Evidently someone goosed the poor thing.
Probably the photographer. They’ll do anything for a good shot.
I love how shiny their eyes are.
LisaJsays
What an amazing photograph. So cool.
spacehamsays
There’s some freaky shit under the sea. Not as freaky as Sarah Palin though.
Cliff Hendrovalsays
What is the bladder-like structure next to the eye?
Lilly de Luresays
Rev. BigDumbChimp, KoT said:
A secret cephalopod army sent to attack Russia by VP Palin.
I shudder at the image, however cephalopods are intelligent creatures – they could probably tell that Sarah Palin isn’t the best person to ordering anyone to attack anything.
Great photo though!
Lilly de Luresays
Ack – apologies to the grammer police: I meant “the best person to be ordering anyone”
ennuisays
Wow! Its eye is as big as a dinner plate!
*ducks*
Unrelated note: Hey Rev.(King of Tacos)! Have you received your Molly yet? =^]
Simon Scottsays
Hey! Has anyone else noticed how that eye looks like it was designed?
Hello? 1…2….1….2…… Is this thing on?
Candysays
they could probably tell that Sarah Palin isn’t the best person to be ordering anyone to attack anything.
That means they’re a lot smarter than John McCain and the Talevangelicals! (Not a big surprise.)
This little freckled ‘pod has a pleasant, curious look. I know, I know, anthropomorphic and all that, but I don’t care. ;-)
Trishsays
It’s looking at me.
Ok, now it’s scaring me.
Silisays
ennui wins.
I thought ‘pods had slit irises. What am I missing?
Ocythoe tuberculata – that must be a typo. It’s obviously supercute-a!
E.V.says
Pink Floyd moment. Hello! Is there anybody in there?
bunnycatch3rsays
In order to remain consistent with the cephalopod/Sarah Palin line I submit the following: “At least an Ocythoe tuberculata has freckles”.
Silisays
Perhaps. But I’d rather try applying lipstick to a mammal than a mollusk, if I had to choose.
Bacopasays
Just think of all the little cephalopods that are about to be washed ashore by Ike. Surge is huge for a storm that isn’t really that strong. Waves have been splashing across Seawall Boulevard in Galveston since this morning. Glad I live inland and on relatively high ground.
This will be the last comment I make here for a few hours. I know there are a couple of other Houston area commenters. IIRC, Scooter lives inside the Loop and west of Main. I think there are some commenters from down near the Bay. I’ll be thinking of yall.
We’re doing well here. There’s no panic the way there was with Rita. There’s even gas at some stations.
Wish us luck.
Bacopasays
BTW, most octopodes have slit or barred pupils. I think most squid have round pupils. Most of the kinds I’ve eaten had round pupils.
Bye for a few days. I’ve got a storm to experience.
bastionsays
I never appreciated how beautiful cephalopods were until I started reading this blog.
The more I know, the more I know there’s ever so much I don’t know.
I think that I figured out the proper search terms to approach my own questions (No. 22).
1. Purines (in leucophores)
2. I am still not sure about the freckles. The rusty color looks like phaeomelanin, but do cephalopoda have melanocytes or other melanophores?
so I’ve been reading through the blogs a little…do you ever get someone who believes in God and the principles of science. If the comments I see are not from, I think you call them “poe trollers”, then they are uninformed truly. Or is it just squid bait for the unsuspecting thinking they won’t be all alone in a cold dark place.
note**I like the fossil record (good stuff)and I don’t think it was put there by satan, it doesn’t follow that if God created the universe except,.. oops, someone snuck something in there when God wasn’t looking..what???? so much for omnipotence.
was that last part a good job of reverse poe trolling?
Kel, N of R, or owlmirror?
Owlmirrorsays
so I’ve been reading through the blogs a little…do you ever get someone who believes in God and the principles of science. If the comments I see are not from, I think you call them “poe trollers”, then they are uninformed truly. Or is it just squid bait for the unsuspecting thinking they won’t be all alone in a cold dark place.
note**I like the fossil record (good stuff)and I don’t think it was put there by satan, it doesn’t follow that if God created the universe except,.. oops, someone snuck something in there when God wasn’t looking..what???? so much for omnipotence.
was that last part a good job of reverse poe trolling?
It was a good job of babbling aimlessly.
r bucketsays
or it could be a troll, as in a creature of teutonic folklore sitting under a bridge. in which case it would be poe trolls..which??
r bucketsays
that’s what most the entries on this thread are ?que no?
Steve_Csays
Just because you don’t understand it doesn’t mean it’s babbling.
Yes we do get religious apologists in here all the time. They claim to accept the evidence of science but get very concerned about the tone and mocking of religion.
Some even pretend it’s a great badge of honor to accept science and hold very strong religious beliefs and don’t understand why we won’t back off calling religion nonsense and that we atheists are the “closed minded” fundamentalists.
One of our favorite commenters here is religious and accepts scientific evidence. He’s awesome because he understands exactly why we feel the way we do and knows his choice to believe is irrational, but he chooses to have faith. He rolls his eyes as much as we do.
r bucketsays
For those who don’t understand why you won’t back off calling religion nonsense..well, they aren’t considering this blogs position on the state of life, but I can’t speak for them. Most of what I’ve read in here, and even the cartoon post is satire by nature, and actually makes me laugh. some of you just sound angry, but why let that distract.
If I did not believe in God, I would be on-board the “beagle” with the rest. or does that not still apply, and actually, I am on board in alot of ways..modern versions of the same thought, but more entropic. biogenesis still isn’t working for me..
Owlmirrorsays
If I did not believe in God, I would be on-board the “beagle” with the rest. or does that not still apply, and actually, I am on board in alot of ways..modern versions of the same thought, but more entropic. biogenesis still isn’t working for me..
And….?
I already addressed this in comment #223 in the other thread.
Abiogenesis is a falsifiable hypothesis from the evidence.
God is either a non-falsifiable hypothesis, or an already-falsified hypothesis, depending on how literally you take the bible, and how much hand-waving your theology includes.
And for that matter, I can at least define what abiogenesis is.
Can you define what God is?
r bucketsays
forgot the “a” in abiogenesis. I should have pulled the handle one more time:) or maybe just learn how to spell?
Can you define what God is?
some things about God are tangible and others are intangible. to describe God is impossible do to the confines of human intellect/space-time vs. being fully independant of the confines of space time, yet able to fully interact within its realm.
however, if the probabilities (given an earth age of 4.5 to 4.6 billion years old) of abiogenesis:the origination of living from lifeless matter, don’t hold mathematically(and luck is not objective), then alternate hypothesis would naturally arise.
Owlmirrorsays
some things about God are tangible and others are intangible.
If any part of God were tangible, that would be falsifiable evidence. What is this tangible part?
to describe God is impossible do to the confines of human intellect/space-time vs. being fully independant of the confines of space time, yet able to fully interact within its realm.
If God is literally indescribable — impossible to define in any way — then God might just as well not exist. Because it doesn’t do anything that can be distinguished from it not doing anything.
Incoherent!
however, if the probabilities (given an earth age of 4.5 to 4.6 billion years old) of abiogenesis:the origination of living from lifeless matter, don’t hold mathematically
If! If! If wishes were equids, everyone would have a pony!
No-one has advanced any such viable mathematical disproof of abiogenesis, largely because biochemists are not yet done testing all possible biochemical scenarios of abiogenesis, and, more importantly, their scenarios are coming up with partial successes, not complete failures.
cool stuff,
but they are still implanting their own source codes/blue prints, not allowing that to happen by randomized/controled energy inputs, and they are not starting with the actual building blocks (pre-amino acid)!!!
but like i said, really cool stuff..
I also believe that article said “if sucessful” it would be life that no one had ever seen before and had never existed before.
Protocell researchers are trying to design a completely novel form of life that humans have never seen and that may never have existed.
to describe God is impossible do to the confines of human intellect/space-time vs. being fully independant of the confines of space time, yet able to fully interact within its realm.
The very first part of this statement is refuted by your previous statement about parts of god being “tangible” and “intangible”. These words are both descriptions of qualities that a god could have. Thus making it possible to give descriptions of god. Though from what evidence you derive god’s tangibility, or lack thereof, is still missing.
Also, if there is something that the human mind can’t experience, then it is irrelevant. If something can effect us in any way, it follows that we experience it and can describe it in this code book we call language. If it doesn’t effect us, then it doesn’t effect us, and is thus irrelevant. For those things we do experience, while we may not get the word right immediately, we would experience it none the less. Therefore, “human limitation” is also an irrelevant answer to the charge of describing god.
Lastly, if you are positing another realm of space-time outside our own for god to operate in, not only is that completely ad hoc, it also doesn’t gain us any ground is answered questions, because now were left with questions like “Where did that space time originate from and how can we know anything about it?” To simply claim that it exists and god can go between either, is a wonderfully inventive explanation, but it’s totally unsupported by any evidence whatsoever.
So, r bucket, a description of god is still required from you. In fact, a description is required before this conversation can even start. How can we talk about god without knowing anything about it?
r bucketsays
The desire for our species(homo sapien) to know “why?” is a small part of my thought. It doesn’t fall into survival or self preservation. Curiousity is evident in other species. hot,cold,stranger-danger…but we are the only ones who want to know why. If this can’t be explained by evolutionary process, then there would need to be a “placer” of that desire, therefore “the need to know why” could be, if there is not another explanation, evidence of the “placer” and tangible evidence of God’s desire to know us, which would be a part of describing God. God’s desire for us to know “WHY?”.
r bucket,
Our natural need to find the cause of events is easily tackled by modern day psychology and biology. A natural drive to gain information and find out “why” events happen around you is an obvious benefit to any species, conscious or not, as it would allow that species to manipulate the circumstances to their benefit. This fits with natural selection perfectly.
It’s not even a relevant musing as science already has such questions within its immediate scope.
Surely, you can find a better reason to believe in god than this rampant speculation?
r bucket,
For future reference, don’t offer any explanation for your god that you wouldn’t accept from a muslim trying to convince you of Allah’s existence.
You’ll save us all lots of time.
Owlmirrorsays
Curiousity is evident in other species. hot,cold,stranger-danger…but we are the only ones who want to know why. If this can’t be explained by evolutionary process, then there would need to be a “placer” of that desire, therefore “the need to know why” could be, if there is not another explanation, evidence of the “placer” and tangible evidence of God’s desire to know us, which would be a part of describing God. God’s desire for us to know “WHY?”.
If! Again with the IF!
Given that curiosity and intelligence does exist in the nonhuman animals, and our own curiosity and intelligence is clearly an advancement and improvement of those qualities in animals, why wouldn’t they be explained by evolution?
And as I just finished describing here, Christianity (indeed, all of the monotheistic religions, as far as I know) was at its inception actively hostile to curiosity and inquiry into things, whether they be of the world, or God. So if curiosity is something from God (and it isn’t), you have to pretty much reject everything in the bible.
r bucketsays
hey Kel,
just jumpin in to the mix. If this isn’t cool and considered party crashing. just let me know, it won’t hurt my feelings. I’m just trying to get up to speed with the latest and greatest thoughts on evolution. I know I’m looking from a bias point of view (i.e. humans fit into the universe perfectly so it must be designed for them vs. humans fit perfectly because we are at that point in evolution.) It just goes round and round.
Owlmirror:
Christianity (indeed, all of the monotheistic religions, as far as I know) was at its inception actively hostile to curiosity and inquiry into things
not true at all. read Proverbs 1:1-7. The last line is “Fools despise wisdom and instruction” The Hebrew is “Wisdom and Instruction fools despise”. It encourages wisdom. I don’t want to be accused of to much Bible thumping, but there are many more passages encouraging knowledge. Many moons ago, when I was in college, Academia got the thought for scientific theories right, but when they would “quote” the Bible, they were almost without fail, wrong. I am on this post to make sure Science hasn’t evolved to the point where I have the same short falls as people who don’t understand the Bible. I know to this point most of my queries have been philosophical by nature, but that was the start of modern science (i.e. do flies spontaniously arise from bantha fodder) This led to Pasteur’s studies. Boil it and seal it. The Universe isn’t that simple, so there are still alot of “if” to “yep” scenarios.
You’ll save us all lots of time.
jimminy cricket michael x.:) never tip your whole hand and never tell them where your dinosaur is at. or poof it’s all over, but seriously, I have to throw those things out there to collect your thoughts. that’s all.
Owlmirrorsays
Christianity (indeed, all of the monotheistic religions, as far as I know) was at its inception actively hostile to curiosity and inquiry into things
not true at all. read Proverbs 1:1-7. The last line is “Fools despise wisdom and instruction” The Hebrew is “Wisdom and Instruction fools despise”. It encourages wisdom.
Sorry, yes true.
Read 1st Corinthians. It clearly discourages the “wisdom of the world”, i.e., Hellenistic philosophy, which of course included the proto-science of Aristotle.
