional scientific society such as the Geological Society of Australia. It is definitely possible that gemstones could form under the same conditions, but they would be pretty extreme and artificial. Without knowledge of the process I could only guess on this. We have to look at the likelihood such a process would occur naturally. Usually the answer is not. As far as "natural gemstones" we can look at the environment was found in and draw conclusions. Although both ways are possible, the slow one involving the natural phenomena is probably a lot more likely. -------------------- Your flower power is no match for my glower power!! Posts: 3726 | Registered: Tuesday, September 18 2001 07:00 |
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BoE Posse
Member # 112
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written Saturday, January 29 2005 21:01
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Wandering around on Google, I found a list that you may or may not find interesting. Doesn't mean a lot to me, as I don't know who virtually any of these guys are. I also have no idea how reliable or comprehensive this list is, but you can take a squiz at it anyway. I notice that this is a list of "Creation Scientists" and not "Christian Scientists". I'm sure there's a fair number that believe in God but not a 6 day creation, but I have no idea how many or who they are. -------------------- Rate my scenarios! Areni Revenge To Live in Fear Deadly Goblins Ugantan Nightmare Isle of Boredom Posts: 1423 | Registered: Sunday, October 7 2001 07:00 |
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...b10010b...
Member # 869
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written Saturday, January 29 2005 21:16
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quote:I'm sorry, but this is just too silly for me to let it slide. Humans don't have growth rings like trees do. There is absolutely no way to test a tissue sample and determine the age of the person it came from to that sort of precision. -------------------- My BoE Page Bandwagons are fun! Roots Hunted! Posts: 9973 | Registered: Saturday, March 30 2002 08:00 |
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BoE Posse
Member # 112
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written Saturday, January 29 2005 21:23
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I don't know much about such things (and had never heard of that particular story), so I won't argue too strenuously one way or the other. But, apparently, they were able to tell the genetic age of Dolly. -------------------- Rate my scenarios! Areni Revenge To Live in Fear Deadly Goblins Ugantan Nightmare Isle of Boredom Posts: 1423 | Registered: Sunday, October 7 2001 07:00 |
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Shock Trooper
Member # 1814
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written Saturday, January 29 2005 21:27
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The root of all evil: If you believe in God: Anything that strays from him in the slightest. Insanity comes naturally with natural circumstances. Insanity leads to compromised or warped values and logic. All living things are prone to greed. Whether in the form of believing your the most important thing and to hell with all else, or steping on people to get that extra 20 dollars a month. You can't escape the greed without God. Don't bother trying to find out what the root is. It is a lacking of something. God. If you don't believe God exists: There is no point in looking for the answer. For all you know there is no Evil or good. Only what others say. Can you trust them? No you can't. There is no root of all evil without evil. And how can evil exist if there's no one in authority to set a standard. Without God everyone is equally qualified to decide right and wrong. That includes me, you, the pedophiles,and the nice doormats right? Or so we're led to think, The truth is that a bigger, meaner person is. As much as we'd like to decide for ourselves we can't. If you can beat the crap out of a person you can own them and decide for them. Why would they do that? Because they value themselves more than you. They want stuff at your expense. All humans are inherently like that except a very few. So, you could say greed is still the root of all evil. Unless thinking you're better than others is pride, I may have used the wrong word. silly me By the way, I've noticed something interesting, The closer you are to God, the harder you fall when you decide to leave him. I may be wrong, after all I'm just another wingless freak! Still... its an idea. I'll be something someday... Posts: 215 | Registered: Friday, August 30 2002 07:00 |
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Bob's Big Date
Member # 3151
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written Saturday, January 29 2005 21:37
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I think the current discussion is a tad on the silly side; saying 'Christians can be great scientists' or 'Christians cannot be great scientists' is really irrelevant. Even at its most germane, it is only an elaborate appeal to authority for both sides of the argument. To the last poster: Why do you assume that atheists reject the concepts of good and evil, or that Christians accept them? [ Saturday, January 29, 2005 21:39: Message edited by: Bad-Ass Mother Custer ] -------------------- The biggest, the baddest, and the fattest. Posts: 2367 | Registered: Friday, June 27 2003 07:00 |
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...b10010b...
