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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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No, your clear and arrogant assertion that religion somehow provides a more full experience of life belies not being threatened by aethism, but rather being threatened by your own inability to overcome fears and the inevitability of our inherent frailties and limitations.
No 'wrongdoings' are necessary when describing the evolution of christianity - it has been a self-documenting human phenomena the current state of which is available at http://www.superpages.com under 'churches' - it's a simple statement of fact.
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Blight
Social climber
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"No, your clear and arrogant assertion that religion somehow provides a more full experience of life belies not being threatened by aethism, but rather being threatened by your own inability to overcome fears and the inevitability of our inherent frailties and limitations. "
Again, as I said before, a litany of nonsense is rolled out in place of addressing anything I've actually said. Of course I've said nothing at all about frailties or limitations, let alone my ideas on them - and yet the atheist compulsion to create opposition and disagreement drives you to make up nonsense views on those topics and attribute them to me.
Yes, a life of atheism is quantifiably less than religion. Atheism adds nothing: it has no spiritual component, no concept of morality and no framework for thought.
Of course atheists need those things just as we all do, so they have to borrow or take them from other ideologies, typically the local religion. In terms of content, atheism is just like the gripings of a whiny teenager who kicks against their parents' values by adopting the opposite position, all unaware that the most basic building blocks of their thinking remain those that were put in place by the very people they childishly rebel against.
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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"Yes, a life of atheism is quantifiably less than religion. Atheism adds nothing: it has no spiritual component, no concept of morality and no framework for thought. Of course atheists need those things just as we all do, so they have to borrow or take them from other ideologies, typically the local religion."
Stupidly inane, surely you can do better than this weak tract. On that additive basis, if one god is good, then surely polytheistic ideaologies provide a fuller experience of life, a deeper concept of morality, and a much richer framework for thought. Just the very idea that one religion somehow has gotten 'it' right over course of human history despite the endless churning and mutation rate of religious expression is ludicrous. The myriad expressions and ideaologies by themselves undercut the credibility of the whole ridiculous affair. Religion and god are in no way prerequisites for spirituality, morality, or even frameworks for thought - and if they were then certainly they would all be completely interchangeable and equally valid in that capacity.
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Blight
Social climber
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"The myriad expressions and ideaologies by themselves undercut the credibility of the whole ridiculous affair. "
In the end there can only be one truth.
That truth can be phrased in a great many different ways and found in a great many different ways. The one way in which it cannot be found is by not looking for it.
This is another key element of atheist thinking. The obssessive need, shown by healyje and others here, to ascribe nonsense ideas to religion and religious people, is part of a larger issue.
That issue is again related to the reductionist nature of atheism. Instead of learning about religion, understanding and practicing it to find its flaws, the atheist works hard to remain ignorant of it. For a great many atheists, atheism has become a devotion to simple ignorance: who hasn't seen atheists claim that christians believe in an "old man in the sky"?
Of course almost no christians believe that, yet it's trotted out time and time again as the truth. This is the extension of ascribing nonsense ideas: not only are many atheists driven to claim religious people do things and hold ideas which everyone knows they don't, the atheist goes one step further and refuses to find out what the actual ideas are.
Richard Dawkins, sometime high priest of atheism, boasts openly about just how ignorant he is of basic religious principles and of how he undertakes no research at all into the subject.
And we see this time and time again right here: atheists flaunt how ignorant they are, creating garbage to pin on the religious and even when corrected refusing to wonder even briefly what the facts of the matter might be. It's a badge of honour to be uneducated as an atheist and that's the sad destination of all reductionist thinking.
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dirtbag
climber
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Blight, you are f*#king nuts. Straight up NUTS. And hateful For all your diatribes about hate and fear you are the one exhibiting it the most.
You've made preposterous and hateful diatribes and assumptions about everyone voicing support for evolution.
Get help.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Blight is a social critic, and he is correct in his assertion that I have made many assumptions about just what his thing is, but he has not really revealed anything but my faulty logic, and apparent sheep like adherence to a modern orthodoxy, science, which he argues is no better than, rather much less than, other ways of thinking.
What those ways are we don't quite know, he hasn't told us (his argument would be, I am guessing, that it is obvious to everyone else, that it is not obvious to me makes the point). Apparently, I am to get in touch with my inner spirituality and refine that into religious belief to make me whole. But I'm putting words in his mouth, as he will soon remind you all.
Blight's post here have largely been critical, for which I have no argument, but I would like to know more about the foundation of his critical theory. As I have found and have been guilty of in the past (and probably now and the future) it is very easy to be critical, but less easy to articulate clearly a point of view explaining why. Many critics don't need to explain why, Blight probably feels he is one of them.
So it is Blight who is my teacher. Thank you... really.
Blight's lessons so far (by the way, I am not too confident that I will pass this particular test):
1) Scientists presume a larger role of science in explaining the world around us than is supported by our experience.
2) Spiritualism is an innate component of humans, vital to their existence. Spiritualism is the foundation of religion.