The phrase “wisdom and instruction”, as described by the bible, means specifically knowledge of the bible. Hell, look at the part of the proverb that you omitted: “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge “. Leaving that part out is a perfect example of a quote-mine. Stop doing that. It’s dishonest.
Anything outside of the bible was frowned upon, censored, and burned. Asking questions was frowned upon, and those who did so were censored, and quite often, burned as well.
r bucket, if you wish for my thoughts on any subject, all you have to do is ask. Proposing inconsistent of incoherent ideas in order to see what I’ll say about them seems to be a very roundabout way of learning what I think.
I’m pretty simple that way.
r bucketsays
Hell, look at the part of the proverb that you omitted:
NO!! I am not being dishonest and I gave you the whole section to look at (just didn’t type it). Of coarse a believer is going to start with fear of the Lord silly goose..but your accusation was the discouragement of knowledge. “Wisdom of the world” is dealing with morality issues, mutiple dieties and the idea of no God. ! Corinthians 1:18-25 deals with exactly what we are talking about. That is what I mean by people not understanding the Bible. The phrase “Quote mine” is just another form of “out of context” and I did not do that. I gave you exactly where to look and the before and after.
Asking questions was frowned upon, and those who did so were censored, and quite often, burned as well.
It was the same way for me in college, even if I put the answers profs wanted on tests, my end grade did not reflect my research in most cases, because I did not hide the fact that I was a believer. I am OK with that, just interesting you brought that up. Burn the witch though…I think I would have ran away:)
Owlmirrorsays
“Wisdom of the world” is dealing with morality issues, mutiple dieties and the idea of no God. ! Corinthians 1:18-25 deals with exactly what we are talking about. That is what I mean by people not understanding the Bible.
I have no idea what you are trying to say here. Really, you’re being completely incoherent.
It was the same way for me in college, even if I put the answers profs wanted on tests, my end grade did not reflect my research in most cases, because I did not hide the fact that I was a believer.
If you were as sloppy in your coursework as you are here, I’m not surprised that you got lowered grades. Being a believer really is not the issue; being unclear is.
PS: a lower grade is not the same as being set on fire. Feel free to hold your palm directly above a candle flame to feel the difference.
PPS: Dyslexia might have been part of the problem, though. Firefox has a built-in spell-check, which might help at least partially. But watch out for homophones. “Of course”, not “of coarse”.
r bucketsays
Kel,
I don’t think I am having trouble understanding anything you guys are saying. Not agreeing doesn’t spawn not understanding a point, and admittedly, I am just pokin the stick around a little. Getting heavy into it would require a study in Bible numerics from a man named Ivan Panin. and well, I’m not sure anyone cares about all that..and it deals with probabilities, so anyway..
I am actually enjoying watching those Scientists who don’t believe in God making discoveries that (for me) show God’s genius.
Ethics and morality are also considered knowledge r bucket. Owlmirror’s main point stands. The church has a long history of following scripture which derides any independent thought not derived from the bible.
It’s really not worth arguing about, the facts are there and are legion. The church is not a supporter of any knowledge other than that which falls in line with predetermined dogma.
Owlmirrorsays
The phrase “Quote mine” is just another form of “out of context” and I did not do that.
Actually, you did. Because when you look at the context of the Proverb, it is obviously about religious knowledge, not science or free inquiry.
r bucketsays
PS: a lower grade is not the same as being set on fire. Feel free to hold your palm directly above a candle flame to feel the difference.
That is what I said. If it was a burn the witch scenario, then I would have run away. It was just grades, so who cares.
I know my spelling is not the best, but I proof when it matters. thanks for letting me know about Firefox, I’ll look into it.
As far as grades go, it was actually more of a “great answers” “good paper” but I don’t agree with your personal point of view… so oops, that research assignment you have in your hand won’t be entered unless you bow to me as your god..OK, so he didn’t use the word god in that particular case, but the rest is true.
Owlmirrorsays
Getting heavy into it would require a study in Bible numerics from a man named Ivan Panin. and well, I’m not sure anyone cares about all that..and it deals with probabilities, so anyway..
I’m just curious. How do you resolve the vast universe as observed by astronomy with God? When there are galaxies that exist 13 billion light years away which have only been able to be observed with a space telescope, what role do you see as God playing in the universe? When there are more stars in the universe than grains of sand on all beaches of the world, and we are just one species of 6 million on one planet orbiting just a single star in one galaxy, how do you resolve having all those unnecessary stars that have no relevance to our existence with a creator God?
Because to me, being one of 6 million species on one planet in a galaxy of 100,000,000 stars which is just one of millions of billions of galaxies in our bubble universe which in turn could be one of an infinite amount of bubble universes, it seems a little self-indulgant to have an anthropomorphic deity behind it all. That a 13.7 billion year cosmic struggle for existence has all been for just one species that came along within the last 200,000 years.
Actually, you did. Because when you look at the context of the Proverb, it is obviously about religious knowledge, not science or free inquiry.
NO AGAIN!! proverbs 3:19-20 talks about the foundation of the earth being part of God’s wisdom and, in this vain of thought, to seek wisdom is to seek the wisdom of the establishment of the heavens and the earth..
you have to understand, there are a few who used to be looked upon poorly by christianity for their ideas in science even though believers (me). This is changing. Just like some of the ideas of Darwin had to evolve, so many believers are starting to look at science. Don’t judge the Bible by what PEOPLE have done, just like I don’t judge science by it’s past misgivings.
r bucketsays
owlmirror
Bible code is
you see, you did not read what I said…NOT Bible Code>>>quadrant random stuff…BIBLE NUMERICS man…!!! and not numerology..NUMERICS! IVAN PANIN
How do you resolve the vast universe as observed by astronomy with God?
I am so glad you asked that and I’ll try to touch on it before i rack-out.
You probably know of Victor Stenger. He talks about wasted space that will not be used if it was all just for humanity…and I know I probably butchered that, but I think it gets to the idea.
But I say the physics have to be consistent and fine tuned for the complexity of life to exist on our planet. Life requires the universe. Let’s see….like this (sorry I don’t have pre-formed arguments, adlib you know) Life requires the Earth…Earth requires the solar system….solar system requires the galaxy…galaxy requires the universe, and we have measured the boundaries. What we see in the pictures from hubble and other telescopes is not what currently even is. You know, the speed of light and all that. So everything is different by the time we observe it. Atleast as they were. so I say all things have to be in place for the delicate balance.
Owlmirrorsays
proverbs 3:19-20 talks about the foundation of the earth being part of God’s wisdom and, in this vain of thought, to seek wisdom is to seek the wisdom of the establishment of the heavens and the earth.
And it does not say to go and investigate the foundations. It says “God did it”, and then moves on to morality and stuff that has nothing to do with science.
Wrong again.
you have to understand, there are a few who used to be looked upon poorly by christianity for their ideas in science even though believers (me).
You’re being unclear again. What are you talking about???
Don’t judge the Bible by what PEOPLE have done
Nuts. The bible was written by people, and interpreted by people. How else am I supposed to judge it?
What we see in the pictures from hubble and other telescopes is not what currently even is. You know, the speed of light and all that. So everything is different by the time we observe it.
That’s exactly as what I was getting at. When we look at an object 13 billion light years away, we are looking 13 billion years back in time. Don’t you think it’s a little self-indulgant to think the entire 13.7 billion year universe is simply a test for a species that appeared 200,000 years ago and on a religion that came about around 4,000 years ago? To think the entire span of the universe is just for one species to have a test seems nothing short of gross self-indulgance.
I say all things have to be in place for the delicate balance.
But your assumption is that this is all there could be, and thus obviously this is what must be. Fact is, if there were an omnipotent, benevolent god, the universe wouldn’t need all this wasted space. God would simply be able to create a planet with the people he wanted, where he wanted it and how he wanted it, instantly. No need for messy evolution, and billions of planets and even more blackholes. No need for dumb, blind, natural processes to create order, resulting in earthquakes, cancer and breathing and drinking through the same tube.
Instead we have a universe that looks exactly like one should is there was no creator at all. At the very least no creator that gave a damn about humanity.
And if you’re going to argue that a loving god created a world where resources were scarce making all life compete and natural disasters, disease, and violent death were common, then I don’t think that’s a god worth worshiping.
r bucketsays
It says “God did it”, and then moves on to morality and stuff that has nothing to do with science.
It doesn’t say God did it and don’t investigate. It says to learn from the wisdom of the earth and the heavens. It doesn’t say “God did it” so there’s your wisdom. did you forget your cactus juice?:)
Owlmirrorsays
It says to learn from the wisdom of the earth and the heavens.
It most certainly does not.
It doesn’t say “God did it” so there’s your wisdom.
Can’t you even read?
19 The LORD by wisdom founded the earth,
By understanding He established the heavens.
20 By His knowledge the deeps were broken up
And the skies drip with dew.
==”God did it”. God’s wisdom, God’s knowledge.
At no point does it say to go and investigate. And the whole “fear of the LORD” part from Prov. 1:7 implies a negative on investigating. You don’t investigate the business of someone you’re supposed to fear.
r bucketsays
And if you’re going to argue that a loving god created a world where resources were scarce making all life compete and natural disasters, disease, and violent death were common, then I don’t think that’s a god worth worshiping.
And that is the point in the Bible about the fall of man. Needing Grace. I’m sure you’ve heard that from others, so I won’t preach.
I agree, there is a lot of crappy stuff in this world, but also a lot of beauty all around us.
and now i will do a cry-off and go get some sleep.:)!
r bucketsays
owlmirror,
The fear of the Lord is the Beginning of knowledge, not the end of knowledge. If it says gain wisdom and God’s wisdom is what brought all this into being, then gain the wisdom available all around you. It’s a flow of thought.
And that is the point in the Bible about the fall of man
That god knowingly created a fallible being that would be judged according to the bar of his perfection, and when it failed to match up to god, he knowingly predestined the vast majority of them who were ever to live to die in agonizing death, to then only burn in hell for eternity? This was the omnipotent and omni-benevolent god’s divine and perfect plan?
Are you insane? You actually believe this? This is the action of a sick demented being. Worshipers of such a tyrant deserve to be called sheep.
Owlmirrorsays
The fear of the Lord is the Beginning of knowledge, not the end of knowledge. If it says gain wisdom and God’s wisdom is what brought all this into being, then gain the wisdom available all around you. It’s a flow of thought.
One that you made up yourself.
For most of the past few thousand years, that, and the rest of the bible, including 1st Corinthians, have been interpreted as meaning that God made the world, and that settled it. Science and scientific investigation and speculation were always in danger of being condemned as heretical.
And that is the point in the Bible about the fall of man.
Christianity:
…the belief that a cosmic Jewish Zombie who was his own father can make you live forever if you symbolically eat his flesh and telepathically tell him you accept him as your master, so he can remove an evil force from your soul that is present in humanity because a rib-woman was convinced by a talking snake to eat from a magical tree.
And that is the point in the Bible about the fall of man.
Ahh, the way of theology. All the good is God’s doing, all the bad is mans’. That way God can take the credit for everything beautiful and that damn worm that burrows in the eye of African children eventually causing blindness is all the fault of a snake tricking a woman into eating some fruit…
Too bad the evidence doesn’t work that way. Nature was indiscriminate in destruction: life red in tooth and claw, natural disasters, mass extinction events, and this is all before man’s ancestor first crawled out of the water and onto land. The fall is symbolic of man’s brutal nature and the drive for moral obedience. This is why Genesis is counted as mythology rather than history; quite simply it didn’t happen. There was no global flood, no tower of babel, no smiting of Sodom and Gamorrah, it’s all mythological stories to explain the nature of Man, the nature of God and the relationship of the two. The fall didn’t happen, it’s just a reason for the indiscriminate brutality that is part and parcel of existence.
r bucketsays
If everything is tangible, then why have I experienced two miracles in my life. unexplainable by science…
Too bad the evidence doesn’t work that way. Nature was indiscriminate in destruction: life red in tooth and claw, natural disasters, mass extinction events, and this is all before man’s ancestor first crawled out of the water and onto land.
Genesis 2:17 states (in my opinion, and I know its woowoo stuff) a form of non-entropy status for man. prior to the eating of the fruit by the rib-woman.< <--(funny way to put it)
Are you insane? You actually believe this? This is the action of a sick demented being. Worshipers of such a tyrant deserve to be called sheep.
Philosophical, faith is a strange beast. one can’t see what there is to see all around until that first step..then the flood-gates open, because faith is necessary unless you are slaved to the main frame. (free will and all that)
so here’s my story. for believers it can be likened to this….(ASS U ME the tadpole needs faith to become a frog)A frog takes his first steps on land and the discoveries, food, dry air, the rays of the sun on its back are all new but very real. The frog can go back into the pond and tell all his tadpole buddies, “hey there’s this place out there where there are flies to eat and I can eat them with my tongue, and there are so many new things to see……on and on” The tadpoles say “are you insane, we’ve never seen anything like what you speak of and all there is to know is in this pond.”