Member # 869
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written Saturday, January 29 2005 21:43
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quote:The argument that Dolly was born with the genetic age of her mother is somewhat controversial, and in any case the methods used are nowhere near reliable enough to tell a human's age to the nearest year. If that were possible, forensic scientists could tell how old someone was at the time of their death by extracting DNA from their bones or teeth. -------------------- My BoE Page Bandwagons are fun! Roots Hunted! Posts: 9973 | Registered: Saturday, March 30 2002 08:00 |
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Law Bringer
Member # 335
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written Saturday, January 29 2005 22:49
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The list of "creation scientists" is interesting, but it doesn't really mean anything. It's an appeal to authority, but it's not relevant. Most of the scientists' fields are in no way related to the geological history of Earth or evolution. The paleontologist is the only one who is qualified to weigh in on the subject. The orthodontist's theory is on a subject I know absolutely nothing about, but it seems laughable. Neanderthals differ from humans in more ways than just skull structure. The other specific descriptions just tend to fall into the category of being opinions. Not all physicists, chemists, astronomers, and mathematicians are experts in evolution. Not even all biologists are experts. The list is somewhat interesting, but not relevant. —Alorael, who assumes that a creation scientist is one who believes in creationism. If not, then he has no idea what the list means. Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00 |
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Shock Trooper
Member # 1814
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written Sunday, January 30 2005 02:54
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Here is what I mean: Christians have no choice but to accept the concepts of good and evil. God clearly says that the two exist. If you think you're a christian but don't believe there is a good and evil, then you've gone way out in left field and may have lost your mind. If you belong to a group of people who think along the same lines, well, you're not christians but a group of religiously confused folks. Furthermore, An atheist could believe that good and evil exist. I never said they rejected them. Its just that logically there's no sense to do so if no one is in supreme authority to set laws. Man's laws change and have loopholes. I know many atheists believe in a right and wrong. But what is right and what is wrong? Not everyone will agree. Why bother? Logically, No God=everyone decides for themselves what good and evil are. Who else is more qualified,right? Posts: 215 | Registered: Friday, August 30 2002 07:00 |
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Post Navel Trauma ^_^
Member # 67
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written Sunday, January 30 2005 04:04
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quote:This rings a little alarm bell. According to the AiG page, the process is secret to protect the opal industry. I wouldn't expect to get a PhD by showing up at a university with a bunch of gemstones and the claim that I made them through a secret process. Anyhow, it doesn't really count as science unless other people can do it too. -------------------- Barcoorah: I even did it to a big dorset ram. desperance.net - Don't follow this link Posts: 1798 | Registered: Thursday, October 4 2001 07:00 |
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Off With Their Heads
Member # 4045
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written Sunday, January 30 2005 05:57
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quote:Put simply, no. There are ways for developing a system of morality without any sort of authority, ways that allow for certain things to be ambiguous (which is why people disagree). You may not know of any, but that doesn't mean that they don't exist. I won't go into it exactly, but those ways are certainly out there. -------------------- Arancaytar: Every time you ask people to compare TM and Kel, you endanger the poor, fluffy kittens. Kelandon's Pink and Pretty Page!!: the authorized location for all things by me The Archive of all released BoE scenarios ever Posts: 7968 | Registered: Saturday, February 28 2004 08:00 |
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Shaper
Member # 22
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written Sunday, January 30 2005 08:54
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quote:This argument falls down in two ways. Firstly, it assumes the brain is a logical construct. Secondly, even if the brain was a logical construct, there is still sense in following society's rules of what is good and what is evil. I'm not going to go into the "everything we do, we do for pleasure" theory, mainly because I don't agree with it for the most part, but at least here it is applicable - we are more likely to get pleasure from obeying society's views on good and evil than we are from not. I'm not even convinced that God has ever superceded society in the role of "supreme authority". [ Sunday, January 30, 2005 08:56: Message edited by: Morgan ] Posts: 2862 | Registered: Tuesday, October 2 2001 07:00 |