3) Atheists and humanists who profess to be rational, respond irrationally to spiritualism, dismissing it without the rigor required by their presumed rational stance.
4) Atheism has no independent philosophy from religion (say "theism") and is trivial in that it merely states the negative of a religious ("theist") assertion. [While I understand how this is negative, I don't see why "reductionist" comes into this part of the lesson, but apparently it does].
5) There is the arrogant presumption of atheists that religious people could not have examined their religious convictions, for had they, they would not have so committed to those convictions.
6) Atheists are quick to attribute to the brutality in the world to the prosecution of religious belief, and slow to acknowledge the brutality not associated with religious belief, and ignore brutality committed in the prosecution of antireligious doctrine.
7) Criticisms of science are characterized as irrational, and nonsensical.
8) It is vital to science that all areas of it would be open to question. In particular, that aspects of meta-science (awkward, but gets the point across, basically the philosophical foundations of science, or "the science of science"), play an important role in ensuring ? (I'm not sure what here, perhaps "truth").
9) Atheists and evolutionists insist on a dogma that would allow only one conclusion (the obvious ones).
Many of these criticism are just... and I certainly fall into various rhetorical traps while trying to explain the science of evolution, or any kind of science. I will try, in the future to avoid those traps as the science, such as it is, can stand alone without resorting to those rhetorical devices.
One thing though, Blight, abiogenesis is an open question, absolutely, but the thread was started regarding evolution, which is the science of what happens to life once it is formed. We should probably start another thread on the science of abiogenesis... which is much less well understood.
As for the reductionism, I suppose that we could start a thread on the philosophical foundations of science. Science is not so well described, and not nearly as well as it produces results. While one might question the need for foundations were it merely the endless arguing of mental exercise, the inclusion of empirical affirmation, observation and experimentation, is a powerful corrective to sloppy thinking.
If I get in touch with my inner experimentalist, I would say that the only way I might resolve the religious hypothesis is to do the ultimate experiment. Since I will be doing that one day, I don't feel the imperative... unfortunately, I will not be able to share the results of that experiment with any of you.
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Blight
Social climber
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Yes, it's common for atheists to be exceptionally uncomfortable with having their own beliefs questioned.
Exactly why should immediately be clear with just a glance at the word "atheist": as I said earlier it's just a simple knee-jerk opposition to an established idea with little or no depth or content.
Atheism, by definition, is characterised by opposition to religion: a quick look at this thread should show just how much time and effort is spent discussing, obssessively, religious principles and ideas! But while religious people are generally well used to having their ideals questioned even robustly and will typically be able to argue their side, atheists devote no such time to their own ideals.
This is in part because atheism is entirely reactionary - it generates no ideas of its own and is entirely (and ironically) dependent on religion to create the sophisticated ideologies which it then weakly reverses and lampoons. It's also in part because of a lack of actual study on the part of atheists, with stolid pig ignorance being so highly prized and no formal teaching available.
This leaves atheists, as we can see here, unable to reasonably discuss their own motivations and ideas. Instead we see, as ably demonstrated by dirtbag, childish name-calling and abuse.
Of course I've directed no diatribe at "everyone voicing support for evolution" because I support evolution, much as I may debate the details. What's really sad is to see someone like dirtbag who claims that I'm hateful and fearful - and yet is unable to see that I'm not the one calling names in response to reasoned points.
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cintune
climber
the Moon and Antarctica
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I get the feeling that Blight is just playing. Surely no one so thoughtful and eloquent could be at heart a jibbering theist.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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not to point out the obvious, Blight, but almost every one of your posts is about religion.
I don't think that the same could be said for my posts, nor do I believe the posts that I made were disrespectful of religion, or presumed religion in any way.
If you have any interesting insights regarding evolution, I would be interested in hearing them... so far, you have been setting the stage. Maybe it is time to start the act.
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cintune
climber
the Moon and Antarctica
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Ed, there is no act. Religion is the original surrealist theater.
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WBraun
climber
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Yes
Science means that which is applicable to everyone.
Religion is described in the dictionary, "a kind of faith." Faith... I may be Hindu today or Muslim; tomorrow I may be Christian. That is... I can change.
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Ouch!
climber
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Fossils exist as tangible objects which can be touched, tested, and dated.
All else exists only in the imagination and bears not even the substance of the wind.
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jstan
climber
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Darwin was a wussie. Note, he avoided even mentioning rap bolting.
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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"Understanding and practicing it [religion] to find its flaws"
I don't have to live in a home to understand it's shortcomings - even a cursory inspection of the key systems and construction will immediately tell you whether it is habitable or not. If it isn't, there is little point in dwelling in hell to discover the minutiae of it's obvious shortcomings.
And without saying it you seem to believe any religion will do - paganism, monotheism, polytheism - it's all good. Is that your position? Any framework in the storm as it were...
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Ouch!
climber
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"Darwin was a wussie. Note, he avoided even mentioning rap bolting."
Darwin didn't use bolts. He used dried tortoise peckers.