That’s my story of what it feels like for a believer (who already took the first step of faith) when someone says are you insane.
but who cares if I am wrong. no skin off your back right?
If everything is tangible, then why have I experienced two miracles in my life. unexplainable by science.
This should be good.
Please let us know about these.
Owlmirrorsays
If everything is tangible, then why have I experienced two miracles in my life. unexplainable by science…
How do you know they were miracles?
How would you know if you were wrong?
Genesis 2:17 states (in my opinion, and I know its woowoo stuff) a form of non-entropy status for man. prior to the eating of the fruit by the rib-woman.
Logic: You’re doing it wrong.
Gen. 2:17 is God lying to Adam (or making a mistake, but it certainly looks like a blatant and obvious lie in light of the later verses). Adam ate the fruit, and did not die on that day.
However, neither does it say that Adam would not die at all, ever, if he did not eat the fruit.
The tadpoles say “are you insane, we’ve never seen anything like what you speak of and all there is to know is in this pond.”
Except they can see that the frog is physically different. Analogy fail.
If religious people really could regularly perform “miracles” at will, that could be seen, it would be obvious that there really was a change that had occurred.
Instead, we see exactly the opposite: religious people not only perform no wonders, they are not particularly likely to be better people; or otherwise different.
The example I will give involved one of my friends breaking his back. The initial surgery required a lot of titanium hardware to be placed in his back. Plates, screws, etc… The bone graphs were not taking and leaving the broken area very weak. I was hanging out with him when one of the screws broke. This was a big emergency (destabilization of the spine stuff) We took him in for x-rays and sure enough there was the broken screw and the bone graph had not taken in the least. The emergency surgery plans required more hardware and an electrostimulation package to promote bone growth to fill in the gap in his spine. X-rays were taken to verify the procedure and surgery was scheduled a couple of days later. A group of us prayed with/for him to have strength and courage and for God to assist the healing process. He started to cry towards the end (he doesn’t cry for much of anything) and I was thinking that’s weird and asked him what was up. he said he could feel heat in his back, and I thought yah, because it’s broke man….. He said he was convinced God healed it and I told him just to go to surgery and let the doctor do his work (truthfully I thought he was just being emotional and in all reality thought the surgery would go as planned, but hey, think positive right. The day of the surgery they opened him up and the doctor (same one who did the first surgery) got mad because the x-rays showed broken and the actual area was fussed back together perfectly. The initial hardware that was supposed to stay with him for the rest of his life was taken out and the new stuff never put in. They just stitched him up. The doctor was so mad when he came out, and freaked out too, raising his voice on how it wasn’t possible and even yelled at my buddies dad a little. way weird stuff with no medical explanation. This is not a second hand story, but a part in the 0 and 1’s of my life. I don’t even buy the faith healing tele-evangalist stuff, went to one out of curiosity and even as a believer it felt fake to me. Most of those in my opinion are all about the money.
Kel, (serious question, not probing for anything)
how does evolution explain unwarranted compassion? something with no benefit to ones self. (and If it is still just the idea of preservation of the species, I guess it hasn’t changed.)
And I thought i was unique, Hah!! Well, at least my finger print is. My tripes are but nothing compared to that pen wizardry.
r bucketsays
Simply that it does not follow established rates of healing. It does not and can not have a known scientific explanation. It defies our space-time, relative and thermodynamic constants.
Genesis 2:17 states (in my opinion, and I know its woowoo stuff) a form of non-entropy status for man. prior to the eating of the fruit by the rib-woman.
And Genesis 1:6 says that the sky is made of beaten metal sheets (raqiya’, translated as “firmament”), while Genesis 1:11–18 state that marijuana existed before the Sun, Moon and stars.
It does not and can not have a known scientific explanation.
The emphasis is added to indicate the part which is clearly wrong.
It defies our space-time, relative and thermodynamic constants.
Throwing around the names of scientific fields does not constitute an argument.
Simply that it does not follow established rates of healing.
“Established rates of healing” are an average, not a constant.
It does not and can not have a known scientific explanation.
“Does not”? Sure, because your friend was not subjected to a careful scientific study and examination.
But “can not”? How do you know? How would you know if you were wrong?
If your friend’s back was given a careful and thorough examination, some obvious natural causes that might be found are that the original fracture was misdiagnosed, or that he just simply has a freakishly fast and efficient healing process, or that in this one instance, a combination of factors led to rapid healing. Why not? These would at least be testable hypotheses.
It defies our space-time, relative and thermodynamic constants.
1. Using the “mostly positive” convention for the Minkowski metric, if the events A and B are spacelike separated, is the interval between them positive, negative or null?
2. An electron and a positron collide and annihilate in a region of space which is otherwise empty. How many photons will the reaction produce?
3. What is the power output via Hawking radiation of a black hole with mass equal to that of the Sun?
SCsays
I’m jumping in here without reading the entire thread, which I hate to do, but this is making me angry. A few days ago, I read this post over at ERV:
She raises a question she’s frequently asked – “How come some people who are infected with HIV-1 never get AIDS, and some people succumb very quickly?” – and discusses how it’s being investigated scientifically. Scientists dedicate years of their lives to understanding why, or better how, some people are “elite suppressors,” and by doing so often save lives and make them livable for millions of people. They have to fight for continued funding and public support for their work.
The “faithful,” in contrast, are perfectly happy to attribute elite suppressors to miracles. They revel in mystery like pigs in mud. They don’t want answers, and they don’t seek them. They prefer to gawp stupidly at “God’s genius” and call this knowledge and wisdom. The next time heddle starts pontificating on the fundamental compatibility of religion and science, I’m going to link to this thread.
Sometimes I’m ashamed to be a human being.
r bucketsays
RELATIVITY QUIZ. SHOW YOUR WORK.
1. It is not null because spacelike n(v,v)>0 and he uses non-orthonormal or a non null-basis, but I won’t try to pretend I’m an astro-physicist. I know a really great one though…
2. one? e+ / y / e- y=photon who knows man:)but if they annihilate then I say zero.
3. hawking radiation has only been theorized, but it might exist (LHC studies and stuff) and who knows man:)
I can trust (have faith) on the definitions of others and their proof work. All of scientific thought depends on the proof work of others..
*not*quantum physics wasn’t even touched when I was in school, so whatever man, your frying my brain.
phantomreader42says
SC:
The next time heddle starts pontificating on the fundamental compatibility of religion and science, I’m going to link to this thread.
my tests are complete, thank you.. and Kel, I hope you do have a good week..later!! Thanks for being civil.
SCsays
my tests are complete, thank you
And one of those times is now. Very sad.
Owlmirrorsays
but I won’t try to pretend I’m an astro-physicist.
Dude, in comment #77, you not only tried to pretend that you were an astrophysicist, you tried to pretend that astrophysics has something to do with medical biology and physiology.
Simply that it does not follow established rates of healing. It does not and can not have a known scientific explanation. It defies our space-time, relative and thermodynamic constants.
Oh please. Just because you make such statements does not make it so. Back it up. Other wise this is just another example of those who want miracles finding them in places where they are not. People see patterns and instances and want to tie them to something more than what they are. It’s a common humanistic trait.
Remember, anecdotes ≠ evidence.
I am however curious what the second miracle is.
SCsays
Owlmirror @ #85 – OK, that cheered me up. Optimism restored. Thanks.
Kel, (serious question, not probing for anything)
how does evolution explain unwarranted compassion? something with no benefit to ones self.
On a very simple level, it is beneficial. We see what we call consolation behaviour (i.e. consoling the loser of a fight) in other prime-apes. Having genes that give us the feeling of empathy is vital for social bonding. It’s not the survival of the species, it’s about the survival of the extended family. It’s just that in this world now we’ve gone beyond the immediate tribal mentality with our tribal genes.
To put it another way: when we lived in small tribes in Africa, it was important to maintain social function. Any genes that give us good social awareness is ultimately going to be beneficial to a community. The community is itself an organism looking for survival, it’s the collective of individuals, just as we are a collective of body parts. Being social is a verysuccessful survival strategy, it’s something we see in the animal kingdom and it’s why mammals have been so dominant in the last 65 million years.
So basically, initially the love and empathy would be only applied to an immediate family. As small groups formed, social bonding fit into those genes as well. Now as we see the groups getting larger, we are left with the genes that promote love and compassion and can apply it on a wider level.
It’s not about the survival of the species, it’s ultimately about the survival of the genes in an individual. But the genes in the individual that are primed for social cooperation (which has roots in empathy, altruism, going beyond the call of our selfish desires) are more likely to be passed on. The debate seems to be whether that’s individual or group selection.
I probably butchered that response, as I can’t put everything in on a response like this. I suggest reading Dr Michael Shermer’s “The Science of Good and Evil” where he gives a good explanation for it all.
Genesis 2:17 states (in my opinion, and I know its woowoo stuff) a form of non-entropy status for man. prior to the eating of the fruit by the rib-woman.
So man came from the process red in tooth and claw to be at a point of divinity only for a snake to trick a rib-girl into eating fruit which made us behave exactly like we would if we were part of the evolutionary process?
The principle of parsimony comes to mind. On the one hand we have an evolutionary process that bore us and explains our current state today, or we have the evolutionary process that bore us but we were above what we were today only to be destroyed by God’s interference in the world? The first explanation fits so well without having to resort to supernatural explanations and ties to mythology.
1. It is not null because spacelike n(v,v)>0 and he uses non-orthonormal or a non null-basis, but I won’t try to pretend I’m an astro-physicist. I know a really great one though…
The bold part is, for a wonder, correct, although it is not a complete answer, and the rest is essentially gibberish. Getting a half-correct answer for the wrong reason is not, to put it mildly, worth full credit. Oh, and special relativity is not the same thing as astrophysics.
2. one? e+ / y / e- y=photon who knows man:)but if they annihilate then I say zero.
Both of your guesses are wrong.
3. hawking radiation has only been theorized, but it might exist (LHC studies and stuff) and who knows man:)
Um, sorry. If you had given an actual answer prefaced with the qualification, “Supposing that Hawking radiation follows the standard expectations. . .” then you would have demonstrated actual knowledge, but as it stands, you’re acting like Calvin in the comic strip: “When in doubt, deny all terms and definitions.”
Being more generous than my own professors, I’ll give you 0.5 points out of three. That still ain’t a passing grade.
I have to admit, the patience you all exhibit is astounding. I had to exit after I was told that it was ok that the omnipotent god of the universe created this mess because a rib woman ate a magic apple.
I literally couldn’t make it past that. So, 10 points to you all. You are all truly forum ninjas.
Now that the test has been graded, can we get the answersheet please Blake?
Nerd of Redheadsays
As someone who use to teach general freshman chemistry, I would give R Bucket a similar grade in basic thermodynamics. He recognizes the jargon, but no the logic behind it.
Now that the test has been graded, can we get the answersheet please Blake?
Awww, you’ll make me invent new questions the next time I ask somebody to put up or shut up!
You can probably answer the spacelike interval question yourself after reading the refresher on relativity section of this old post. I should probably write up a blog post to answer the Hawking-radiation question. . . it’ll require equations. . . .
one? e+ / y / e- y=photon who knows man:)but if they annihilate then I say zero.
I’ve worked it out to two or more
Well you’ve got every possible answer covered now :P
r bucketsays
3. What is the power output via Hawking radiation of a black hole with mass equal to that of the Sun?
found the formula for it, but it would be a waste of my time and I couldn’t show my work on this blog. distractionary tactics. I say COSMIC HEAT DEATH (very simple non-specualtive thermodynamic principle.
r bucketsays
actually kel, it is two or more. I had to find the relative counterparts and what carried what energy, and i didn’t have time earlier. so he needs a new question for that one. Quantum physics is not basic thermodynamics, but it is cool:)
r bucketsays
Kel, I should clarify..by two or more I don’t mean to infinity. It is typically just two, but there are variables and other proposed possibilities if it is not a low energy case. I did’t realize what that sounded like until you posted it back.
I thought the “:P” would be a dead giveaway that I was making a joke.
r bucketsays
right on. still learning about blogs symbology. haven’t tested out of :)
Owlmirrorsays
distractionary tactics.
Yes, you’ve been quite cleverly using tactics to distract from the main point, which was that:
Given:
1) Your ignorance of the medical physiology of healing in general;
2) Your ignorance of the details of the special case of your friend’s back healing, other than it being unusual;
You concluded that:
a) actual physical principles had been directly violated, in some vague and completely unspecified way;
b) God is real and had performed a “miracle” healing that had no natural explanation.
All of which is an argument from total ignorance. EPISTEMIC FAIL.