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Shock Trooper
Member # 156
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written Sunday, January 30 2005 10:39
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quote:[/b] AGAIN, you are not getting this. If I told you that I saw a man get shot in the head but three days later he was alive adn walking around is this evidence that Odin ressurected him? What is the best explanation of the following: 1)One of the 5,000 deities believed to exist magically resuurect the man who did die from the gun shot. 2)The bullet only grazed the man, causing bleeding and causing him to hit the ground and go unconcious(which I took for death). 3)The bullet did more than graze(perhaps the led slug flattened out on impact and arced around the outside of the skull before exiting the other side of the head) but doctors were able to save the man in surgery. 4)The man was carrying a lucky rabbit's foot. Hint: There is more than one answer. #'s 2 & 3 above are both regularly observed and mundane(non-extraordinary) explanations. Reason demands that we eliminate THOSE beforer we consider #1 or #4. The crucifixion in particular: First of all, we have no reliable historical evidence of the man named Jesus ever existing. A fraudulent insertion into Josephus' writings(long after he died most likely) and Tacitus' parroting of popular beliefs of the time. But that detail is rather incidental because even if, for teh sake of argument, I grant you the histroical truth of Jesus' existence we have teh following: Most people crucified in ancient Rome would take several days(sometimes nearly two weeks!) to die. The reason Romans started spearing and leg-breaking and all that was because they got tired of taking down an apparently dead man only to hear him start moaning and begging for mercy. There is a considerable likelihood that Jesus may not have been dead when taken down from the cross. He was only up for three days(tops!)! He could have played possum and gotten lucky. FAR more likely than the "magical ressurection" idea. In any case, even if we give you the existence of Jesus, we have no reason to think a ressurection happened. Accounts of any ressurection are better explained by human error and deception or delusion. quote:Why do you assume I would respond by trashing the Bible? I don't believe anything from the Cat in teh Hat either but I don't trash that book!? Anyways I don't even like to get into the Biblical errancy stuff. Boring. quote:LOL!!! Been a while since someone hit me with Lourdes. The funny thing about the alleged healing waters of Lourdes is that, if you go strictly by percentages adn statisitcs, you are actually better off staying at home and wishing on stars if you have cancer or some other terminal disease. The natural remission rates of those who have never been to Lourdes are slightly better than those who have!! Not much of a miracle! *Cue the ridiculous "Non-decomposing corpses of preserved saints" sketch wherein we learn all about the wonders of giving your dead friends frequent hot wax treatments so they don't look quite as bad as they should. quote:Cite? Anecdotal evidence is, sorry but I am going to be blunt here, Bulls#*t. Every religion from UFO cults to modern druidic-pagan tree worshippers make the same sorts of claims. NONE of them have any evidence that these things occured. ANYONE can say "SOmeone told me *this* happened and I believe it!" Again, Occam's razor suggests that pattern recognition and outright lying are more likely explanations. quote:Again, if you have a cite or something, it would do you a lot of good. The medical and scientific communities as a whoe are unaware of any such events. quote:ROTFLMAO!!! DO I even need to say anything...? quote:Oh no you don't! Post something stupid and I am going to call you on it! I go to all teh trouble of explaining the principle of the razor to you(that we do not UNECESSARILY multiply entities for explanation) and you do what? You post an unecessary multiplication of entities. All that is required to explain the flat is the nail. Beyond that we have no evidence pointing to what caused the nail. Having said THAT, "ordinary" explanations must be ruled out BEFORE "extraordinary" ones are considered. quote:[/b] No, guy, it isn't. First of all OR says nothing about "simplest" anything. I will allow "simplest" when used in the correct context of being synonomous with "Explanation which does not unecessarily multiply entities..." but NOT when by "simplest" you mean "The shortest answer". "God did it". Is a short answer, but it is also the one with the greatest possible multiplication of unecessary entities. quote:Crap, I could do three pages on that one paragraph(but I won't)! How is it moral to do things because you think you will be paid for them??? I will let Mr. Einstein tackle this one: "A man's ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties and needs; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death." -- Albert Einstein, "Religion and Science," New York Times Magazine, 9 November 1930 quote:Why do you believe that? I know you have not met every adult have you? In any case you AGAIN ignored very simple requests and instructions. I foresaw your answer in my previous reply and said specifically to address the matter as a hypotheitcal and NOT pull out the ad numeri argument. Now, without calling me a liar or any such childishness, let's try this again: I have a relative(good old uncle "Bob") who DOES believe that Wile E. Coyote