Interesting trends in the Gulch
I have been following with (not very) amused intrest how a lot of the conversations here in the Gulch go from their topic subject to either a heated debate about Religion, or, less frequently, a heated debate about Sexuality and Sex. It does wonders to boost a topic's point and post count... but really stinks when you see a good, timely, and interesting topic, go to add or comment, and it's now a theological or psychosexual discussion.
While I do know that Humanity tends to shy away from mental work, and instead default to the base and easy, I was surprised to see this becoming a rising trend here in the Gulch, and rising exponentially over the past 30-60 days.
While I do know that Humanity tends to shy away from mental work, and instead default to the base and easy, I was surprised to see this becoming a rising trend here in the Gulch, and rising exponentially over the past 30-60 days.
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Heinlein's "The Past Through Tomorrow" has some similarities. Lazarus Long is the John Oldman character, and the source of the "Achilles" legend. Lararus moves less frequently than Oldman - routinely using makeup to appear to "age", before faking his death and moving on.
Quite frankly, why would anyone care why primitive man did anything unless it's of use today (aside from purely anthropological or historical reasons)?
The universe was created by Barney the Dinosaur. Go ahead and try to disprove it.
And sadly yes I know the smell of death. Why do you assume we have buried the dead for centuries on end simple because of the smell?
As one "for instance" in response to your question, "How do you know science is still young?", I point to my earlier mention of the sequencing of the human genome. Knowledge that is scarcely 7 years old can only be called "old" or "dead" by someone who is well under the age of seven.
I'm afraid you've outed yourself.
Ever been around a dead body on, say, the 10th day in a warm climate?
Practical necessities aside, if you are referring to ritualistic burials, what you appear to be doing is using superstition and lack of understanding by ancient peoples as some sort of evidence that their actions were rational. This is a common theme among many religions - where a practice is old and long observed, it becomes "rational" by inheritance. Never mind that if the SAME practices were initiated today, we'd see them as lunacy.
The Pharaohs had everything from combs and bowls to jewels and furniture buried with them for use in the "afterlife". When you're buried, do you expect your relatives to toss in a couch and a microwave for you to use later? That would be absurd. But there's no denying that Egytian burial practices are precisely the type to which you refer.
>>We agree that the universe is a binary, viz. it was created or it has always existed.
Actually, I don't think that's what proponents of the Big Bang Theory believe at all. If they are correct, clearly the universe has not always existed. Yet "creation" implies a "creator" - and so it cannot be said that BBT implies creation. Under BBT, the BB is an event that simply "happened". Nothing is rationally known about the cause, though many whackos claim to have "knowledge" of what happened over 13 billion years ago.
The point here is that those who claim to know how the universe started (the cause of the BB) are asserting their own personal beliefs without benefit of factual evidence. No one knows what happened before the BB. It may simply be that there WAS no "before". But to claim that "god" did it, is to claim knowledge that no man may have. One might as well claim, and with equal validity I might add, that "Barney the Dinosaur" did it.
"Another assumption." BambiB
All knowledge begins with assumptions based on observations. You go on to write "As for the rest, science is still young." This is an assumption on your part. How do you know that science is still young? How do you know that science hasn't died of old age? How?
One need only point out that if carbon were not plentiful, carbon-based life would not have evolved, and we would not be here. Perhaps some other elemental combination would have given rise to "life", but the mere fact that we are here is not proof that the universe was designed for us.
Do you have similar illusions regarding life in general? For example, if a bus comes along just when you need it, do you simply accept that the bus would have come anyway? Or do you assign mystical qualities to the arrival of the bus, including claiming that the odds that the bus would come along at JUST THAT INSTANT IN TIME to be so astronomical as to prove the existence of a "superior being" in arranging its arrival at just the time you needed it?
For all we know, there are other universes. They may be so numerous that their numbers dwarf the number of atoms in our own universe. With that sort of ubiquity, how "unlikely" is it that the carbon production cycle would exist in some of them? And in the rest, where the cycle does not exist, do you believe there are humans who say… oh wait. In THOSE universes, humans cannot exist. Aren't you glad you aren't in one of those universes?