The question is: if the act was intangible, then how can we conclude it was the work of God? We can’t know of intangible acts by definition, so to call a miracle intangible would mean that any claim of divine intervention is nothing more than blind speculation.
Let’s see, I cook up three easy questions, and I get a wrong answer, a “Waah, it’s not worth my time”, and a great caterwauling which tries to cover every possible answer without once touching upon the simple and elegant reason for the correct answer (one which any decent relativity class would cover). As a bonus, I get a non-sequitur complaint that “quantum physics is not basic thermodynamics”, which is amusing on several levels:
1. The speaker has already demonstrated farcical ignorance of thermodynamics.
2. The speaker has already conflated sciences when it suited the purposes of mysticism.
3. The question gauged the speaker’s aptitude with relativity, a subject on which the speaker had already pontificated.
And it does you no good to Google the formulas now, particularly because it’s apparently beneath you to actually use them. You started by babbling about relativity and thermodynamics, so you should have known what you were talking about then.
Troll, meet killfile. Killfile, meet troll. Have a nice day.
r bucketsays
The question is: if the act was intangible, then how can we conclude it was the work of God? We can’t know of intangible acts by definition, so to call a miracle intangible would mean that any claim of divine intervention is nothing more than blind speculation.
That’s the point of Faith, call it what you will.
Troll, meet killfile. Killfile, meet troll. Have a nice day.
The only time I ever see this antiquated evolutionary behavior is when someone is not secure in what they believe. call it what you will..
Given:
1) Your ignorance of the medical physiology of healing in general;
2) Your ignorance of the details of the special case of your friend’s back healing, other than it being unusual;
Just because I know you wouldn’t accept an elephant if it was sitting on your lap if didn’t have a formula stapled to its trunk, doesn’t mean I don’t have more info..but the “individual” must prove their evolutionary worth before I would consider sharing.
without once touching upon the simple and elegant reason for the correct answer
If this be your proof that what I say has no merit, then I say ” call it what you will.
**Note**
I thought coming on here would spawm meaningful discussion and ideas. Kel is the only one of you who has shown that, and for that I commend kel. To truly have an open mind would be to acknowledge the possibility that there is more out there than our primordial minds could comprehend, even if the acknowledgment is a neutral stance. To close ones mind to this possibility requires conviciton and “faith in your own understanding” So be your own “god” as you will. I was never hear to change your mind, just to see what you believed.
Nerd of Redheadsays
R Bucket, my impression is that you really haven’t come here to have a discussion. You have come here in an attempt to try to sway us over to the godbot side. If you want a discussion then quit trying to bamboozle us with jargon and say what you want in plain words. When you misuse jargon, you will be called on it. It is obvious you are confused by the big words. Don’t try to fool people with jargon who teach at the college level. They will see through you.
Scott Hatfield is a theist and a teacher who has his own blog, and posts here on occassion. I think you would be happier over there.
but the “individual” must prove their evolutionary worth before I would consider sharing.
Which is a totally empty sentence used to deflect from actually having to support your assertion.
r bucketsays
You have come here in an attempt to try to sway us over to the godbot side.
seriously no. I say let each man choose his destiny. (More room for me:P And I see that nothing has changed in the last twenty of thirty years, which was my reason for looking at this blog and joining in. I had to ask the questions to see the response.
It is obvious you are confused by the big words.
For the record: my field of study-college
Human Physiology
Chemistry
Emphasis in Microbiology
granted it has advanced exponentially since my time(considering the J curve) And I do understand the J curve.
Formulas don’t stimulate thought(the conclusions from them do), but i will take your advice in switching blogs.
Don’t try to fool people with jargon who teach at the college level.
No trying to fool here. Just working from conclusions. Again, One can work from the basic idea that the sum total of matter and energy in the universe is always constant, and the movement of “these” is from diverse to uniform. A quantum-physics calculation should not be necessary to have a dialog about that.
*note* In chemistry the profs were good, but the undergrads I put to shame(In my day), especially in organic. I know it probably wouldn’t ring true in this era.
They will see through you.
Maybe you get to many theists that are just looking for a fight, so you misjudge me. Granted, It is a bone of contention for many.
Nerd of Redhead,
From the start it has been the argument from others that I just don’t understand the “Jargon” which doesn’t equal misuse. and actually, their argument isn’t true.
Even if I jumped through the hoops and proved my intelectual worth, It would revert back to all the things I have been trying to discuss… and probably the same accusations.
Peace out!
Owlmirrorsays
The question is: if the act was intangible, then how can we conclude it was the work of God? We can’t know of intangible acts by definition, so to call a miracle intangible would mean that any claim of divine intervention is nothing more than blind speculation.
That’s the point of Faith, call it what you will.
I call it arguing from ignorance, and I say the hell with it.
The only time I ever see this antiquated evolutionary behavior is when someone is not secure in what they believe. call it what you will..
“antiquated evolutionary behavior”???
“Killfile” does not mean “file of those whom I wish to die”. It means “file of those who are not writing anyhing worth reading”.
Just because I know you wouldn’t accept an elephant if it was sitting on your lap if didn’t have a formula stapled to its trunk, doesn’t mean I don’t have more info..but the “individual” must prove their evolutionary worth before I would consider sharing.
Bibble-babble and bafflegab.
You have nothing at all, so you try to cover it with non sequiturs and nonsense.
To truly have an open mind would be to acknowledge the possibility that there is more out there than our primordial minds could comprehend, even if the acknowledgment is a neutral stance.
Nuts. Of course there’s “more out there”. There always is.
What does that have to do with God being real?
For the record: my field of study-college
Human Physiology
Chemistry
Emphasis in Microbiology
Hah!
One can work from the basic idea that the sum total of matter and energy in the universe is always constant, and the movement of “these” is from diverse to uniform.
But you referred to a real world example as something intangible. Surely you can see that as a logical contradiction. Faith doesn’t come into it, it’s like saying you have faith that aliens built the Sydney Opera House then using the existence of the Opera House as proof of aliens. You can’t have it both ways: either it’s intangible or it’s evidence.
Nerd of Redheadsays
Until some physical proof of god becomes available, god is a null hypothesis. Take god (whichever one you choose out of the thousands) out and the pictures and explanations of nature do not change. So the real question is can you supply the physical proof necessary for Science the enterprise? Moses had his burning bush (which was most likely an hallucination due to drinking/eating things in the desert according to one Israeli scientist). Do you have the equivalent, but non-hallucinogenic evidence? I have to be able to send scientists, magicians like the Amazing Randi, and skeptical debunkers to make sure that whatever proof is claimed is real and does not have a natural explanation. Otherwise, you just have blather.
SEFsays
for that I commend kel
But your commendation is somewhere from worthless to condemnation because you pretty much only say moronic things like
primordial minds
– revealing conclusively that you don’t really comprehend the big words you throw together somewhat randomly.
Moses had his burning bush (which was most likely an hallucination due to drinking/eating things in the desert according to one Israeli scientist).
Since the entire Captivity—Exodus—Conquest story fits nowhere in known Egyptian and Canaanite history, it’s more likely that the burning bush belongs to the same genre as, say, the visage of Zeus which seared Semele to a crisp.
Of course, it may have been invented by somebody who was eating the magic desert shrooms, but that’s a different matter.
I’m not claiming value, I’m just objecting to his approval meaning condemnation for me.
SEFsays
Which simply means you think it’s more towards the “worthless” end of the likely range already supplied.
Owlmirrorsays
O, come on. Say something nice to Kel.
Here, I’ll do it:
Kel, your patient attempts to encourage bucket to realize that there is a huge gaping hole in his epistemology are worthy and well-written. It is not your fault that bucket is incapable of realizing that his thinking is vacuous and superstitious, and his conclusions about God are therefore meaningless and wrong. Continue to think rationally and take the time to communicate, even with the obviously confused.
Sometimes it’s just easier to be glib and flippant, and I too often take that path, especially when I think that the individual should already know better. But intelligent and educated people are perfectly capable of making silly apologetic arguments from ignorance; sometimes careful and patient explanation is necessary even for those who should indeed know better.
Thanks Owlmirror, if someone is being geniune I just see no reason to be antagonistic. Sometimes frustrations do boil over (as has been the case with that crybaby eric), but there’s no reason to antagonise r bucket if he isn’t being a total douche about things.
I wonder if he will be back.
SEFsays
In this case I don’t believe “r bucket” to be genuine though. Far too many troll signs. Eg pretending to know what big words mean and getting them (and just about every science mention) all quite wrong (and wrong in a dishonest manner rather than the way a mere foreigner of some sort would do). Then there’s the tactic I was alluding to above – of trying to cosy up to whichever opponent is perceived as the weakest (in the hope of partial conversion or at least of distancing the stronger opposition to increase the chance of then making it look, to the foolish, as though the weaker opponent was defeated).
r bucketsays
of trying to cosy up to whichever opponent is perceived as the weakest
No, I’m not like that, He gave his counter for everything I presented, but in a tactful and non-derogatory way.
But your commendation is somewhere from worthless to condemnation because you pretty much only say moronic things like
primordial minds
I know this is not a technical term of science, it is a play on words.:P “Humans are at the ‘beginning/first developed’ portions of their mental understanding”-relatively, and it’s just my opinion.
I’m not even an Apologist, just thought I’d jump in with some stuff I’ve been thinking about over the years. I do alot of “play on word” stuff for my own entertainment (and I thought maybe others) Oh well. Maybe you get too many serious/angry theists in here.
I am a theist, but I don’t even get involved with all the internal bickering that goes on between what should be people who are getting along. Their is as much name calling amongst believers as there is between athiests and believers. It is like Charlie Brown says “Oh brother”, and to the best of my knowledge that is not a “quote mine”:)
I say “If God is God, He is exponentially bigger than what all these believers are freaking out about, and why would God try to trick us with science if God is God.” Plus it is such a personal thing. (I think i said that before) I know people that believe God exists, and still don’t wan’t anything to do with it….so”Oh brother”
Man, believer and non-believer, has done a lot of terrible things, in a lot of terrible ways, and in a hard-core existance of a world. I know that.
So be nice to Kel for goodness sake…
Owlmirrorsays
“If God is God, He is exponentially bigger than what all these believers are freaking out about, and why would God try to trick us with science if God is God.”
Gaah.
Take it a few steps further. Reformulate that as:
1) If God is God
2) AND God is exponentially bigger than [anything]
3) THEN why would God try to trick us by
a) allowing evidence-based science to directly contradict scripture (or allowing scripture to contradict evidence-based science)
b) NEVER SPEAKING UP FOR HIMSELF TO CLARIFY HIS OWN EXISTENCE.
SEFsays
If anyone should still doubt r bucket’s trollishness and be foolishly tempted to believe his(?) excuses above: note that he’s back here, finding the time to waste posting, while still evading all the substantial points raised against him on a previous thread he trolled.
r bucketsays
I was only back because of your treatment of kel, so get over yourself!!!:) If anyone was preying, it was (minus owlmirror) all of you on him.
No-one was preying on me, or praying for me (I don’t like the sentiment that people are trying to curse me). This was never about me at all, it was about you r bucket. I don’t need protection and I can certainly hold my own. Being courteous is not a sign of weakness, though I can see how it’s perceived to be. A sympathetic ear is one easy to latch on to, and it can be one that is easily exploited if they have a weak mind.
If you can answer anything r bucket, can you admit that there are gaping holes in the epistemology that you presented? If nothing else, the obvious errors in logic should be glaring out at you. Part of the antagonism comes from the refusal to acknowledge the flaws in one’s own argument, are you able to say after this exchange that you were wrong on certain counts? Can you say that now you have a better understanding of the naturalistic worldview?
SEFsays
I was only back because of your treatment of kel
Well that’s a direct lie. You were already back and posting here, and ignoring the other thread where you’d been called on your previous falsehoods and lies, before I commented on the way you were singling out Kel in that apparently strategic way. And you also wouldn’t have known anything at all about anything posted here (to you, Kel or anyone else) if you hadn’t already come back to look.
So r bucket didn’t come back? Shame, now we have no idea if he actually learnt something in the process or not.
SEFsays
Failure to post here again does not necessarily mean he didn’t come back here and “read” (in that minimal way typical of such people).
It’s a fairly safe bet, especially given that his evasiveness was always present, that he didn’t meaningfully learn anything much he didn’t secretly already know. Had he learned the important things (properly) he would have come back and admitted to them – that behaviour being one of the things he should have learned (to replace the creationist standard traits of denial and dishonesty).
Yeah, it’s a fool’s hope he got anything out of it. Sometimes this process feels like fighting a Hydra: every time you cut one head off, two grow back in it’s place. It would be nice if once there could be evidence that there was progress being made.
Ichthyicsays
It would be nice if once there could be evidence that there was progress being made.
we’re here talking about it on one of the most popular science blogs out there, and it’s hosted by an atheist.
I’d say that means progress is being made.
