At Owlmirror’s suggestion, this is a new thread to cope with the flaming wrongness of this recent creationist pimple, Teno Groppi, on the Entropy and evolution thread (which is now closed, by the way). This happens, now and then: some obtuse and confident creationist, made even more stubborn by an abysmal ignorance, shows up and starts babbling. So of course people rebut him, but he completely ignores everything that he’s told, which means more people jump in to hammer on him, and because he’s too stupid to recognize what’s going on, he babbles more. And then the thread expands in an endless game of whack-a-mole.
You can keep playing right here. The old thread was just getting too long.
WHACK
I can easily say Teno is one of the more flamingly stupid trolls we’ve had. If it wasn’t so enjoyable to smack him around it would be infinitely frustrating.
I did learn quite a bit from the responses to him, so thanks, Owlmirror et al.
Rev., what do you expect from these people? Take the a & the o from creationist & you’ve got cretinist.
Whacking this moron with logic or a club is useless as his head will only resist both forces. Maybe he’ll run into something more substantial, as a truck, which should leave an impression on both his bones and skull, and then he can ruminate why his god permitted this to happen, a loyal moron.
That was a great thread.
I was in a a long conversation with a YEC colleague who used the entropy idiocy to disprove evolution, and his god along with it! LOL!
His whole argument was everything we know is wrong except for that which supports a 6000 year old earth.
What an awesome god to fool me like that! I admit, I totally bought all the ‘observable’ and ’empirical’ evidence.
Oh, help me Jeebus!
Hey, I didn’t know abb3w was showing up around these parts… He’s a dirty FARKer!
;-)
I kind of doubt ol’ Teno will be back. If he does return it’s my intention to continue shunning the dumbshit. Explaining stuff to brick walls is not a wise or enjoyable use of my time.
I debated Teno Groppi about a year and a half ago, during the summer. I’m genuinely surprised to hear his name come up again. He would basically make an argument and then change the subject whenever he was refuted, and after a while he reached a point where he called Darwin a racist and said that evolution was “un-American” because the founding fathers did not believe it. I shit you not. He also went on a tangent about gay people for some reason.
By the way, he has a couple of (incredibly scary) blogs if anyone cares to look them up.
The old thread was having trouble loading at work due to its length. Thanks PZ.
This wackaloon believes the bible is scientific. If one thing in the bible is right, the whole book is correct. Typical creationist troll.
Especially when that brick wall thought your sarcasm was support for his beliefs.
I never get to these threads soon enough to deliver a solid [=original]’WHACK.’
I have vast contempt for anyone using the entropy argument, first for the Borgia quality stupidity and second, Jerry Faldwell spouting this nonsense caused a 30 year estrangement between my father and myself. Teno, my most fervent wish is that your ignorance and culpable stupidity will visit you, unfailingly and repeatedly in some non-beneficial way throughout the time of your life.
Damn! 1300+ posts without a mention of crackers?!
Methinks, PeeZed will end up with another mac soon enough.
Well, it’s true, the founding fathers didn’t believe evolution. Or quantum mechanics. Or even Maxwell’s equations. Smart as they were, they lacked that refined knack for predicting the future.
The thing that has always utterly baffled me about the ‘entropy argument’ from creationists is that if their claim were correct it is not just evolution that would be impossible: life itself could not exist. Turning things like CO2, H2O, NH3, etc. into living bodies makes a whole lot of order out of disorder. Being ALIVE causes a local decrease in entropy. Simply the fact that anything is alive demonstrates the nonsense of the argument.
We’re trying. Gotta keep the trophy daughter in tuition too. Almost a hundred posts discussing a possible Poe. We are an opinionated ilk.
I’d rather be pinionated ilk. Fly my pretties, fly!
Does SIWOTI originate from http://www.xkcd.com/386/, or does it predate that?
Also, you closed the other thread two posts too late.
Seems like our guy.
BTW, Teno, you still haven’t answered my question!!!
Yep, Teno is a world class fundamentalist bigot. The lot – Baptist, KJV Only, homophobe, Ron Paul conservative and all round cretinist.
Teno has got to be the biggest moron I’ve ever dealt with on here. There’s ignorant, there’s really ignorant, there’s Robert Byers, but Teno eclipsed them all by a long way. He still won’t explain how we saw a supernova 168,000 light years away.
Steve C provided these Teno related links on the other thread:
nutjob
And:moonbat
The second provides links to other Groppi blogs.
Ooooh boy! He’s a live one.
GODDIDIT, duh.
