[quote]IrishSteel wrote:
Everything except provide any logical reason to believe in him.
[quote]jp_dubya wrote:
What’s a bible?[/quote]
A collection of fairy tales about rape, incest and genocide.
Push, stop proving pookies point.
[quote] Buddha, I quit reading your post after, “There is no scientific debate about evolution.” You are an atheistic imbecile whose faith in the secular is ironclad and unquestionable. The caricature of the fire-breathing preacher I posted above befits you well. Professing yourself to be wise you have indeed become a fool.
[/quote]
the only debate about evolution is about the details. there is no argument in life sciences whether theory of evolution is valid or not; only how the specific mechanisms work.
[quote]IrishSteel wrote:
Well Pookie - thanks for sharing all of your wonderful opinions with me . . . it was so refreshing to hear a new perspective from someone who does not believe in Christianity . . .oh, wait- you just regurgiated all the same crap we hear all the time in threads like this from people well indoctrinated with the theory of the day - tons and tons of derogatory BS mixed in with piles of steaming opinions worth about as much as the time it took for you to barf them up . . . Glad you have your dogma so well memorized that real discussion are pointless - you are a true believer in your doctrines and extreme fundamentalist agnostic . . . Have fun with that . . . when you really want to discuss some issues feel free to let me know . . .[/quote]
Need I point out the dodge and run tactic here? Along with the usual ad hominems seen when your amoral bunch gets frustrated.
You claim you arrive at your faith through reason and science. When your points are addressed one by one and shown to be either incorrect, incomplete or unscientific, you then cry “dogma”, “indoctrination”, “fundamentalism” etc. I see your God values integrity and intellectual honesty.
As for dogma, show me a theory that better explains the biosphere than Evolution and I’ll change my mind. Show me a theory that better explains the infinitesimal than our current Standard Model with Quantum Mechanics and I’ll change my mind. Show me a cosmological model that explains more observational data than the Big Bang and does away with many of that theory’s problems and I’ll change my mind. I have no personal stake in any of those theories. I’m interested in what’s true and fascinated by the quest to understand our universe.
What could be told or shown to you so that you’d change your mind? Nothing. Your so-called “reasoned” faith is nothing of the sort; on the contrary, you spend vast amount of energy defending it against reason and evidence of it being false.
Your cries about dogma, indoctrination and fundamentalism are a reflection of your situation; not mine. But I’m sure you’ll go on claiming that you want to openly discuss issues and ascribing your own failings to others whenever you find yourself backed into a corner.
[quote]THE_CLAMP_DOWN wrote:
pat wrote:
THE_CLAMP_DOWN wrote:
pat wrote:
Makavali wrote:
IrishSteel wrote:
But then your treatment of people is based on a lie - you treat them as being more special than cockroaches when they really truly are not . . .
Sigh. If the human race was wiped out, I’m sure the planet would carry on fine.
THAT is what I’m saying. You make it sound like we are the “chosen” species, when in fact we are just another species. There is nothing that makes us more or less important than cockroaches.
Negative, we are way different than any other species that has ever lived. We can choose to go against are own nature, no other animal can do that.
define our nature and how we are “rebelling”.
I’ll give you two examples. Name another animal that can willfully commit suicide. Name another animal that willfully chooses to have sex, but purposefully prevents conception?
so consciousness is the key?[/quote]
Will, not consciousness.
You can be conscious that you are going down a raging river, but powerless to stop it, despite your will.
[quote]pookie wrote:
THE_CLAMP_DOWN wrote:
I cant grasp the idea of Faith? To believe the tv will turn on because I clicked the correct button on the remote–thats rational faith…for it is based off reason. ie the tv has turned on before.
Yeah, credophiles are apparently unaware that the word “faith” has multiple meanings, one of them being “faith” in the same sense as “trust”. You have “faith” that the TV will turn on when you click the remote, because past experiences have taught you that that’s the expected outcome from that action. It is not an irrational faith in something supernatural you’ve been told to believe by someone who was told to believe by yet someone else and so on; and for which there is zero evidence.
Ah well, just one more little game credophiles need to play to divert the discussions off their funny beliefs. They learn that useful skill at the Humpty Dumpty Debate Seminar: words mean just what they want them to mean; and only for whatever time it is convenient for them to mean what they meant them to mean.