It’s just that the nutters are so damn vocal, and such a historically large, and easy to manipulate (politically) group, it’s going to take a long time before they are inevitably pushed back to the fringes where they belong.
Not quick enough for my tastes, but maybe my great grandkids will live in a truly free america.
You’re right Ichthyic, things are getting much better. On an individual level though, I sometimes wonder if it’s worth it. So much time and effort and the best response I ever get is silence (the one’s who just won’t respond anymore). It’s far better than the ones who will argue the same point over and over with no regard to truth, or the ones who think they know better than the entire scientific community, but still… it would be nice to see that at least one creationist admit the evidence doesn’t fit their belief.
SEFsays
It does happen though, albeit very rarely, that creationists eventually learn something and even come back to apologise. There was one on the BBC boards a couple of years ago (one in many hundreds or thousands over several years). They hadn’t given up religion entirely but had been forced to take up a more moderate version after being bombarded with evidence and logic and finding that they just couldn’t justify their former position (and having masochistically stuck around for enough years for this to be conclusively established beyond even their well-rehearsed fundamentalist ability to deny it any longer!).
That’s where the internet generally fails. People can run away in a manner they can’t so easily do when cornered and confronted in real life – eg were schools to have a policy of unequivocally confronting religious nonsense. However, if you’re in a country more given to encouraging (or condoning) religious indoctrination …
I agree SEF, the internet is not a good medium for this as anyone can just close the browser and forget about it. What I find sad though is that so many of these people will bring their arguments to the table, they will get shot down, so they will go away and use the same arguments elsewhere. I’ve got to wonder if some of these realise their arguments are bad, yet they still use them in the hope that sounding scientific is effective.
SEFsays
I think they have to have some inkling that their arguments are rubbish (although perhaps not as much as they should, especially in these bad days of all-opinions-are-valid and exam boards simply giving away good grades rather than pupils having to earn them by being taught the material and learning the difference between getting it right or wrong).
That’s the real key. It’s not really about raw intelligence, although that certainly helps someone to spot on their own that there’s something very wrong with religion. Nor is it about knowledge vs ignorance. It’s about intellectual honesty. These people may well be naturally dishonest and have certainly been brought up with religion to be dishonest.
Education serves the function of exposing people to contradictions between their religion and reality (including any lies they’ve been told about other people); and religious education (all the way up to theology) exposes the self-contradictions of the religion. This then allows more people the opportunity to apply any intellectual honesty they may possess and hence leave the religion behind (which is why oppressors are so against genuine education but are recently getting canny in peddling fake education).
If intellectual honesty (or any sort of honesty) is down to nature rather than nurture (or at least not later nurture) as intelligence is, then education (forcibly confronting people with reality in various ways) is the only remedial course of action available and still won’t be applicable to all; ie not the sufficiently insane, nor the hopelessly dishonest, nor those genuinely too stupid to hold anything in their minds for long and who would be easily swayed by whomever speaks to them next.
It’s not really about raw intelligence, although that certainly helps someone to spot on their own that there’s something very wrong with religion. Nor is it about knowledge vs ignorance. It’s about intellectual honesty.
Exactly, acting in an intellectually bankrupt manner by using the voices of those who aren’t in the scientific community is being dishonest. Taking advice on science from preachers (or worse preachers masquerading as scientists) is really symptomatic of our modern culture. Everyone thinks themselves an expert, since the internet gives us a portal to information we would not otherwise obtain. Anyone can go and look up the information for themselves, and presented on it’s own it’s just a series of facts. Those facts need context, and that’s where someone is separated from an expert. Anyone can have raw building materials but only those who have domain knowledge can turn it into a house.
Do they believe they are being honest? I think they are. Are they being intellectually honest? No, and I think they realise that. Well some do anyway. I wonder what they think when we see galaxies that are 13 billion light years away. Or even the local galaxies worked out with standard candles; like the LMC dwarf galaxy that is orbiting the milky way being 168,000 light years away, or the andromeda galaxy being 2.5 million light years away. Dismissing radiometric dating on earth is one thing, but dismissing the vastness of space is another. It’s big, it’s very big, it’s mindbreakingly big. This is where I see the dishonesty coming into it, to reject the past on earth is one thing, to reject the past as we see it is another.
Unfortunately creotards will rarely have the need to explain it, or come up with some very supernatural invocations to dismiss it. Ever hear the one about the photons being put by God on their way to earth?
Shiny. Nice freckles too.
Sarah Palin wants war against Russia.
What do you think about that.
A secret cephalopod army sent to attack Russia by VP Palin.
Sounds like an interesting plot.
Evidently someone goosed the poor thing.
Evidently someone goosed the poor thing.
Probably the photographer. They’ll do anything for a good shot.
I love how shiny their eyes are.
What an amazing photograph. So cool.
There’s some freaky shit under the sea. Not as freaky as Sarah Palin though.
What is the bladder-like structure next to the eye?
Rev. BigDumbChimp, KoT said:
I shudder at the image, however cephalopods are intelligent creatures – they could probably tell that Sarah Palin isn’t the best person to ordering anyone to attack anything.
Great photo though!
Ack – apologies to the grammer police: I meant “the best person to be ordering anyone”
Wow! Its eye is as big as a dinner plate!
*ducks*
Unrelated note: Hey Rev.(King of Tacos)! Have you received your Molly yet? =^]
Hey! Has anyone else noticed how that eye looks like it was designed?
Hello? 1…2….1….2…… Is this thing on?
they could probably tell that Sarah Palin isn’t the best person to be ordering anyone to attack anything.
That means they’re a lot smarter than John McCain and the Talevangelicals! (Not a big surprise.)
This little freckled ‘pod has a pleasant, curious look. I know, I know, anthropomorphic and all that, but I don’t care. ;-)
It’s looking at me.
Ok, now it’s scaring me.
ennui wins.
I thought ‘pods had slit irises. What am I missing?
Ocythoe tuberculata – that must be a typo. It’s obviously supercute-a!
Pink Floyd moment.
Hello! Is there anybody in there?
In order to remain consistent with the cephalopod/Sarah Palin line I submit the following: “At least an Ocythoe tuberculata has freckles”.
Perhaps. But I’d rather try applying lipstick to a mammal than a mollusk, if I had to choose.
Just think of all the little cephalopods that are about to be washed ashore by Ike. Surge is huge for a storm that isn’t really that strong. Waves have been splashing across Seawall Boulevard in Galveston since this morning. Glad I live inland and on relatively high ground.
This will be the last comment I make here for a few hours. I know there are a couple of other Houston area commenters. IIRC, Scooter lives inside the Loop and west of Main. I think there are some commenters from down near the Bay. I’ll be thinking of yall.
We’re doing well here. There’s no panic the way there was with Rita. There’s even gas at some stations.
Wish us luck.
BTW, most octopodes have slit or barred pupils. I think most squid have round pupils. Most of the kinds I’ve eaten had round pupils.
Bye for a few days. I’ve got a storm to experience.
I never appreciated how beautiful cephalopods were until I started reading this blog.
The more I know, the more I know there’s ever so much I don’t know.
What is the source of color (or structural color in this case?) of cephalopod irides? Pterins?
And are the “freckles” melanic?
I think that I figured out the proper search terms to approach my own questions (No. 22).
1. Purines (in leucophores)
2. I am still not sure about the freckles. The rusty color looks like phaeomelanin, but do cephalopoda have melanocytes or other melanophores?
Gorgeous eye.
Ok, it looks like one of the stars of this amazing cephelopoilicious cartoon: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VaM9mrnOMJo
I think eyesight is my favorite sense.
Nothing, as long as it tastes good:)
so I’ve been reading through the blogs a little…do you ever get someone who believes in God and the principles of science. If the comments I see are not from, I think you call them “poe trollers”, then they are uninformed truly. Or is it just squid bait for the unsuspecting thinking they won’t be all alone in a cold dark place.
note**I like the fossil record (good stuff)and I don’t think it was put there by satan, it doesn’t follow that if God created the universe except,.. oops, someone snuck something in there when God wasn’t looking..what???? so much for omnipotence.
was that last part a good job of reverse poe trolling?
Kel, N of R, or owlmirror?
It was a good job of babbling aimlessly.
or it could be a troll, as in a creature of teutonic folklore sitting under a bridge. in which case it would be poe trolls..which??
that’s what most the entries on this thread are ?que no?
Just because you don’t understand it doesn’t mean it’s babbling.
Yes we do get religious apologists in here all the time. They claim to accept the evidence of science but get very concerned about the tone and mocking of religion.
Some even pretend it’s a great badge of honor to accept science and hold very strong religious beliefs and don’t understand why we won’t back off calling religion nonsense and that we atheists are the “closed minded” fundamentalists.
One of our favorite commenters here is religious and accepts scientific evidence. He’s awesome because he understands exactly why we feel the way we do and knows his choice to believe is irrational, but he chooses to have faith. He rolls his eyes as much as we do.
For those who don’t understand why you won’t back off calling religion nonsense..well, they aren’t considering this blogs position on the state of life, but I can’t speak for them. Most of what I’ve read in here, and even the cartoon post is satire by nature, and actually makes me laugh. some of you just sound angry, but why let that distract.
If I did not believe in God, I would be on-board the “beagle” with the rest. or does that not still apply, and actually, I am on board in alot of ways..modern versions of the same thought, but more entropic. biogenesis still isn’t working for me..
And….?
I already addressed this in comment #223 in the other thread.
Abiogenesis is a falsifiable hypothesis from the evidence.
God is either a non-falsifiable hypothesis, or an already-falsified hypothesis, depending on how literally you take the bible, and how much hand-waving your theology includes.
And for that matter, I can at least define what abiogenesis is.
Can you define what God is?
forgot the “a” in abiogenesis. I should have pulled the handle one more time:) or maybe just learn how to spell?
some things about God are tangible and others are intangible. to describe God is impossible do to the confines of human intellect/space-time vs. being fully independant of the confines of space time, yet able to fully interact within its realm.
however, if the probabilities (given an earth age of 4.5 to 4.6 billion years old) of abiogenesis:the origination of living from lifeless matter, don’t hold mathematically(and luck is not objective), then alternate hypothesis would naturally arise.
If any part of God were tangible, that would be falsifiable evidence. What is this tangible part?
If God is literally indescribable — impossible to define in any way — then God might just as well not exist. Because it doesn’t do anything that can be distinguished from it not doing anything.
Incoherent!
If! If! If wishes were equids, everyone would have a pony!
No-one has advanced any such viable mathematical disproof of abiogenesis, largely because biochemists are not yet done testing all possible biochemical scenarios of abiogenesis, and, more importantly, their scenarios are coming up with partial successes, not complete failures.
Here, this is from just a few days ago:
http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2008/09/biologists-on-t.html
cool stuff,
but they are still implanting their own source codes/blue prints, not allowing that to happen by randomized/controled energy inputs, and they are not starting with the actual building blocks (pre-amino acid)!!!
but like i said, really cool stuff..
I also believe that article said “if sucessful” it would be life that no one had ever seen before and had never existed before.
Like I said again, cool stuff.
The very first part of this statement is refuted by your previous statement about parts of god being “tangible” and “intangible”. These words are both descriptions of qualities that a god could have. Thus making it possible to give descriptions of god. Though from what evidence you derive god’s tangibility, or lack thereof, is still missing.
Also, if there is something that the human mind can’t experience, then it is irrelevant. If something can effect us in any way, it follows that we experience it and can describe it in this code book we call language. If it doesn’t effect us, then it doesn’t effect us, and is thus irrelevant. For those things we do experience, while we may not get the word right immediately, we would experience it none the less. Therefore, “human limitation” is also an irrelevant answer to the charge of describing god.
Lastly, if you are positing another realm of space-time outside our own for god to operate in, not only is that completely ad hoc, it also doesn’t gain us any ground is answered questions, because now were left with questions like “Where did that space time originate from and how can we know anything about it?” To simply claim that it exists and god can go between either, is a wonderfully inventive explanation, but it’s totally unsupported by any evidence whatsoever.
So, r bucket, a description of god is still required from you. In fact, a description is required before this conversation can even start. How can we talk about god without knowing anything about it?
The desire for our species(homo sapien) to know “why?” is a small part of my thought. It doesn’t fall into survival or self preservation. Curiousity is evident in other species. hot,cold,stranger-danger…but we are the only ones who want to know why. If this can’t be explained by evolutionary process, then there would need to be a “placer” of that desire, therefore “the need to know why” could be, if there is not another explanation, evidence of the “placer” and tangible evidence of God’s desire to know us, which would be a part of describing God. God’s desire for us to know “WHY?”.
You rang?
How’s it going r bucket? What do you need me to answer?
r bucket,
Our natural need to find the cause of events is easily tackled by modern day psychology and biology. A natural drive to gain information and find out “why” events happen around you is an obvious benefit to any species, conscious or not, as it would allow that species to manipulate the circumstances to their benefit. This fits with natural selection perfectly.