is a real coyote who orders heat-seeking missles from A.C.M.E. to chase roadrunners with. Do you have a SINGLE BIT of evidence to say your God belief is more likely than his "cartoon belief"? quote:Not only is that a bald assertion (www.datanation.com/fallacies), but is probably comepletely false! People are often inspired to great things by simple entertainment. We constantly hear stories of the sick man who would not give up, motivated by his appreciation for Music/baseball/a certain TV show/a particular fictional character etc. Is it so hard to think that somebody hitting rock bottom from alcoholism and ready to cash in his chips would be brought out of his funk by a particularly funny Warner Bros. cartoon? quote:Even if this were true(it's not), it would be irrelevant. Are you even paying attention?! quote:WIle E. Coyote : 3 points God : 0 I cannot believe you just cited the propensity to act like an ass on the church floor and hallucinate as points for God. quote:Wile E. : 10 God : -7 Seriously though, are you trying to argue that people don't do catostrophic things for false beliefs?!? I refer you to 9/11, The Heaven's Gate cult, the Aztecs ritual sacrifie of several hundred people per year(eating their heartts even)etc. quote:Because you are not THINKING guy. You are presumming that other possible beliefs have a default status of being "silly" if you and yours do not follow them while YOUR beliefs should be granted better simply because you believe them. Try this(for real this time): Pretend for a minute that no one was rqaised with, indoctrinated into or otherwise coerced through their formative childhood years to believe in ANY extraordinary supernatural/spiritual/magical beliefs. Pretend that ANY such claims made are now on equal footing and evertyone is examining them for the first time. Now rank the following claims in order of likelihood and tell us why each gets whatever rank they get: a)Your God. b)Quetzelcoatyl c)Extraterrestrials seeded the planet and created religions as a joke. d)Genies wished the universe into existence and are in control of all. e)We are all just images in the mind of a sleeping child. quote:I don't use the "Stone so heavy..." argument because it is bollocks. The only thing more ridiculous in my mind is your above answer to the argument. If God cannot lift humanity then he is not omnipotent. End of paradox. God himself(since you have identified the "omni-God") cannot have free will so how could he give US free will? THink about this, God is sitting around X billion years ago. At this point, being all-knowing, he KNOWS that Adam and Eve will do as the Bible tells us they did. Now pay close attention here: God KNOWS...not "suspects" but KNOWS this, correct? Now at what point could God have pondered a decision to create humans adn give them free will? If he alreaady knows they will exist then he cannot decide not to create them without thwarting his previous knowledge. This applies to every single event and possible decision you can imagine. Omniscience and free will are mutually exclusive! -------------------- "I am in a very peculiar business. I travel all over the world telling people what they should already know." - James Randi Posts: 219 | Registered: Saturday, October 13 2001 07:00 |
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Shock Trooper
Member # 156
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written Sunday, January 30 2005 10:52
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Edit: Nevermind. Misread Creator's "list post". Okay I just had a gander at Creator's list and immediately saw what they were doing. They are counting anyone who believes or is generally thought to have believed that God created the universe. That is why they have Kepler, Pasteur, Faraday and the like on there. It is a "bait-and-switch" scam. There is a HUGE difference between a "Creationist"(note the capital 'C') and someone who believes in a "creator" of the universe. The more you check out that list of Creator's the more laughable adn obviously dishonest it truns out to be. The author calls C. Everett Koop a creationist because, and this will crack you up, someone told him that Koop wrote a private letter to them stating that evolution was mathematically impossible!! Not only an anecdote but anecdotal hearsay! Plus, I am no member of the C. Everett Koop fan club but having listene4d to him in the past, I have a hard time believing him to be so stupid as to fall for the "probability argument" against evolution. THe odds of evolutioon happening are 100%. This is because you cannot retroactively assign probabilities to an event that has transpired. Creator: Anytime you get ready to pull something off teh AiG or ICR or Dr. Dino(Kent Hovind) sites, you should ALWAYS head over to the Talkorgins site and make sure it isn't more nonsense that has already been refuted or flat out dishonest that has been exposed. Creationists in general are anything BUT honest. [ Monday, January 31, 2005 02:44: Message edited by: SkeleTony ] -------------------- "I am in a very peculiar business. I travel all over the world telling people what they should already know." - James Randi Posts: 219 | Registered: Saturday, October 13 2001 07:00 |
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Shock Trooper
Member # 156
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written Sunday, January 30 2005 11:06