Although it is amusing to see them go “…and for X you need… FAITH!!! A-HA! Game, set and match!!!” as if lack of vocabulary skills made up for lack of evidence. Yes, having faith that your kid will succeed at something - because he worked hard and is well prepared - is EXACTLY the same faith that has you believing in an invisible Sky Fairy who’s so subtle and undetectable that it’s like He’s not even there. And since the same word describes two completely different feelings, the Sky Fairy definitely exists. Like, totally.
Other useful tools of the credophiles: Circular logic, straw men, requiring opponents to prove negatives, absence of evidence as evidence of existence, smart = evil, old dead guys were smarter (but not evil in their case) than anyone alive today, requiring burdens of evidence from opponents that they can’t meet themselves, declaring impossibilities as axiomatic, lack of scientific explanation automatically meaning their fantasy made-up explanation is correct, etc. But I digress.
What we really need is a new word for the kind of “faith” the credophiles cling to so hard. I propose “failth”. It combines the words “faith”, “fail” and “filth” and, I think, properly establishes the correct meaning of what they’re so unsuccessfully trying to both convey and desperately find in others. That way, we can say “I have faith that my kid will use his reason instead of joining the ranks of the failthful” and avoid any further etymological confusion.
So come, all ye failthful, let us return to our now clearer discussions.
[/quote]
So you use a Red Herring to strengthen your side…Now that’s funny.
Please show examples of said strawmen and circular reasoning. Affirming a “negative” as you call it is not fallacious as it is done in mathematics all the time. However, arguing that something does not exist is not a negative. A “nothing” is a complete absence and hence cannot be either negative or positive.
[quote]pookie wrote:
Ah, pushy, too bad you can’t trade endurance for intellect. The rope is yours. I’ll address an actual argument instead:
IrishSteel wrote:
5. You claim science is not on our side - and we say the same about you (see creation versus evolution thread)
There is no scientific debate about evolution. None. Nada. There exists zero other supported theory who explains the living world we see around us.
Creationism is just saying “God did it.” It explains nothing.
-and in the end you have no cause for the universe except that the Universe is Omnipotent (it has decided its own course and developed everything contained within it including the laws which govern it),
I have yet to see a scientific paper where the universe is described as being self-aware. There are way too many questions left to answer to give any definitive description of the universe. We don’t know if it’s the only one or one of a multitude; we don’t know if it could be different, or if any universe has to be like this one, etc. Again, you’re straw-manning science and arguing against something completely different.
Omniscient (the universe knows which species is most fit for survival and has moved towards every more complex forms of life when its own laws say everything moves towards decline, decay and devolution)
Natural selection’s only criteria is whether an organism can reproduce or not. Reproduce more than your competition and you “win”, don’t and you go extinct. There is no goal, no end design to be attained and more complex forms only persist if they outcompete the simpler ones. You understand nothing of the theory you reject. Your “decline, decay and devolution” has already been addressed, but here to, you’re simply way off base on the science involved. You can get more complex forms from simpler ones and order from chaos without needing a supernatural agent and without violating any physical laws.
and Omnipresent (the universe - energy and matter - has always been and will always be) - you assign all of the Divine attributes to the inanimate universe and cannot explain its origin
It appears to be you who assigns attributes to the universe. Point me to a scientific article (say, something published in Scientific American, so we don’t get a “scientific” URL from answersingenesis.org) who posits ANY of the attributes you claim for the universe.
You’re making up a position nobody holds and saying yours is no more ridiculous. Well yes, but no one holds that position.
So your actual made-up beliefs are way better than the beliefs you make up and ascbribe to non-believers? If that works for you as an intellectual argument, well I don’t know what to say. Pray for guidance or something… Read science books not written by theologians or apologists.
[/quote]
And having faith in science means there is no God, how exactly? You are the one using “God did it” as an explanation…I see no where, theology and science are at odds.
You can keep thumping the science book if you want, it’s means nothing.
[quote]pushharder wrote:
Let me say it again or ask it, if we are strictly products of biochemical processes then somewhere within those processes is…“good” or “morality”. Somewhere it should be able to be scientifically examined.[/quote]
You can scientifically measure the values people place on different actions, as people like Kohlberg have done.
However, that is very different from claiming that morality exists in the objective universe, rather than being a construct of the brain. Saying that I value working out is no different from saying I like ice cream, from an objective perspective. Both represent valences associated with different mental constructs, based on the happiness I associate with those constructs.