It’s not even a relevant musing as science already has such questions within its immediate scope.
Surely, you can find a better reason to believe in god than this rampant speculation?
r bucket,
For future reference, don’t offer any explanation for your god that you wouldn’t accept from a muslim trying to convince you of Allah’s existence.
You’ll save us all lots of time.
If! Again with the IF!
Given that curiosity and intelligence does exist in the nonhuman animals, and our own curiosity and intelligence is clearly an advancement and improvement of those qualities in animals, why wouldn’t they be explained by evolution?
And as I just finished describing here, Christianity (indeed, all of the monotheistic religions, as far as I know) was at its inception actively hostile to curiosity and inquiry into things, whether they be of the world, or God. So if curiosity is something from God (and it isn’t), you have to pretty much reject everything in the bible.
hey Kel,
just jumpin in to the mix. If this isn’t cool and considered party crashing. just let me know, it won’t hurt my feelings. I’m just trying to get up to speed with the latest and greatest thoughts on evolution. I know I’m looking from a bias point of view (i.e. humans fit into the universe perfectly so it must be designed for them vs. humans fit perfectly because we are at that point in evolution.) It just goes round and round.
Owlmirror:
not true at all. read Proverbs 1:1-7. The last line is “Fools despise wisdom and instruction” The Hebrew is “Wisdom and Instruction fools despise”. It encourages wisdom. I don’t want to be accused of to much Bible thumping, but there are many more passages encouraging knowledge. Many moons ago, when I was in college, Academia got the thought for scientific theories right, but when they would “quote” the Bible, they were almost without fail, wrong. I am on this post to make sure Science hasn’t evolved to the point where I have the same short falls as people who don’t understand the Bible. I know to this point most of my queries have been philosophical by nature, but that was the start of modern science (i.e. do flies spontaniously arise from bantha fodder) This led to Pasteur’s studies. Boil it and seal it. The Universe isn’t that simple, so there are still alot of “if” to “yep” scenarios.
jimminy cricket michael x.:) never tip your whole hand and never tell them where your dinosaur is at. or poof it’s all over, but seriously, I have to throw those things out there to collect your thoughts. that’s all.
Sorry, yes true.
Read 1st Corinthians. It clearly discourages the “wisdom of the world”, i.e., Hellenistic philosophy, which of course included the proto-science of Aristotle.
The phrase “wisdom and instruction”, as described by the bible, means specifically knowledge of the bible. Hell, look at the part of the proverb that you omitted: “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge “. Leaving that part out is a perfect example of a quote-mine. Stop doing that. It’s dishonest.
Anything outside of the bible was frowned upon, censored, and burned. Asking questions was frowned upon, and those who did so were censored, and quite often, burned as well.
Okay, what exactly are you having trouble understanding?
r bucket, if you wish for my thoughts on any subject, all you have to do is ask. Proposing inconsistent of incoherent ideas in order to see what I’ll say about them seems to be a very roundabout way of learning what I think.
I’m pretty simple that way.
NO!! I am not being dishonest and I gave you the whole section to look at (just didn’t type it). Of coarse a believer is going to start with fear of the Lord silly goose..but your accusation was the discouragement of knowledge. “Wisdom of the world” is dealing with morality issues, mutiple dieties and the idea of no God. ! Corinthians 1:18-25 deals with exactly what we are talking about. That is what I mean by people not understanding the Bible. The phrase “Quote mine” is just another form of “out of context” and I did not do that. I gave you exactly where to look and the before and after.
It was the same way for me in college, even if I put the answers profs wanted on tests, my end grade did not reflect my research in most cases, because I did not hide the fact that I was a believer. I am OK with that, just interesting you brought that up. Burn the witch though…I think I would have ran away:)
I have no idea what you are trying to say here. Really, you’re being completely incoherent.
If you were as sloppy in your coursework as you are here, I’m not surprised that you got lowered grades. Being a believer really is not the issue; being unclear is.
PS: a lower grade is not the same as being set on fire. Feel free to hold your palm directly above a candle flame to feel the difference.
PPS: Dyslexia might have been part of the problem, though. Firefox has a built-in spell-check, which might help at least partially. But watch out for homophones. “Of course”, not “of coarse”.
Kel,
I don’t think I am having trouble understanding anything you guys are saying. Not agreeing doesn’t spawn not understanding a point, and admittedly, I am just pokin the stick around a little. Getting heavy into it would require a study in Bible numerics from a man named Ivan Panin. and well, I’m not sure anyone cares about all that..and it deals with probabilities, so anyway..
I am actually enjoying watching those Scientists who don’t believe in God making discoveries that (for me) show God’s genius.
Ethics and morality are also considered knowledge r bucket. Owlmirror’s main point stands. The church has a long history of following scripture which derides any independent thought not derived from the bible.
It’s really not worth arguing about, the facts are there and are legion. The church is not a supporter of any knowledge other than that which falls in line with predetermined dogma.
Actually, you did. Because when you look at the context of the Proverb, it is obviously about religious knowledge, not science or free inquiry.
That is what I said. If it was a burn the witch scenario, then I would have run away. It was just grades, so who cares.
I know my spelling is not the best, but I proof when it matters. thanks for letting me know about Firefox, I’ll look into it.
As far as grades go, it was actually more of a “great answers” “good paper” but I don’t agree with your personal point of view… so oops, that research assignment you have in your hand won’t be entered unless you bow to me as your god..OK, so he didn’t use the word god in that particular case, but the rest is true.
Bible code?!
Bible code!?
Gaaaah!
r bucket,
I’m just curious. How do you resolve the vast universe as observed by astronomy with God? When there are galaxies that exist 13 billion light years away which have only been able to be observed with a space telescope, what role do you see as God playing in the universe? When there are more stars in the universe than grains of sand on all beaches of the world, and we are just one species of 6 million on one planet orbiting just a single star in one galaxy, how do you resolve having all those unnecessary stars that have no relevance to our existence with a creator God?
Because to me, being one of 6 million species on one planet in a galaxy of 100,000,000 stars which is just one of millions of billions of galaxies in our bubble universe which in turn could be one of an infinite amount of bubble universes, it seems a little self-indulgant to have an anthropomorphic deity behind it all. That a 13.7 billion year cosmic struggle for existence has all been for just one species that came along within the last 200,000 years.
Bible code is Bad Math.
NO AGAIN!! proverbs 3:19-20 talks about the foundation of the earth being part of God’s wisdom and, in this vain of thought, to seek wisdom is to seek the wisdom of the establishment of the heavens and the earth..
you have to understand, there are a few who used to be looked upon poorly by christianity for their ideas in science even though believers (me). This is changing. Just like some of the ideas of Darwin had to evolve, so many believers are starting to look at science. Don’t judge the Bible by what PEOPLE have done, just like I don’t judge science by it’s past misgivings.
owlmirror
you see, you did not read what I said…NOT Bible Code>>>quadrant random stuff…BIBLE NUMERICS man…!!! and not numerology..NUMERICS! IVAN PANIN
I’m smelling Poe at this point…
==NUMEROLOGY
==BAD MATH
==FAIL
Kel
I am so glad you asked that and I’ll try to touch on it before i rack-out.
You probably know of Victor Stenger. He talks about wasted space that will not be used if it was all just for humanity…and I know I probably butchered that, but I think it gets to the idea.
But I say the physics have to be consistent and fine tuned for the complexity of life to exist on our planet. Life requires the universe. Let’s see….like this (sorry I don’t have pre-formed arguments, adlib you know) Life requires the Earth…Earth requires the solar system….solar system requires the galaxy…galaxy requires the universe, and we have measured the boundaries. What we see in the pictures from hubble and other telescopes is not what currently even is. You know, the speed of light and all that. So everything is different by the time we observe it. Atleast as they were. so I say all things have to be in place for the delicate balance.
And it does not say to go and investigate the foundations. It says “God did it”, and then moves on to morality and stuff that has nothing to do with science.
Wrong again.
You’re being unclear again. What are you talking about???
Nuts. The bible was written by people, and interpreted by people. How else am I supposed to judge it?
No! me thinks it is like a weasle..
That’s exactly as what I was getting at. When we look at an object 13 billion light years away, we are looking 13 billion years back in time. Don’t you think it’s a little self-indulgant to think the entire 13.7 billion year universe is simply a test for a species that appeared 200,000 years ago and on a religion that came about around 4,000 years ago? To think the entire span of the universe is just for one species to have a test seems nothing short of gross self-indulgance.
But your assumption is that this is all there could be, and thus obviously this is what must be. Fact is, if there were an omnipotent, benevolent god, the universe wouldn’t need all this wasted space. God would simply be able to create a planet with the people he wanted, where he wanted it and how he wanted it, instantly. No need for messy evolution, and billions of planets and even more blackholes. No need for dumb, blind, natural processes to create order, resulting in earthquakes, cancer and breathing and drinking through the same tube.
Instead we have a universe that looks exactly like one should is there was no creator at all. At the very least no creator that gave a damn about humanity.
And if you’re going to argue that a loving god created a world where resources were scarce making all life compete and natural disasters, disease, and violent death were common, then I don’t think that’s a god worth worshiping.
It doesn’t say God did it and don’t investigate. It says to learn from the wisdom of the earth and the heavens. It doesn’t say “God did it” so there’s your wisdom. did you forget your cactus juice?:)
It most certainly does not.
Can’t you even read?
19 The LORD by wisdom founded the earth,
By understanding He established the heavens.
20 By His knowledge the deeps were broken up
And the skies drip with dew.
==”God did it”. God’s wisdom, God’s knowledge.
At no point does it say to go and investigate. And the whole “fear of the LORD” part from Prov. 1:7 implies a negative on investigating. You don’t investigate the business of someone you’re supposed to fear.
And that is the point in the Bible about the fall of man. Needing Grace. I’m sure you’ve heard that from others, so I won’t preach.
I agree, there is a lot of crappy stuff in this world, but also a lot of beauty all around us.
and now i will do a cry-off and go get some sleep.:)!
owlmirror,
The fear of the Lord is the Beginning of knowledge, not the end of knowledge. If it says gain wisdom and God’s wisdom is what brought all this into being, then gain the wisdom available all around you. It’s a flow of thought.
That god knowingly created a fallible being that would be judged according to the bar of his perfection, and when it failed to match up to god, he knowingly predestined the vast majority of them who were ever to live to die in agonizing death, to then only burn in hell for eternity? This was the omnipotent and omni-benevolent god’s divine and perfect plan?
Are you insane? You actually believe this? This is the action of a sick demented being. Worshipers of such a tyrant deserve to be called sheep.
One that you made up yourself.
For most of the past few thousand years, that, and the rest of the bible, including 1st Corinthians, have been interpreted as meaning that God made the world, and that settled it. Science and scientific investigation and speculation were always in danger of being condemned as heretical.
Christianity:
…the belief that a cosmic Jewish Zombie who was his own father can make you live forever if you symbolically eat his flesh and telepathically tell him you accept him as your master, so he can remove an evil force from your soul that is present in humanity because a rib-woman was convinced by a talking snake to eat from a magical tree.
Makes perfect sense.
Ahh, the way of theology. All the good is God’s doing, all the bad is mans’. That way God can take the credit for everything beautiful and that damn worm that burrows in the eye of African children eventually causing blindness is all the fault of a snake tricking a woman into eating some fruit…
Too bad the evidence doesn’t work that way. Nature was indiscriminate in destruction: life red in tooth and claw, natural disasters, mass extinction events, and this is all before man’s ancestor first crawled out of the water and onto land. The fall is symbolic of man’s brutal nature and the drive for moral obedience. This is why Genesis is counted as mythology rather than history; quite simply it didn’t happen. There was no global flood, no tower of babel, no smiting of Sodom and Gamorrah, it’s all mythological stories to explain the nature of Man, the nature of God and the relationship of the two. The fall didn’t happen, it’s just a reason for the indiscriminate brutality that is part and parcel of existence.
If everything is tangible, then why have I experienced two miracles in my life. unexplainable by science…
Genesis 2:17 states (in my opinion, and I know its woowoo stuff) a form of non-entropy status for man. prior to the eating of the fruit by the rib-woman.< <--(funny way to put it)
This should be good.
Please let us know about these.
How do you know they were miracles?
How would you know if you were wrong?
Logic: You’re doing it wrong.
Gen. 2:17 is God lying to Adam (or making a mistake, but it certainly looks like a blatant and obvious lie in light of the later verses). Adam ate the fruit, and did not die on that day.
However, neither does it say that Adam would not die at all, ever, if he did not eat the fruit.
Except they can see that the frog is physically different. Analogy fail.
If religious people really could regularly perform “miracles” at will, that could be seen, it would be obvious that there really was a change that had occurred.