I make a better offer than the bible, and you don't even want to hear it?
Aside from your quibble over semantics, I think you make my case for me. In order to accept the christian premise, one must abandon rationality. One may pick it up later, but by then, the damage is done. You presumably assume that god has certain characteristics (the axiom), then proceed from that assumption.
But why not substitute an equally-valid assumption, that the costumed character, "Barney the Dinosaur" is god? Once you've accepted that equally-valid axiom, you can cannot contradict it!
>> But you didn't ask me to provide any empirical evidence.
True. So I ask now. Where is your evidence? Don't hold back. Let's have it all, though I warn you that if it is of the flavor, "I prayed for an unlikely event to occur and it did" I may be too wracked with laughter to properly compose a reply.
Would not such a person be a moron?
Matter, energy, determinism, and randomness (i.e., chaos, somewhat like your posts) do not create codes. Codes are mappings between two sets of symbols, and the mappings are mere conventions, undetermined by the physical composition of the symbols themselves (the mapping of the English letter "S" to the Morse Code symbol "***" is not determined by the physical laws governing ink on paper, or the geometry of wavy lines; it's a convention — an arbitrary choice — thought up by the mind of Samuel Morse). Similarly, the mapping between a codon triplet along the DNA helix and its corresponding amino acid floating around freely in the cell is undetermined by the chemical composition of the nucleotides or the chemical composition of amino acids; in fact, the codon triplet and its corresponding amino acid never physically meet, touch, or interact: DNA never interacts with amino acids, and mRNA never interacts with amino acids.
The existence of codes in living organisms is empirical evidence that Mind was involved in their creation.
Additionally, astrophysicist Sir Fred Hoyle claimed that the production of the element carbon — essential for life —in the interior of stars through nuclear resonance is so unlikely as to suggest strongly that stars themselves are manufactured expressly for the purpose of creating carbon. He claimed that the "fine-tuning" of physical constants governing physical law is so unlikely that they strongly suggest they've been "monkeyed with" (his words).
He should know. He not only worked in this field his entire life, but discovered the process of nuclear resonance that creates carbon.
Oh, and by the way, he was an atheist.
To agree with an opponent's premise to argue an incorrect conclusion is a perfectly valid form of disputation.
That you seem dismayed by it suggests you're a bit weak in the logic department. (Don't fret. You'll find many kindred spirits here. You won't be lonely.)
>First you say it's not abandonment of reason, then you imply that reason is not involved?
Ever hear of a dictionary? Look up the word "abandonment" and get back to me when you've understood its various definitions.
(Hint: when someone puts down a screwdriver and picks up a hammer for the purpose of driving a nail into wood, no one — except a philosophical drama-queen such as you, perhaps — would histrionically claim that he is "abandoning" the screwdriver, or suggest that he's thinking to himself, "henceforth, I shall not have anything to do with screwdrivers! I and screwdrivers part ways for eternity! O Screwdriver! I abandon thee!")
>You claim that "faith" isn't an axiomatic assumption - that empirical evidence can be the foundation… yet you offer NONE.
But you didn't ask me to provide any empirical evidence.
Also, you didn't paraphrase me accurately. I did not say that faith "is not" axiomatic; I said that faith need not be axiomatic — it can be based on evidence. That doesn't preclude someone else from holding it axiomatically.
Axioms are matters of choice.
You say theists can not be objectivists. There was a suggestion that some here are pseudo-objectivists, it may have been directed at me, I would hope to be at least a fellow traveler, so would be many of the theists on here. Some express genuine opinions, sometimes in error and display ignorance of the merits of logic, thinking and the scientific method. Argument to be effective should be conducted with civility and with consideration of 'face'. This is not a debate where winners are decided by an outside judge. There is one poster here who constantly fails such criteria.
I am sure that you are familiar with the Devon School district case in which the Christian judge prohibited the teaching of so-called intelligent design as science on the grounds that it was not science but a masquerade for the views of a religious sect. His ruling was scathing about the dishonesty of those trying it on. This site is faced with a similar minority of about one trying it on.