[quote]pat wrote:
So you use a Red Herring to strengthen your side…Now that’s funny.[/quote]
I’m proposing to separate the meaning of faith/trust from failth/belied in order to have a clearer discussion. It is entirely pertinent to the thread at hand and especially relevant since push had used the “for X you need…faith” ploy (conflating both meanings) twice the week before.
Straw men example: Any post of IrishSteel where he talks about science or the universe. His example where he says that fossils are dated from the rocks in which they are found, and the rocks from the fossil they contain is a fine example. That’s not how it works. But he claims it is and argues against it.
Circular reasoning - How about the classic:
10 The Bible is the word of God.
20 (How do we know that?)
30 The Bible says so.
40 (How do we know we can trust the Bible?)
50 The Bible is infallible.
60 (How do we know it’s infallible?)
70 goto 10
We’re not debating math here, are we? No one argues for the non-existence of anything here. Some of us would like evidence for the existence of that God you claim to know exists and which you’re all unable to provide.
[quote]pat wrote:
And having faith in science means there is no God, how exactly? You are the one using “God did it” as an explanation…I see no where, theology and science are at odds.
You can keep thumping the science book if you want, it’s means nothing. [/quote]
Science says nothing about God. It shows how many phenomena can occur through entirely natural means, without required a “divine” or “supernatural” intervention. I’ve been replying to many believer’s claim to arrive at their faith through science and reason. The problem is that what they call science is nothing of the sort and most of the reasoning they use is to defend their biblical stories from facts who conflict with them.
Theology and science are at odd because theology - based on unsubstantiated beliefs - claims to be a valid mechanism to reveal truths about the world. Science has a testable and self-correcting mechanism to arrive at truth from research, hypothesis, tests and experiences.
One method produces valid, useable results. The other produces no tangible benefits; unless maybe as a crutch for people who have trouble handling life’s uncaring events. If that was the extent of it’s reach, they’d be no problem. It’s when theology tries to interfere with science and asks that it’s myths be taught on equal “scientific” footing with actual science that we have problems.
[quote]IrishSteel wrote:
You see influence as cause, you see no autonomy in our existence - I get that.[/quote]
I never said that. I think it’s possible we have free will, but am also acknowledging the possibility that free will is an illusion.
Why do you think free will implies the presence of a “soul”? It doesn’t, nor does it imply the existence of a god(s). There are other possible explanations for free will that don’t depend on a supernatural explanation, or that involve supernatural explanations that are not divine. You’re choosing to focus on just one possibility, rather than acknowledging the range of possibilities that exists.
If you look at the valences people place on different factors in the decision, you can understand why they made the decision that they did. If people choose action X over action Y, it is because they believed action X would ultimately produce the most desirable outcome, according to their unique system of beliefs, values, attitudes, and preferences.
That is one possibility of many. However, you still beg the question of ultimate causality by inferring the existence of a soul which was created by “god”. If your god created Abel, knowing in advance that he would choose righteousness, and created Cain, knowing in advance that he would choose to kill his brother, then your god bears ultimate responsibility for his creations. Yes, god didn’t make those choices himself, but STILL god had perfect knowledge. He could have avoided the situation in the first place by not creating Cain. If I knew in advance that my son would ultimately murder another person, by still choosing to father him despite that knowledge, I would bear some responsibility for the consequences resulting from his actions.
[quote]And if the emotion is not dependent on the chemical (thus no affect on the brain) - where is the emotion occurring?
[/quote]
How do you know the same chemical response isn’t occurring in the brain, but is driven by different causes? Meditation can produce a feeling of peace, but that doesn’t mean meditation doesn’t alter the chemistry of the brain.
[quote]Chushin wrote:
Not sure if I’m the “head sheep,” but since when is Pookie against pointing out clearly innacurate statements? Seems to me you’d have jumped on such a comment had the shoe been on the other hoof.[/quote]
Yeah, pushy, where oh where is that scientific debate about evolution?
It’s not really bullshit if you’re ignorant of the situation. I don’t know why you guys are so impassioned by Sri Lankan politics, but personally, buddhism impacts my life - here in North America - not one iota. I wasn’t aware they were so many Sri Lankan Catholic immigrants on these forums.
Again, I don’t live in the muslim world. Here, in Quebec, the current pressure groups who are trying to force their religion in schools are all catholics. The rest of Canada is mostly afflicted with protestant groups. Even the Jews here, which number less than the muslims, are more annoying with their constant demands for special rights and exclusions and with their constant flaunting of secular laws.