Instead, we see exactly the opposite: religious people not only perform no wonders, they are not particularly likely to be better people; or otherwise different.
PS: You analogy has been done before:
http://digital.library.upenn.edu/women/gatty/parables/gone.html
The example I will give involved one of my friends breaking his back. The initial surgery required a lot of titanium hardware to be placed in his back. Plates, screws, etc… The bone graphs were not taking and leaving the broken area very weak. I was hanging out with him when one of the screws broke. This was a big emergency (destabilization of the spine stuff) We took him in for x-rays and sure enough there was the broken screw and the bone graph had not taken in the least. The emergency surgery plans required more hardware and an electrostimulation package to promote bone growth to fill in the gap in his spine. X-rays were taken to verify the procedure and surgery was scheduled a couple of days later. A group of us prayed with/for him to have strength and courage and for God to assist the healing process. He started to cry towards the end (he doesn’t cry for much of anything) and I was thinking that’s weird and asked him what was up. he said he could feel heat in his back, and I thought yah, because it’s broke man….. He said he was convinced God healed it and I told him just to go to surgery and let the doctor do his work (truthfully I thought he was just being emotional and in all reality thought the surgery would go as planned, but hey, think positive right. The day of the surgery they opened him up and the doctor (same one who did the first surgery) got mad because the x-rays showed broken and the actual area was fussed back together perfectly. The initial hardware that was supposed to stay with him for the rest of his life was taken out and the new stuff never put in. They just stitched him up. The doctor was so mad when he came out, and freaked out too, raising his voice on how it wasn’t possible and even yelled at my buddies dad a little. way weird stuff with no medical explanation. This is not a second hand story, but a part in the 0 and 1’s of my life. I don’t even buy the faith healing tele-evangalist stuff, went to one out of curiosity and even as a believer it felt fake to me. Most of those in my opinion are all about the money.
Kel, (serious question, not probing for anything)
how does evolution explain unwarranted compassion? something with no benefit to ones self. (and If it is still just the idea of preservation of the species, I guess it hasn’t changed.)
And how exactly is that a miracle?
owlmirror,
And I thought i was unique, Hah!! Well, at least my finger print is. My tripes are but nothing compared to that pen wizardry.
Simply that it does not follow established rates of healing. It does not and can not have a known scientific explanation. It defies our space-time, relative and thermodynamic constants.
And Genesis 1:6 says that the sky is made of beaten metal sheets (raqiya’, translated as “firmament”), while Genesis 1:11–18 state that marijuana existed before the Sun, Moon and stars.
The emphasis is added to indicate the part which is clearly wrong.
Throwing around the names of scientific fields does not constitute an argument.
And we’ve already seen that you don’t really know thermodynamics.
“Established rates of healing” are an average, not a constant.
“Does not”? Sure, because your friend was not subjected to a careful scientific study and examination.
But “can not”? How do you know? How would you know if you were wrong?
If your friend’s back was given a careful and thorough examination, some obvious natural causes that might be found are that the original fracture was misdiagnosed, or that he just simply has a freakishly fast and efficient healing process, or that in this one instance, a combination of factors led to rapid healing. Why not? These would at least be testable hypotheses.
Piffle. Hyperbolic nonsensical pseudo-scientific word-salad.
RELATIVITY QUIZ. SHOW YOUR WORK.
1. Using the “mostly positive” convention for the Minkowski metric, if the events A and B are spacelike separated, is the interval between them positive, negative or null?
2. An electron and a positron collide and annihilate in a region of space which is otherwise empty. How many photons will the reaction produce?
3. What is the power output via Hawking radiation of a black hole with mass equal to that of the Sun?
I’m jumping in here without reading the entire thread, which I hate to do, but this is making me angry. A few days ago, I read this post over at ERV:
http://scienceblogs.com/erv/2008/09/elite_suppressors.php
She raises a question she’s frequently asked – “How come some people who are infected with HIV-1 never get AIDS, and some people succumb very quickly?” – and discusses how it’s being investigated scientifically. Scientists dedicate years of their lives to understanding why, or better how, some people are “elite suppressors,” and by doing so often save lives and make them livable for millions of people. They have to fight for continued funding and public support for their work.
The “faithful,” in contrast, are perfectly happy to attribute elite suppressors to miracles. They revel in mystery like pigs in mud. They don’t want answers, and they don’t seek them. They prefer to gawp stupidly at “God’s genius” and call this knowledge and wisdom. The next time heddle starts pontificating on the fundamental compatibility of religion and science, I’m going to link to this thread.
Sometimes I’m ashamed to be a human being.
1. It is not null because spacelike n(v,v)>0 and he uses non-orthonormal or a non null-basis, but I won’t try to pretend I’m an astro-physicist. I know a really great one though…
2. one? e+ / y / e- y=photon who knows man:)but if they annihilate then I say zero.
3. hawking radiation has only been theorized, but it might exist (LHC studies and stuff) and who knows man:)
I can trust (have faith) on the definitions of others and their proof work. All of scientific thought depends on the proof work of others..
*not*quantum physics wasn’t even touched when I was in school, so whatever man, your frying my brain.
SC:
No point. He’s already explicitly admitted that he won’t listen to anyone but a fellow cultist. He doesn’t want to hear the truth, he just wants to hide behind whatever lies advance the cult.
my tests are complete, thank you.. and Kel, I hope you do have a good week..later!! Thanks for being civil.
my tests are complete, thank you
And one of those times is now. Very sad.
Dude, in comment #77, you not only tried to pretend that you were an astrophysicist, you tried to pretend that astrophysics has something to do with medical biology and physiology.
FAIL.
EPIC FAIL.
EPIC EPISTEMIC FAIL.
GO TO FAIL.
GO DIRECTLY TO FAIL.
DO NOT PASS “GO”.
DO NOT COLLECT 200 APOLOGETIC POINTS.
Oh please. Just because you make such statements does not make it so. Back it up. Other wise this is just another example of those who want miracles finding them in places where they are not. People see patterns and instances and want to tie them to something more than what they are. It’s a common humanistic trait.
Remember, anecdotes ≠ evidence.
I am however curious what the second miracle is.
Owlmirror @ #85 – OK, that cheered me up. Optimism restored. Thanks.
On a very simple level, it is beneficial. We see what we call consolation behaviour (i.e. consoling the loser of a fight) in other prime-apes. Having genes that give us the feeling of empathy is vital for social bonding. It’s not the survival of the species, it’s about the survival of the extended family. It’s just that in this world now we’ve gone beyond the immediate tribal mentality with our tribal genes.
To put it another way: when we lived in small tribes in Africa, it was important to maintain social function. Any genes that give us good social awareness is ultimately going to be beneficial to a community. The community is itself an organism looking for survival, it’s the collective of individuals, just as we are a collective of body parts. Being social is a verysuccessful survival strategy, it’s something we see in the animal kingdom and it’s why mammals have been so dominant in the last 65 million years.
So basically, initially the love and empathy would be only applied to an immediate family. As small groups formed, social bonding fit into those genes as well. Now as we see the groups getting larger, we are left with the genes that promote love and compassion and can apply it on a wider level.
It’s not about the survival of the species, it’s ultimately about the survival of the genes in an individual. But the genes in the individual that are primed for social cooperation (which has roots in empathy, altruism, going beyond the call of our selfish desires) are more likely to be passed on. The debate seems to be whether that’s individual or group selection.
I probably butchered that response, as I can’t put everything in on a response like this. I suggest reading Dr Michael Shermer’s “The Science of Good and Evil” where he gives a good explanation for it all.
So man came from the process red in tooth and claw to be at a point of divinity only for a snake to trick a rib-girl into eating fruit which made us behave exactly like we would if we were part of the evolutionary process?
The principle of parsimony comes to mind. On the one hand we have an evolutionary process that bore us and explains our current state today, or we have the evolutionary process that bore us but we were above what we were today only to be destroyed by God’s interference in the world? The first explanation fits so well without having to resort to supernatural explanations and ties to mythology.
Grading time!
The bold part is, for a wonder, correct, although it is not a complete answer, and the rest is essentially gibberish. Getting a half-correct answer for the wrong reason is not, to put it mildly, worth full credit. Oh, and special relativity is not the same thing as astrophysics.
Both of your guesses are wrong.
Um, sorry. If you had given an actual answer prefaced with the qualification, “Supposing that Hawking radiation follows the standard expectations. . .” then you would have demonstrated actual knowledge, but as it stands, you’re acting like Calvin in the comic strip: “When in doubt, deny all terms and definitions.”
Being more generous than my own professors, I’ll give you 0.5 points out of three. That still ain’t a passing grade.
I have to admit, the patience you all exhibit is astounding. I had to exit after I was told that it was ok that the omnipotent god of the universe created this mess because a rib woman ate a magic apple.
I literally couldn’t make it past that. So, 10 points to you all. You are all truly forum ninjas.
Now that the test has been graded, can we get the answersheet please Blake?
As someone who use to teach general freshman chemistry, I would give R Bucket a similar grade in basic thermodynamics. He recognizes the jargon, but no the logic behind it.
Kel (#92):
Awww, you’ll make me invent new questions the next time I ask somebody to put up or shut up!
You can probably answer the spacelike interval question yourself after reading the refresher on relativity section of this old post. I should probably write up a blog post to answer the Hawking-radiation question. . . it’ll require equations. . . .
I didn’t think of it that way, good point.
I was asking out of general curiousity, some of the concepts of relativity and cosmology still blow my mind.
Surely you don’t need me to point out the non-sequitor nature of this argument. I’ll just say PYGMIES + DWARFS?? instead.
I’ve worked it out to two or more because the photon carrys the energy for these two antiparticles, and there are two particles so I say atleast two.
Well you’ve got every possible answer covered now :P
found the formula for it, but it would be a waste of my time and I couldn’t show my work on this blog. distractionary tactics. I say COSMIC HEAT DEATH (very simple non-specualtive thermodynamic principle.
actually kel, it is two or more. I had to find the relative counterparts and what carried what energy, and i didn’t have time earlier. so he needs a new question for that one. Quantum physics is not basic thermodynamics, but it is cool:)
Kel, I should clarify..by two or more I don’t mean to infinity. It is typically just two, but there are variables and other proposed possibilities if it is not a low energy case. I did’t realize what that sounded like until you posted it back.
I thought the “:P” would be a dead giveaway that I was making a joke.
right on. still learning about blogs symbology. haven’t tested out of :)
Yes, you’ve been quite cleverly using tactics to distract from the main point, which was that:
Given:
1) Your ignorance of the medical physiology of healing in general;
2) Your ignorance of the details of the special case of your friend’s back healing, other than it being unusual;
You concluded that:
a) actual physical principles had been directly violated, in some vague and completely unspecified way;
b) God is real and had performed a “miracle” healing that had no natural explanation.
All of which is an argument from total ignorance.
EPISTEMIC FAIL.
The question is: if the act was intangible, then how can we conclude it was the work of God? We can’t know of intangible acts by definition, so to call a miracle intangible would mean that any claim of divine intervention is nothing more than blind speculation.
Let’s see, I cook up three easy questions, and I get a wrong answer, a “Waah, it’s not worth my time”, and a great caterwauling which tries to cover every possible answer without once touching upon the simple and elegant reason for the correct answer (one which any decent relativity class would cover). As a bonus, I get a non-sequitur complaint that “quantum physics is not basic thermodynamics”, which is amusing on several levels:
1. The speaker has already demonstrated farcical ignorance of thermodynamics.
2. The speaker has already conflated sciences when it suited the purposes of mysticism.
3. The question gauged the speaker’s aptitude with relativity, a subject on which the speaker had already pontificated.
And it does you no good to Google the formulas now, particularly because it’s apparently beneath you to actually use them. You started by babbling about relativity and thermodynamics, so you should have known what you were talking about then.
Troll, meet killfile. Killfile, meet troll. Have a nice day.
That’s the point of Faith, call it what you will.
The only time I ever see this antiquated evolutionary behavior is when someone is not secure in what they believe. call it what you will..
Just because I know you wouldn’t accept an elephant if it was sitting on your lap if didn’t have a formula stapled to its trunk, doesn’t mean I don’t have more info..but the “individual” must prove their evolutionary worth before I would consider sharing.
If this be your proof that what I say has no merit, then I say ” call it what you will.
**Note**
I thought coming on here would spawm meaningful discussion and ideas. Kel is the only one of you who has shown that, and for that I commend kel. To truly have an open mind would be to acknowledge the possibility that there is more out there than our primordial minds could comprehend, even if the acknowledgment is a neutral stance. To close ones mind to this possibility requires conviciton and “faith in your own understanding” So be your own “god” as you will. I was never hear to change your mind, just to see what you believed.