Another assumption.
As for the rest, science is still young. The universe had a 13+ billion year head start. That so much is understood bodes well for us to eventually create life, cheat death and dispense with the superstition about gods.
Once man trembled at lightning. Now electricity is our servant. Once the power of the atom was not only unsuspected, but locked away. Today we power entire countries with it. Or destroy entire cities. We've reached a point were a laptop computer may have gigabytes of RAM and terabytes of mass storage for a cost of a few hundred dollars. Fifty years ago, all the money in the world would not have bought you that capability.
Watson and Crick won the Nobel prize for the discovery of DNA in 1962. The first sequencing of the human genome took place less than seven years ago and cost in the neighborhood of a million dollars. Now you can get your own genome mapped for about 1/1000 of that price. There is a huge amount of information in DNA, but the more sequences that are run, the more we know, and the analysis can be done in large part by computer programs. It won't be long before we can edit DNA, then synthesize it. Having first destroyed the claim that the sun revolved around the earth, and finally, that only "god" can create life, science will finally eliminate every doubt regarding the irrelevance of "god".
Also sprach Zarathustra.
The concept of "god" is an old one. It has generally outlived its usefulness. In time, the idea of "praying" to a "god" will be as outdated as wearing garlic to ward off vampires. Bibles will join the rabbit's foot and knocking on wood or crossing your fingers for luck as curiosities in a bygone age. god is dead. Just as there are luddites who eschew electricity and computers, so there will be those who cling to old superstitions long after the rest of the world has moved on.
I won't be one of them.
Now by most measures, the divorce rate among christians is about the same as the general population. But then there are those who claim otherwise. For example, this article http://thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/tgc/... appears to make your argument that all those christians who divorce aren't "real" christians. So I guess when statisticians say "about 30% of the world's population are christian", they're talking about "real" christians and "fake" christians combined. And since we know that about half of all marriages among "christians" end in divorce, we have to assume that half of all christians are fake christians by reason of divorce. Of the remainder, it seems reasonable that only half are "real" christians. After all, half of non-christians don't divorce, so it doesn't make sense that it's just the "real" christians who remain married. What this indicates is that on the issue of divorce alone, the number of "real" christians is probably less than 25% of the 30% of people in the world - or about 7.5%.
Well, what else do "real" christians do, or not do that sets them apart from fake christians?
If people only go to church once a month, are they "real" christians? How about if they don't tithe? Real christian? Fake christian? If they don't turn the other cheek? What if they take the "lord's" name in vain? What if they (*gasp*) covet their neighbor's ass?
The takeaway here should be that at least 3/4 of all christians are fake.
Oh save me! Save me! I don't want to be a muslim slave! I don't want to be an atheist slave! I wanna be a christian slave!
/sarcasm
But christians don't do that. All their evidence is "some day" and "in the future". Revelations - in the future. The Rapture - in the future. Heaven - in the future… after you're dead.
Doesn't it ever occur to any christians that they're buying a pig in a poke? I mean, how gullible/stupid do you have to be? The warranty isn't worth the paper it's printed on! The only time you can verify ANYTHING about christianity's claims is when you can no longer make decisions… when in fact, you're beyond verifying anything, because you're dead!
How about this: I'll guarantee you a super-duper heaven that's a billion times better than anything some old book of fairy-tales offers you - but you don't get it until you're dead. And by the way, you don't have to "believe" or "devote your life" or waste time on a "personal relationship" with anyone. All you have to do is fork over a measly 10 bucks. Today. And if the super-duper heaven isn't all I said it was, why, you can have a billion times your money back. How about that!? christ doesn't come with a money-back guarantee!
Or maybe you think a book of mythology is more credible in its promises? So, if those promises don't come through, to whom do you complain?
On the other hand, if you're not happy with MY promises, I'm right here! Your "god" doesn't even respond in a detectable fashion. That scam has already left the state!
Any of this getting through?
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