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quote:Then you are saying that many, if not MOST Christians knowingly commit evil. Does not sound like a very good sales pitch for Christianity. quote:The above is downright laughable. I don't know who taught you that Christians agreed on some objective morality but you should punch them in the face for doing so. The only difference between the way Christians disagree and the way atheists disagree about moral issues is that Christians will invariably pull out the "No True Scotsman" fallacy to rationalize their position. Anyone doing different than they is not a "true Christian". They are not interpreting the scriptures correctly or are being fooled by the devil. We ALL do what we feel is "right" for completely selfish reasons. We enjoy being thought of in a certain way by others as well as ourselves. If I did not get a good feeling from returning someone's dropped/lost wallet/purse or somesuch then what would motivate me to keep doing so? But the fact is I DO get a good feeling when I do "good" even on the rare occasion when the beneficiary of my good deed seems unappreciative. I can sleep at night knowing that, for all my flaws I can still say I am honest and trustworthy. Historically, there have been cultures that favored values such as strength and ruthlessness over honesty and trust. In these societies morals are/were quite different. quote:Answer the following: Are "good" and "evil" determined simply by God's whim? Or is "good", good and "evil", evil and God simply recognizes them for what they are? If you answer "yes" to the first question(and therefore "no" to the second) then you concede that there is no reason child molestation cannot be "good" if God, hypothetically decided to make it so. The question then becomes IF God did such a thing, what would be YOUR reaction? If you say that you would NOT molest children then you are admitting that you have your own moral compass, regardless of what God might decree. YOU determine what is "good" and what is "evil" and you simply happen to think that God is "good". Either way you must admit that it is YOU who decides for yourself what is good and what is evil. On the question of how morals developed... We have morals for the same reason we have hair. Because we are an animal that does. Social/pack animals do not survive long without social ties. Even wolves and apes(okay nonhuman apes!) have codified behaviors they adhere to. A member breaking their social taboos is exiled or turned on violently! Paleontologists have discovered dinosaur remians of individuals who had suffered broken legs but did not die from those wounds. They had time to heal adn eventually die from other causes. This implies the group/pack was lookijng after the injured member. With the progression of time and onset of abstract thought and developement of language and tool use, simple behaviors like those above become more complex laws and ethics. Edit: wanted to add that empathy is one of the key factors for altruism. You will notice that humans feel far less guilty about stepping on spiders as they do killing humans. They feel somewhat more guilty about killing killing dogs adn cats. The more similar creatures are to one another, the easier it is to empathise with them. Hollywood movies use the trick of anthropomorphisization to play on this. The reason we jerk back tears when a collie or german shephard is killed in a movie is because the movie makes them almost totally human. Dogs' character/personality are exaggerated in movies and they are even given thoughts and behaviors which real dogs could not have. Lassie will find a way to break the language barrier and tell Timmy that someone has fallen into a deep well and needs help. Timmy would not have had a pet tarantula named "Lassie". ABout the best anthropomorphisizing of spiders done by Hollywood was with Charlotte's Web adn even that was of very limited sucess in terms of tear-jerking. [ Monday, January 31, 2005 02:35: Message edited by: SkeleTony ] -------------------- "I am in a very peculiar business. I travel all over the world telling people what they should already know." - James Randi Posts: 219 | Registered: Saturday, October 13 2001 07:00 |
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Shock Trooper
Member # 156
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written Sunday, January 30 2005 11:40
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quote:Anecdotal evidence is inadmissable in support of extraordinary claims. If I claim my sister is a nuclear physicist, this is an ORDINARY claim and IS supported by my anecdote. We regularly observe that people work as nuclear physicists and the claim is not something that would cause us to throw out much of what we have learned and observed for the last several thousand years. Claiming that a "miracle" occured is an extraordinary claim and requires extraordinary evidence to support it. NO AMOUNT of anecdote will support such a claim because we are always left with the more likely explanation that people are mistaken or lying or delusional. One of the first things you should be providing in support of your "miracle" is a mechanism. "God did it!" is as meaningless as "Someone did it with science!". We have to be able to scrutinise the phenomenom to understand that it did in fact happen as is claimed. If you cannot provide a mechanism then that is STRONG evidence AGAINST your miracle. Imaginary things do not have mechanisms. Tolkien never explained how magic worked because it DIDN'T and any attempt to explain it realistically would have ruined the fantasy and been laughable for anyone thinking in terms of realism. [ Monday, January 31, 2005 02:17: Message edited by: SkeleTony ] -------------------- "I am in a very peculiar business. I travel all over the world telling people what they should already know." - James Randi Posts: 219 | Registered: Saturday, October 13 2001 07:00 |