R Bucket, my impression is that you really haven’t come here to have a discussion. You have come here in an attempt to try to sway us over to the godbot side. If you want a discussion then quit trying to bamboozle us with jargon and say what you want in plain words. When you misuse jargon, you will be called on it. It is obvious you are confused by the big words. Don’t try to fool people with jargon who teach at the college level. They will see through you.
Scott Hatfield is a theist and a teacher who has his own blog, and posts here on occassion. I think you would be happier over there.
Which is a totally empty sentence used to deflect from actually having to support your assertion.
seriously no. I say let each man choose his destiny. (More room for me:P And I see that nothing has changed in the last twenty of thirty years, which was my reason for looking at this blog and joining in. I had to ask the questions to see the response.
For the record: my field of study-college
Human Physiology
Chemistry
Emphasis in Microbiology
granted it has advanced exponentially since my time(considering the J curve) And I do understand the J curve.
Formulas don’t stimulate thought(the conclusions from them do), but i will take your advice in switching blogs.
No trying to fool here. Just working from conclusions. Again, One can work from the basic idea that the sum total of matter and energy in the universe is always constant, and the movement of “these” is from diverse to uniform. A quantum-physics calculation should not be necessary to have a dialog about that.
*note* In chemistry the profs were good, but the undergrads I put to shame(In my day), especially in organic. I know it probably wouldn’t ring true in this era.
Maybe you get to many theists that are just looking for a fight, so you misjudge me. Granted, It is a bone of contention for many.
Nerd of Redhead,
From the start it has been the argument from others that I just don’t understand the “Jargon” which doesn’t equal misuse. and actually, their argument isn’t true.
Even if I jumped through the hoops and proved my intelectual worth, It would revert back to all the things I have been trying to discuss… and probably the same accusations.
Peace out!
I call it arguing from ignorance, and I say the hell with it.
“antiquated evolutionary behavior”???
“Killfile” does not mean “file of those whom I wish to die”. It means “file of those who are not writing anyhing worth reading”.
Bibble-babble and bafflegab.
You have nothing at all, so you try to cover it with non sequiturs and nonsense.
Nuts. Of course there’s “more out there”. There always is.
What does that have to do with God being real?
Hah!
Which means what? If anything?
But you referred to a real world example as something intangible. Surely you can see that as a logical contradiction. Faith doesn’t come into it, it’s like saying you have faith that aliens built the Sydney Opera House then using the existence of the Opera House as proof of aliens. You can’t have it both ways: either it’s intangible or it’s evidence.
Until some physical proof of god becomes available, god is a null hypothesis. Take god (whichever one you choose out of the thousands) out and the pictures and explanations of nature do not change. So the real question is can you supply the physical proof necessary for Science the enterprise? Moses had his burning bush (which was most likely an hallucination due to drinking/eating things in the desert according to one Israeli scientist). Do you have the equivalent, but non-hallucinogenic evidence? I have to be able to send scientists, magicians like the Amazing Randi, and skeptical debunkers to make sure that whatever proof is claimed is real and does not have a natural explanation. Otherwise, you just have blather.
But your commendation is somewhere from worthless to condemnation because you pretty much only say moronic things like
– revealing conclusively that you don’t really comprehend the big words you throw together somewhat randomly.
Nerd of Redhead (#113):
Since the entire Captivity—Exodus—Conquest story fits nowhere in known Egyptian and Canaanite history, it’s more likely that the burning bush belongs to the same genre as, say, the visage of Zeus which seared Semele to a crisp.
Of course, it may have been invented by somebody who was eating the magic desert shrooms, but that’s a different matter.
Hey!
So you’re claiming to value r bucket’s approval of you?!
I’m not claiming value, I’m just objecting to his approval meaning condemnation for me.
Which simply means you think it’s more towards the “worthless” end of the likely range already supplied.
O, come on. Say something nice to Kel.
Here, I’ll do it:
Kel, your patient attempts to encourage bucket to realize that there is a huge gaping hole in his epistemology are worthy and well-written. It is not your fault that bucket is incapable of realizing that his thinking is vacuous and superstitious, and his conclusions about God are therefore meaningless and wrong. Continue to think rationally and take the time to communicate, even with the obviously confused.
Sometimes it’s just easier to be glib and flippant, and I too often take that path, especially when I think that the individual should already know better. But intelligent and educated people are perfectly capable of making silly apologetic arguments from ignorance; sometimes careful and patient explanation is necessary even for those who should indeed know better.
[I CAN HAS TEMPLETON PRIZE?]
Thanks Owlmirror, if someone is being geniune I just see no reason to be antagonistic. Sometimes frustrations do boil over (as has been the case with that crybaby eric), but there’s no reason to antagonise r bucket if he isn’t being a total douche about things.
I wonder if he will be back.
In this case I don’t believe “r bucket” to be genuine though. Far too many troll signs. Eg pretending to know what big words mean and getting them (and just about every science mention) all quite wrong (and wrong in a dishonest manner rather than the way a mere foreigner of some sort would do). Then there’s the tactic I was alluding to above – of trying to cosy up to whichever opponent is perceived as the weakest (in the hope of partial conversion or at least of distancing the stronger opposition to increase the chance of then making it look, to the foolish, as though the weaker opponent was defeated).
No, I’m not like that, He gave his counter for everything I presented, but in a tactful and non-derogatory way.
I know this is not a technical term of science, it is a play on words.:P “Humans are at the ‘beginning/first developed’ portions of their mental understanding”-relatively, and it’s just my opinion.
I’m not even an Apologist, just thought I’d jump in with some stuff I’ve been thinking about over the years. I do alot of “play on word” stuff for my own entertainment (and I thought maybe others) Oh well. Maybe you get too many serious/angry theists in here.
I am a theist, but I don’t even get involved with all the internal bickering that goes on between what should be people who are getting along. Their is as much name calling amongst believers as there is between athiests and believers. It is like Charlie Brown says “Oh brother”, and to the best of my knowledge that is not a “quote mine”:)
I say “If God is God, He is exponentially bigger than what all these believers are freaking out about, and why would God try to trick us with science if God is God.” Plus it is such a personal thing. (I think i said that before) I know people that believe God exists, and still don’t wan’t anything to do with it….so”Oh brother”
Man, believer and non-believer, has done a lot of terrible things, in a lot of terrible ways, and in a hard-core existance of a world. I know that.
So be nice to Kel for goodness sake…
Gaah.
Take it a few steps further. Reformulate that as:
1) If God is God
2) AND God is exponentially bigger than [anything]
3) THEN why would God try to trick us by
a) allowing evidence-based science to directly contradict scripture (or allowing scripture to contradict evidence-based science)
b) NEVER SPEAKING UP FOR HIMSELF TO CLARIFY HIS OWN EXISTENCE.
If anyone should still doubt r bucket’s trollishness and be foolishly tempted to believe his(?) excuses above: note that he’s back here, finding the time to waste posting, while still evading all the substantial points raised against him on a previous thread he trolled.
I was only back because of your treatment of kel, so get over yourself!!!:) If anyone was preying, it was (minus owlmirror) all of you on him.
This time forever, peace out!!!
No-one was preying on me, or praying for me (I don’t like the sentiment that people are trying to curse me). This was never about me at all, it was about you r bucket. I don’t need protection and I can certainly hold my own. Being courteous is not a sign of weakness, though I can see how it’s perceived to be. A sympathetic ear is one easy to latch on to, and it can be one that is easily exploited if they have a weak mind.
If you can answer anything r bucket, can you admit that there are gaping holes in the epistemology that you presented? If nothing else, the obvious errors in logic should be glaring out at you. Part of the antagonism comes from the refusal to acknowledge the flaws in one’s own argument, are you able to say after this exchange that you were wrong on certain counts? Can you say that now you have a better understanding of the naturalistic worldview?
Well that’s a direct lie. You were already back and posting here, and ignoring the other thread where you’d been called on your previous falsehoods and lies, before I commented on the way you were singling out Kel in that apparently strategic way. And you also wouldn’t have known anything at all about anything posted here (to you, Kel or anyone else) if you hadn’t already come back to look.
So r bucket didn’t come back? Shame, now we have no idea if he actually learnt something in the process or not.
Failure to post here again does not necessarily mean he didn’t come back here and “read” (in that minimal way typical of such people).
It’s a fairly safe bet, especially given that his evasiveness was always present, that he didn’t meaningfully learn anything much he didn’t secretly already know. Had he learned the important things (properly) he would have come back and admitted to them – that behaviour being one of the things he should have learned (to replace the creationist standard traits of denial and dishonesty).
Yeah, it’s a fool’s hope he got anything out of it. Sometimes this process feels like fighting a Hydra: every time you cut one head off, two grow back in it’s place. It would be nice if once there could be evidence that there was progress being made.
It would be nice if once there could be evidence that there was progress being made.
we’re here talking about it on one of the most popular science blogs out there, and it’s hosted by an atheist.
I’d say that means progress is being made.
It’s just that the nutters are so damn vocal, and such a historically large, and easy to manipulate (politically) group, it’s going to take a long time before they are inevitably pushed back to the fringes where they belong.
Not quick enough for my tastes, but maybe my great grandkids will live in a truly free america.
You’re right Ichthyic, things are getting much better. On an individual level though, I sometimes wonder if it’s worth it. So much time and effort and the best response I ever get is silence (the one’s who just won’t respond anymore). It’s far better than the ones who will argue the same point over and over with no regard to truth, or the ones who think they know better than the entire scientific community, but still… it would be nice to see that at least one creationist admit the evidence doesn’t fit their belief.
It does happen though, albeit very rarely, that creationists eventually learn something and even come back to apologise. There was one on the BBC boards a couple of years ago (one in many hundreds or thousands over several years). They hadn’t given up religion entirely but had been forced to take up a more moderate version after being bombarded with evidence and logic and finding that they just couldn’t justify their former position (and having masochistically stuck around for enough years for this to be conclusively established beyond even their well-rehearsed fundamentalist ability to deny it any longer!).
That’s where the internet generally fails. People can run away in a manner they can’t so easily do when cornered and confronted in real life – eg were schools to have a policy of unequivocally confronting religious nonsense. However, if you’re in a country more given to encouraging (or condoning) religious indoctrination …
I agree SEF, the internet is not a good medium for this as anyone can just close the browser and forget about it. What I find sad though is that so many of these people will bring their arguments to the table, they will get shot down, so they will go away and use the same arguments elsewhere. I’ve got to wonder if some of these realise their arguments are bad, yet they still use them in the hope that sounding scientific is effective.
I think they have to have some inkling that their arguments are rubbish (although perhaps not as much as they should, especially in these bad days of all-opinions-are-valid and exam boards simply giving away good grades rather than pupils having to earn them by being taught the material and learning the difference between getting it right or wrong).
That’s the real key. It’s not really about raw intelligence, although that certainly helps someone to spot on their own that there’s something very wrong with religion. Nor is it about knowledge vs ignorance. It’s about intellectual honesty. These people may well be naturally dishonest and have certainly been brought up with religion to be dishonest.
Education serves the function of exposing people to contradictions between their religion and reality (including any lies they’ve been told about other people); and religious education (all the way up to theology) exposes the self-contradictions of the religion. This then allows more people the opportunity to apply any intellectual honesty they may possess and hence leave the religion behind (which is why oppressors are so against genuine education but are recently getting canny in peddling fake education).
If intellectual honesty (or any sort of honesty) is down to nature rather than nurture (or at least not later nurture) as intelligence is, then education (forcibly confronting people with reality in various ways) is the only remedial course of action available and still won’t be applicable to all; ie not the sufficiently insane, nor the hopelessly dishonest, nor those genuinely too stupid to hold anything in their minds for long and who would be easily swayed by whomever speaks to them next.
Exactly, acting in an intellectually bankrupt manner by using the voices of those who aren’t in the scientific community is being dishonest. Taking advice on science from preachers (or worse preachers masquerading as scientists) is really symptomatic of our modern culture. Everyone thinks themselves an expert, since the internet gives us a portal to information we would not otherwise obtain. Anyone can go and look up the information for themselves, and presented on it’s own it’s just a series of facts. Those facts need context, and that’s where someone is separated from an expert. Anyone can have raw building materials but only those who have domain knowledge can turn it into a house.
Do they believe they are being honest? I think they are. Are they being intellectually honest? No, and I think they realise that. Well some do anyway. I wonder what they think when we see galaxies that are 13 billion light years away. Or even the local galaxies worked out with standard candles; like the LMC dwarf galaxy that is orbiting the milky way being 168,000 light years away, or the andromeda galaxy being 2.5 million light years away. Dismissing radiometric dating on earth is one thing, but dismissing the vastness of space is another. It’s big, it’s very big, it’s mindbreakingly big. This is where I see the dishonesty coming into it, to reject the past on earth is one thing, to reject the past as we see it is another.
Unfortunately creotards will rarely have the need to explain it, or come up with some very supernatural invocations to dismiss it. Ever hear the one about the photons being put by God on their way to earth?