[quote]Hanzo wrote:
maybe its just me but dawkins comes across a zealot.[/quote]
No, it’s not just you. As the year goes by, it seems Dawkins is slowly becoming a fundamentalist atheist.
If you stare into the Abyss long enough…
I’d prefer if he gave his anti-faith crusade a rest and went back to biology. His earlier books are excellent.
Pookie, you seem well read in this subject. I actually looked at picking up Rare Earth but it was just out my price range for the day. If you’re referring to this book when you speak about the single or rare Earth hyposthesis, would you recommend it?
You’re right about the way I said ‘science proves everything,’ I need to watch how I put things next time.
Lastly, what do you think of the cilia or flagellum as method of disproving some of Darwins views, especially the anti- intelligent design view. After reading some of Behe it seems that he’s found Darwins magical complex mechanism that would need to have started out that way in order for the human body as a whole to have worked from the begining.
[quote]john w wrote:
theistic evolution is:
matter+time+selection+God = end result
really you are reducing God to a small part of an equation. [/quote]
I like your math. In the equation:
1+1+1+100=103, is 100 a small part of the equation?
I also think the equation would be more like this:
God(matter+time+selection) = end result, whereby if God = 0, then the whole equation = 0.
DB
Some of the things being said here make me want to go on a crusade against religion. Then I look into the eyes of the average American and I remember why I don’t bother anymore. I’d rather teach quantum physics to a baby. “No, sweetpea, not ‘mama’. The answer is ‘i h-bar’. Good try though.”
Dare I ask why any of you believes in God? I mean, faith shouldn’t be the default. You might as well trust a stranger with the keys to your house.
[quote]mj_gk wrote:
Pookie, you seem well read in this subject. I actually looked at picking up Rare Earth but it was just out my price range for the day. If you’re referring to this book when you speak about the single or rare Earth hyposthesis, would you recommend it?[/quote]
Yes, it is a very interesting read. Depressing if you dream of having a Star Trek-like federation of alien races one day. 
Amazon has it listed at 11.53, by the way. Your local library should also have it.
All of Behe’s “irreducibly complex” mechanisms have had explanations (often many) proposed for them. I don’t remember the exact details off the top of my head, but a few internet searches should provide ample reading material.
I found this about the flagellum: http://www.pandasthumb.org/archives/2006/09/flagellum_evolu.html
It’s recent and apparently a work in progress (the author states that he must address the IDer’s “backup plans.”)
[quote]John S. wrote:
Im sorry but how is believing in God any stranger then evolution? You believe there is no God but your willing to believe that BY CHANCE these micro organsims decided to get together to make us? now im not saying evolution is wrong for all i know it could be the answer to how not why. what i mean by this is that God could have willed it to be that way which is perfectly reasonable.
p.s. Im a christian with a open mind about how we were created.[/quote]
Oh my god, you’re an idiot.
[quote]John S. wrote:
Yes they did create me im not saying i just poped up randomly. Evolution has so many holes in it tho its to early to judge. Now a good argument for God is that everything science can produce must result in a begining, Lets take the big bang for example.
it started when a white light imploded and created everything. fine sounds reasonable but where did that light come from?(now before you take this as me trying to change the subject its just a example). Now I know God is real through personal experiances in my life, hopefully you can experance it too.[/quote]
I should have waited until I saw this gem of a post to say something. You are so stupid you should’nt ever be let out of the house.
[quote]John S. wrote:
Im sorry but how is believing in God any stranger then evolution? You believe there is no God but your willing to believe that BY CHANCE these micro organsims decided to get together to make us? now im not saying evolution is wrong for all i know it could be the answer to how not why. what i mean by this is that God could have willed it to be that way which is perfectly reasonable.
p.s. Im a christian with a open mind about how we were created.[/quote]
In my opinion there are two types of Christians: 1)Those who adhere strictly to the Bible and 2) those who believe in God and believe in Christ but interperet the rest by their own means. You look like the second category based on your post, because to a category 1 Christian, evolution MUST be thought false, as the creation of the world is not described as such in the Bible.
It is not the belief in God or Christ that is the problem, you see, it is the strict adherance to the Bible which will equate to close-minded, sometimes absurd arguments.