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Warrior
Member # 3978
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written Monday, January 31 2005 01:02
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Incredible. I make a post and come back to find it that there have been nearly 50 responses in just a couple days. Well, one person commented that an alligator might think/not think it was doing good when it killed someone's dog, which brings up guilt/innocence in the realm of good and evil. At the risk of misqouting, I'm going to use some ancient greek philosophy on the issue. Namely Socrates', despite how infamous he was, since I think it is the simplest way to explain. Socrates' once defined Bravery and Fearlessness. He said Fearlessness was what animals experienced. They did not know what death was, they do not truly understand it, therefore they can't fear it. At the risk of making a controversial and simplified statement: "They are too stupid to fear". The lack of rationalization on thier part makes them incapable of understanding the concept of thier own termination. Meanwhile, Bravery is when a person fears something, but has a stronger motivation than fear, allowing him to perform a task despite that emotion. Now try and apply this to Good, Evil, and Innocence. Animals can not do evil, because they do not understand it. If a baby where to knock over a glass onto the floor, would the baby be guilty of that crime? Or innocent, because it knew no better? Applying that to animals, when an animal kills something for food, it knows no better, therefore it is innocent. Now, if animals ARE capable of rationalizing good and evil, life and death, etc., and know that what they're doing is wrong, and do it anyway, that would fall into the category of an evil act. Meanwhile, if a person thinks they're doing right, how can you penalize them? If the soldier shoots the man running down the street with the pistol, thinking him to be a threat, how can you blame the soldier, should they later discover that said man was defending himself? Therefore, the soldier is "innocent" because he thought he was doing right. Thats my two cents, I hope I dont get buried in responses again :P Posts: 125 | Registered: Friday, February 13 2004 08:00 |
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...b10010b...
Member # 869
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written Monday, January 31 2005 01:22
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All the same, if I'm the one being killed, it makes no difference to me if my killer is an animal, a human who thinks he's doing good or a human who thinks he's doing evil. I'm the one who has to bear the immediate consequences of the action, and the consequences to me of my death are the same regardless of the exact cause. -------------------- My BoE Page Bandwagons are fun! Roots Hunted! Posts: 9973 | Registered: Saturday, March 30 2002 08:00 |
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Shock Trooper
Member # 156
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written Monday, January 31 2005 02:12
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Animals, including humans, DO know fear of inury. It is not a matter of being "too stupid to know". Those members of any given species who lacked this chemical redaction to the onset of danger didn't survive to pass on their crappy genetics via offspring. And almost NO ONE or no thing "knows they are doing evil". Hitler did not think he was doing evil. He was actually a fairly fundementalist catholic(except for the dabbling with pagan occultism a bit) and thought he was doing God's work. Same goes for Jim Jones and David Koresh and the 9/11 terrorists. These persons actions were evil by MY standards because I was not brainwashed or indoctrinated into the beliefs they held. Hitler's scapegoating of the Jews was not much different than Falwell/Robertson/JAmes Kenndy's scapegoating of atheists/gays/liberals. He was able to take it to the horrendous extremes he did because of the particular political & economic landscape of early 20th century Germany. Hell, as "Liberty-friendly" as our country was we STILL had MCarthyism/Jim Crow/Wallace and the like! In order for christians to understand how, for example, the Islamic terrorists are champions of righteousness by their moral standards, you have to imagine how you would feel and react if Christians, in America lived in abject poverty and misery and this was due in large part to Afghani Muslims bombing the crap out of your homeland and supporting your enemies. It doesn't matter that this is a misperception on their part(that America is waging war on Islam). What matters is that you are CONVINCED that this is so. If you were convicned, as a Christian in America of the above hypothetical then you would be cheering on "Freedom Fighters" who blow stuff up as well. Hell, many fundementalists cheer on Abortion clinic bombers as it is! -------------------- "I am in a very peculiar business. I travel all over the world telling people what they should already know." - James Randi Posts: 219 | Registered: Saturday, October 13 2001 07:00 |