I always find that absurd. They are alleging that all stars beyond 6,000 light years are an illusion, put there by God to fool those damn mathematicians and astronomers. So when it went supernova, not only did God send light to look like it’s from that star, but he sent like to make it look like a supernova too. It’s almost as if God wanted us not to believe my making all the evidence look like he doesn’t exist.
Over 10 years ago, I was a member of a small mailing list that included evolutionists, creationists and undecideds. Just before I joined, they had expelled Teno Groppi for being an insufferable pain in the a. He was so incapable of any civil discourse or rational conversation that even most of the other creationists voted to get rid of him. In fact, this stuff looks like it came from the list in question – Teno’s proud of his stupidity:
http://www.baptistlink.com/godandcountry/creation/cedebate.html
The moonbat link is hilarious… according to Teno, T-Rex lived less than 100 years ago. Amazing that no one seems to have noticed a 40ft predator wandering around…
“All things are wearisome, more than one can say.
The eye never has enough of seeing,
nor the ear its fill of hearing.
What has been will be again,
what has been done will be done again;
there is nothing new under the sun.
Is there anything of which one can say,
“Look! This is something new”?
It was here already, long ago;
it was here before our time.”
Ecclesiastes 1:8-10
http://tinyurl.com/59dzwe
cthelis: I didn’t know abb3w was showing up around these parts… He’s a dirty FARKer!
Yeah, yeah, so I got up late and haven’t taken my shower yet. I’ve been gardening, so there wasn’t much point.
We’ll have to wait and see if Teno shows up again. He doesn’t seem to have answered (among other points):
Apropos nothing at hand, I’ll also ask again if anyone still about cares to throw out description of how/why Evolutionary variation is radiative, especially when selective pressures are absent/neglected?
Woah! So much fail.
Yeah, Teno is a guinea short of a pound.
Do any of the “Creation Science” folks ever try to explain the method of creation? Beyond the dust and pilfering a rib, that is. Or was it all a Barbara Eden arm cross, head nod and cute nose twitch? Because, “God did it.” is just acceptance, and not science by definition.
Nerd, is that like being 99c short of a dollar?
If god went and made people smart enough to figure out supernovas and fossils, he’d expect us to be competent enough to use those same brains to understand the implications of those things. If he gave us the lump of fatty tissue between our ears, he’d have expected us to use it, and use it well. He would probably not appreciate the dedicated use towards unbelievable levels of deceit, such as that necessary to try to argue that the creation(ism) myth is fact. (Only *their* creation myth, of course. All the *other* creation myths are actually wrong wrong wrong.)
I think even s/he’d be annoyed with creationists and their deliberate refusal to use the brains he gave them.
I always think with people like him: “Is this it? Is this the best God can come up with? He’s supposedly omnipotent / omniscient yet anyone who speaks for him has the intellectual capacity of a used teabag.
Tresmal, even worse. 1 Guinea = 21 shillings. 1 Pound = 20 shillings. He’s in the negative numbers. (I’m a Sherlock Holmes fan.)
Biogeek: Brains are fer believin’ not fer thinkin’!
Indeed they are:
http://www.fstdt.com/fundies/comments.aspx?q=32303
“Knowledge is good or whatever… but when you look at the facts people who are extremely smart have a hard time believing in god but people who are real simple… don’t have a problem believing in god, they don’t have that big ol’ brain to get in the way.”
Holbach, way up at #4, wrote:
I like that – ‘loyal morons’. That’s yet another nail in christianity’s coffin: that a being like the god they describe is going to want to appeal to the stupidest, least perceptive and intellectually retarded of his creatures; that thinking and learning are antithetical.
Surely, if god existed he’d make understanding him the end result of some sort of puzzle that would challenge humans to new heights – not base it on adherence to a poorly-written (and poorly-edited) book of mismatched, illogical and often contradictory stories.
Our society has been bettered, over and over, by what the more experimental and creative amongst us have achieved, due to their intellect and determination. Christians, on the other hand, tell us their god wants the opposite. It’s an outlook which would doom humanity to a perpetual dark age.
Loyal morons indeed.
Yeah. He’s a kook. Won’t even answer a sinple question. How old is the earth?
Won’t type the o in God either.
Y’know, that’s something that I would have thought would make sense. Problem is, religion all too often asserts that something that makes sense doesn’t and vice versa.
Religious anti-intellectualism started early; see in particular 1 Corinthians.
Frex, 1 Corinth. 1:21 — “For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not come to know God, God was well-pleased through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe.”