The best approach is to merge spirituality with science, as I do. For instance I “believe” in chakras in the sense that I can use that “model of thought” to bring about what feels to me like spiritual benefit in my life. I also know that recent science has related the traditional ideas of chakras with certain organs of the endocrine system, which may explain the benefits that people have experienced throughout history practising this methodology of living.
[quote]John S. wrote:
My point is there is no begining. Time is irrelevant, There can not be a biggining its impossable. Science can not solve this because its beyond are understanding, As God states there is no beggining.[/quote]
People who say “are” instead of “our” prove that there is no god, and if there is, he doesn’t love us.
Well said. I love it when religious folks extoll the virtues of “faith”. Or better yet “blind faith”, lol.
John S. said he isn’t in this thread anymore, that is disappointing. We all had alot to learn from him.
[quote]BlakeAE wrote:
I wouldn’t expect everyone to be evolutionary biologists, but those that wish to make the claim evolution cannot be real, or claim “the missing link” proves such and such… you need to read more science articles and journals because you just aren’t understanding the science you are trying to debunk.
[/quote]
Nor, for that matter, do most of those in support of the theory of evolution.
[quote]Prince Vegeta wrote:
John S. said he isn’t in this thread anymore, that is disappointing. We all had alot to learn from him.[/quote]
Are you done being an asshole?
I didn’t think so.
I thought I would add some biological incite to this idea of “chance.” We use the word when describing the random mutations that cause evolution mostly for its convenience, not necessarily due to its complete accuracy.
DNA “mutates” for a number of known reasons (and some unknown ones too). There can simply be copying errors from the enzymes which copy dna where they slip forward or backward along the DNA strands as they copy resulting in missing matterial, or material being double copied.
There can also be environmental factors, such as UV light causing some parts of DNA to bond together which under normal circumstances would not (which ends up confusing the enzyme when it has to copy that dna). There are tons of other reasons, and i’m sure plenty of ones we just have not discovered yet.
My point is, DNA does not just decide one day that it wants to be something else randomly; There are physics-based reasons mutations do occur. There is some degree of chance, but not to the extent that the whole process of mutation is entirely random and arbitrary.
Secondly, I wanted to emphasis that evolution is not quite the instantaneous process that some are claiming it is (typically as a straw man to knock down evolution).
The theory doesn’t say something like Generation One of a species one day had no eyes, and the next Generation suddenly all had 2 eyes with perfect vision." Evolution says that changes are occuring over millions of generations.
These complex things (such as eyes) would have started as perhaps a single cell that could detect the presense or absense of light. If that trait was advantageous, its possible that the creatures with that feature were better able to survive, thus multiply and reproduce. Over more generations perhaps another mutation occured that gives this species 2 light detecting cells, which would enable them to sense the movement of light.
These types of changes keep occuring. Each time its just a small incremental change, however, if you add up the sum total of all these small incremental changes over millions of years, they can amount to something which is quite complex.
[quote]T-Nick wrote:
Hanzo wrote:
dawkins vs francis collins, covers much of what is being discussed on this message board.
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1555132,00.html
maybe its just me but dawkins comes across a zealot.
The time article is initially what led me to the book.
I do find it very, very interesting that a significant percentage of the worlds most brightest minds, past and present, from all walks of science, have been athiests.
[/quote]
Yes, but a very significant percentage of the greatest minds in the history of the human race have also been theists. So…what? You know? I mean, there are great minds on both sides of this fight, both past and present. Currently, however, and for the past few decades, the only people being heard have been the zealots from both sides.
That’s happened more with the theists, and ends up in my mind being a misrepresentation and harmful image of what it means to be a theist. This is particularly frustrating because I know a number of people (and more than a few academics) that consider themselves both rational thinkers and theists.
They don’t believe in God because they think it’s easier. They just think it’s true (or, more properly put, ‘probably true’). In a lot of ways it is harder, especially when they has to live with continually being derided and mocked as wacko nutjobs with no understanding of the logical underpinnings of argumentation. The zealots have also been played up a fair amount with the atheists, but because they are invoking the name of the god “Science” they are not called on it as much (some are).
Something about Dawkins turns my stomach. He is vitriolic towards religion, and I personally would much rather talk about religion with intelligent but respectful people on either side. Wit is easy to handle, but hatred stresses the whole discussion.
Re: the post about God creating us this way, facade of free will, etc. and being solely responsible for the result–the nature of the statement presupposes the existence of God for the purposes of the argument, but it is not sound logic to accuse the being who gave you your rational abilities of being evil.