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Lynne Leichtfuss
Social climber
valley center, ca
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Jul 10, 2008 - 01:41am PT
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one could, of course, stop speaking about god and the soul of man since it seems to irritate people so. Eventually god will speak if he is there.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Jul 10, 2008 - 03:01am PT
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I should let this die, I really should, and I have no expectation that Jody would accept an explanation...
Jody wrote: '"Natural selection" is a misnomer. How can something that is "random" select anything? Shouldn't it be "natural randomness"? How can randomness ONLY select that which is better? Shouldn't nearly have of these random selections be detrimental? In the never-never land of evolutionary theory, the coin always lands heads up, never tails.'
There is a natural variation in how genes express, and there will be variations in morphology of all living things. Humans have taken advantage of this by breeding traits into living things to be beneficial (to humans), most agriculture is predicated on this. The inheritance of traits is worked out in great detail, and with detailed information about genomes, eventually the step-by-step details of protein production will be revealed.
The "randomness" is quite natural, but it is not an unrestricted randomness. These chemical reactions are governed by a probability distribution, which describes, as a function of temperature and chemical potential, the rate of the particular reactions. One would look to statistical mechanics to work out the details. The field of population genetics studies the details.
Natural selection is a term that Darwin choose to distinguish it from the sort of selection, through breeding, that farmers do.... that is, the organism has some way of "choosing" a mate. Just like breeding a particular type of cow or dog, but the cows and dogs decide who's hot and who's not.
Now we know the probabilities of inheriting certain traits, genetically. If you inherit a trait that leads to your death before you are able to breed yourself, then that particular genetic trait is not passed on to the next generation by you. If all in those who possess this trait suffer the same fate, then that trait is extinguished relatively quickly. Depending on your parents, you have some probability of having acquired such traits. You through the dice, different probabilities depend on some subtle characteristics of genes we are in the process of understanding, though some traits are quite obvious.
Interestingly, it is not just disease that is so expressed. The major determinant in you life span is the life spans of your parents... apparently this is a genetic trait which gets passed to you, with some probability.
Now Darwin studied with his rulers, calipers, magnifying glass, etc, the taxonomy of large number of animals who looked very similar but were not of the same species, that is, they could not produce viable offspring in their mating. In many respect, these animals were so closely related that Darwin inferred that taking the process of inheritance which is common knowledge to farmers, but expanding the time over which the breeding took place, it could be possible that the two separate species were once a common species, but that over time, they lost the ability to interbreed through the same process that caused their taxonomy to diverge.
That the changes of taxonomy and of the function of various organs and systems in the organism also changed.
One more step in the argument of Darwin is that the organism's ability to survive and produce offspring might result in a natural selection of individuals particularly adapted to survive in a specific environment.
It is a powerful feedback mechanism, if you are "fit" you pass your survival attributes on to the next generation, if you are not fit, you die and don't pass your attributes on. Only the "fit" survive, in the very long run.
Now this process is a statistical process, because there are random variations in a population of a particular organism.
It really isn't that far of a stretch, really, from the barnyard. However, it is a very slow process, but not as slow as the geological age of the earth.
The exact time is something that can be studied, assuming the hypothesis of evolution, and comparing it to time dependent species change. First by creating a cladistic organization of organisms based on taxonomy (e.g. the Chimpanzee is very similar taxonomically to humans, the baboon less so, the slime mold even less so, etc). Nowadays this would be done by comparing DNA, like L said.
The assumption is that the more similar the DNA, the closer in time the relationships of the different species.
Now if that is true, then we could look at the fossil record for evidence of past life, say of homo and that of pan, both identified by their fossilized skeletal remains. The rate of genetic divergence can provide an estimate of the length of time, in this hypothesis, but the rate of genetic divergence is not a constant, so it only provide bounds for a time estimate.
Given that, I believe that there is no current inconsistency in the fossil record reconciled with DNA cladistics with the hypothesis that homo and pan share a common ancestor.
This can be done for a large number of existing species, and is an active area of research, especially trying to understand the rate of genetic divergence.
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Blight
Social climber
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Jul 10, 2008 - 05:02am PT
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"I don't have to live in a home to understand it's shortcomings - even a cursory inspection of the key systems and construction will immediately tell you whether it is habitable or not. If it isn't, there is little point in dwelling in hell to discover the minutiae of it's obvious shortcomings. "
Yes, this is a fine example of the atheist commitment to ignorance.
Of course as we'd expect, the reasoning is nonsense: the claim here is that an atheist need not practice religion to understand its shortcomings, all he needs to to is study its technical specifications.
What makes this funny is that of course to understand its technical specification and inner workings he'd need to have experience and knowledge in the field. In other words the claim is that understand religion's shortcomings you needn't be religious, you just have to be an experienced expert on religion.
Yet this is rolled out as an excuse for remaining totally ignorant; given as a reason for refusing to study or learn about religion.
As I said earlier, very few atheists are used to analysing or studying their own reasoning, and the kind of gibberish, self-contradictory nonsense being presented here couldn't illustrate that better.
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Jul 10, 2008 - 05:45am PT
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Gibberish - now there is something we agree on.
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