[quote]pushharder wrote:
Mon nom est Pookie et je suis ici pour vous sauver de votre �¢me inexistante.[/quote]
Your french is excellent. It is a rare occasion when someone can post an entire sentence without making a single mistake.
[quote]pushharder wrote:
wrote:
What’s a bible?
Eet eez a boook whuss naim eez commonlie knot kappitalyzed bi eets deeetractors. Theese eez a taktick imploided tu shew reebellyun and eez esspshully eefektif.[/quote]
Your redneck is excellent. It is a rare occasion when someone can post an entire sentence without missing a single mistake.
[quote]IrishSteel wrote:
How many times have I expressed my happiness with people who express a different set of beliefs than mine?[/quote]
You may genuinely respect the beliefs of others that differ from your own, rather than trying to legislate your beliefs on others. If so, that is great, but unfortunately many of the religious are not so equanimous. I’ve noticed a correlation between fundamentalism and civil zealotry in that regard. The more literalist people are about their religious beliefs, the more justified they feel in voting for laws that reflect those beliefs, and in holding others accountable to those laws, despite those people not sharing their beliefs.
[quote]pookie wrote:
pat wrote:
And having faith in science means there is no God, how exactly? You are the one using “God did it” as an explanation…I see no where, theology and science are at odds.
You can keep thumping the science book if you want, it’s means nothing.
Science says nothing about God. It shows how many phenomena can occur through entirely natural means, without required a “divine” or “supernatural” intervention. I’ve been replying to many believer’s claim to arrive at their faith through science and reason. The problem is that what they call science is nothing of the sort and most of the reasoning they use is to defend their biblical stories from facts who conflict with them.
[/quote]
Science isn’t in the business of discovering, proving or disproving anything religious or divine. It is a pure empirical method, whose purpose is to show correlation and imply causal relationships.
You are mistaken, theology is not interested in explaining anything about the world.
theâ??olâ??oâ??gyâ??â??/θiË?É?lÉ?dÊ?i/ Show Spelled Pronunciation [thee-ol-uh-jee] Show IPA
â??noun, plural -gies. 1. the field of study and analysis that treats of God and of God’s attributes and relations to the universe; study of divine things or religious truth; divinity.
2. a particular form, system, branch, or course of this study.
I often find that science strengthens theological perspectives, not at odds with them in any way. Present a scientific argument that nullifies a theological hypothesis or truth.
There are theologians who follow a strict biblical interpretation who would try to force the “bible as a book of fact” methodology as the end all be all and try to force science to comply by force. But those are rare people. The bible is a book of truths that sometimes contain facts to explain said truths, but it is not a book of archeological or geological fact. Those who tout that are just simply wrong.
[quote]pookie wrote:
pat wrote:
So you use a Red Herring to strengthen your side…Now that’s funny.
I’m proposing to separate the meaning of faith/trust from failth/belied in order to have a clearer discussion. It is entirely pertinent to the thread at hand and especially relevant since push had used the “for X you need…faith” ploy (conflating both meanings) twice the week before.
Please show examples of said strawmen and circular reasoning.
Straw men example: Any post of IrishSteel where he talks about science or the universe. His example where he says that fossils are dated from the rocks in which they are found, and the rocks from the fossil they contain is a fine example. That’s not how it works. But he claims it is and argues against it.
Circular reasoning - How about the classic:
10 The Bible is the word of God.
20 (How do we know that?)
30 The Bible says so.
40 (How do we know we can trust the Bible?)
50 The Bible is infallible.
60 (How do we know it’s infallible?)
70 goto 10
[/quote]
Can’t speak for others, but I don’t recall seeing this argument made. However, I haven’t read every single post, so it may have happened.
You would have to be willing to consider the evidence, where as you stated earlier, you reject anything potentially divine outright. There are evidences…I have presented things before, but I don’t feel like reliving them I prefer the stance of reason. It’s the only thing that works in this format.
[quote]pat wrote:
You are mistaken, theology is not interested in explaining anything about the world.[/quote]
It sure it interested in controlling how we interact with said world, though. Who can marry who and how many, what can be taught in school, what days should be holidays, when can work be done, what can be eaten, what research is acceptable, whether abortions should be performed, who should pray, where and when etc.
For something you claim is so uninterested in the world, it sure meddles a lot.