If He defines the rules and created the game, then He can’t be wrong, no matter how it frustrates us. Further, I think you should look up the “free will defense” of Plantinga to this general position. It is very interesting.
Finally, BlazeAE wrote
This particular statement is interesting, but flawed. It is ambiguously written, but I think the general sentiment is
a)if religion were completely harmless, religious people would let everyone do their thing.
and
b)because Dawkins believes religion to be harmful, he is justified in acting on it and doing what he can by presenting his views in an effort to persuade people. No harm done.
Well, I think the problem is obvious. I agree with premise b). If someone believes harm is being done, then they should be able to present their views and try to persuade people. In fact, to percieve harm being done and to not do anything about it is apathetic and disgraceful.
I would extend this position to say that you should have the ability to try to persuade people even if there wasn’t any harm being done, simply because you think it is wrong/untrue.
Problem: whenever a theist (in particular, a Christian) presents his/her point of view and tries to persuade someone, he/she is told not to “push your beliefs on people”.
But let’s review the example from the the theist’s perspective–a) perceived harm is occuring on a wide scale to people in the world due to conditions of which they may or may not be unaware. b) You think that you have a solution to the problem. As such you are compelled to state your position and try to persuade people.
This is the same situation that Dawkins perceives himself and the world to be in. They are equivalent in this formulation. Either they must both be allowed to try to persuade people or neither must be allowed to “push his/her beliefs on people”.
So, going back to the original argument, it is unreasonable to hold that religion is harmful (in part or in whole) because religious people do not allow everyone to do their own thing without speaking up. This is imposing a double standard. I regret that I am too lazy to draw out the specific details and variations to this position, but I really think my general formulation implies the variations directly and is rational if one thinks about it.
Ok, so that’s it. I’m checking out of here. I’ve made it a point to stay out of these discussions, and I plan on reinstating my observatory status.
[quote]MikeTheBear wrote:
The more I read about science and the universe, the more I’m inclined to think that there probably is a Supreme Being or Force (if you’re a Star Wars fan) that started it all. [/quote]
I wholeheartedly agree. It is more than simply mindblowing.
[quote]
When I read about some of these religious groups and what they stand for, the more I think that organized religion is a crock.[/quote]
I see that. But then, you have to figure that just as everyone is not a Richard Dawkins, not every religious group is a crock. And organized religion should not be dismissed wholesale because of militant crazies who are under a banner with that religion’s name. There are just as many truly selfless organizations out there.
Oftentimes it’s the people themselves that are misunderstanding what their positions are, what they are fighting against, or misapplying lessons they should have learned from their sacred texts.
Ok, I’m really out this time.
God sucks. Live with it.
[quote]Aragorn wrote:
MikeTheBear wrote:
The more I read about science and the universe, the more I’m inclined to think that there probably is a Supreme Being or Force (if you’re a Star Wars fan) that started it all.
I wholeheartedly agree. It is more than simply mindblowing.
[/quote]
This is such an antiquated mindset. I could picture you two discovering fire, beating your chests and screaming at the sky.
You’re smarter than that, aren’t you? Please, explain the inclination. It always seems to me that the more intelligent the theist, the harder time he has explaining himself. He realizes the irrationality and it always boils down to, “I don’t know…it’s just the way I feel. Shut up.” Yeah, well I like apples but I don’t like apple cider.
[quote]HardcoreHorn wrote:
Prince Vegeta wrote:
John S. said he isn’t in this thread anymore, that is disappointing. We all had alot to learn from him.
Are you done being an asshole?
I didn’t think so.[/quote]
lol I agree, VP, what the heck did you add to this thread? Calling him an idiot in every post or telling him he shouldn’t leave the house? At least he was putting his ideas out there. WTF are you doing except hanging in the cheap seats tossing nonsense?
[quote]pookie wrote:
Hanzo wrote:
maybe its just me but dawkins comes across a zealot.
No, it’s not just you. As the year goes by, it seems Dawkins is slowly becoming a fundamentalist atheist.
If you stare into the Abyss long enough…
[/quote]
Interesting point. I think that was the crux of the South Park episodes where Cartman is obsessed with getting the Nintendo Wii, goes into the future and there Dawkins theories have won out… but things are no better because instead of religious zealots, there are atheists zealots who use “Science” instead of “God” to call everyone else around them wrong and start wars. lol