Think about the implications of this. He’s actually saying that God looked down at humans and said “Wow, they’re not able to find me through philosophy. Maybe it’s too hard? Maybe I should make it easier on them? Nah, fuck the philosophers. Hell, fuck everyone. I’m going to come up with this stupid way to reveal myself, so that only stupid people who believe this particular stupid thing (and not all of the other stupid religious beliefs out there, which are idolatrous, heretical, or superstitious) will be saved. And that very stupidity itself amuses me.”
I mean, it’s completely obvious that he’s saying that God is either utterly malign or utterly insane.
Well, obvious to someone smart enough to think about it carefully for a few seconds.
Not all smart Christians become Deists or atheists, but I do wonder how they reconcile verses like that with what they believe God to be.
I suppose they just stop thinking about it.
The game’s not ‘whack-a-mole’, PZ, it’s wack-a-troll!
Tenuous Teno was a particularly befuddled example of troll-kind. He really was testing the upper limits of what Poe’s Law entails.
There was a couple of moments where I thought he was a poe, there was just no way anyone could say anything of that ilk with a straight face.
But I was wrong, satire has another stairway to climb to compete with the supreme idiocy Teno brought to the thread.
I know. When he was prattling on about how everything in science had been predicted by the bible, and that all modern military used tactics based on what the Jews did in the old testament, my jaw hit the desk in front of me. I mean, I find regular levels of christian rationalisation to be laughable; Teno’s astounding leaps of logic, on the other hand, were at another level entirely.
Like I said to him: using his arguments you could claim the bible predicted computer technology because the bible mentions sand, a form of which is used to create silicon; similarly, because the bible mentions the moon it foresaw the Apollo space program.
A pity about all the things it doesn’t mention which might have actually benefited humankind – germ theory, for example.
For those of you who don’t have the stomach and/or patience to read Tenacious G’s comments here are the cliff notes:
1. Shows up with five bad arguments. Curiously, numbers them 1-6 with no 4.
2.
3. Blatant plagiarism.
4.
5.
What? Why? Because it didn’t happen earlier, I was able to fulfill my promise of posting all three abstracts instead of just the first.
http://www.lolcatbible.com/index.php?title=Ecclesiastes_1
1) Selective pressures are never absent for a whole genome. If the environment is stable and has been for some time, you get stabilizing selection (because deviations are less well adapted to the present circumstances than the average is). If it isn’t, you get directional selection.
2) Mutations can go any way.
3) One selective pressure is competition. In the absence of competition, you can expect a population to branch out into more and more ecological niches simply because it can: sooner or later the necessary mutations will happen, and if they don’t lead the organism to compete with one that is better adapted to the niche for which the mutated allele fits, it will survive and reproduce.
A friend of mine sent this:
God’s facebook page.
Quite amusing, especially the part about making fake fossils.
Wowbagger @ 37
Yes, how true and poignant that society has been improved by persons who were ill at ease over stultifying existing conditions, and acted upon those insights to light our lives and our sight by forsaking candles, voodoo medical practices, and a system of human endeavors to advance us from the strictures that religion has had in place for hundreds of years. If people like Darwin, Galileo, Einstein and all those of intellectual superiority that rejected religion for a rational purpose had not endured and prevailed we would be living in a renewed dark age. It is these people that we are in debt and awe to, and has made it that much more enforcing for us to stem the hordes of irrational and superstitious religionists. I have never for one moment ever doubted my atheism and am proud to link my name and rationality to my forebears and those currently among us who espouse rational thinking and will always despise and ridicule the forces of unreason.
This is OT-
but does anyone have info on this new creo-bot argument ?
This paper-
“Identification, characterization and comparative genomics of chimpanzee endogenous retroviruses
Nalini Polavarapu Nathan J Bowen and John F McDonald” (available on line)
contains a little claim in the paragraph on CERV2-chimpanzee endogenous retrovirus 2-that LTR dating shows this particular virus predates divergence of chimps and humans by 20 or s million years-and is not found in humans-
you know the rest-‘therefore we must throw out all of modern biology’…..
any knowledgeable person who will comment on this would be appreciated.
thanks
Hey David, i was wondering if we could take our previous conversation up here again lol.my last comment is still there at the very bottom of that post. If you would be so kind lol.
I must commend Teno’s efforts, although I am slightly wary of some of his conclusions. I usually quit after I realize how close minded arch-Darwinists can be.
_____________________________________________________________
My blog is blocked to those I do not know as a result of the vileness that has been so frequently posted in the comments.
Close minded? lol. I find it funny how creationists try and use insults directed to religion against those who do so.
OMFSM!!! Pete Rooke has formed an alliance with Teno Groppi? Hours of hilarity are certain to follow.
Pete, did you not feel the sharp sting of irony as you wrote, after describing arch-Darwinists (I’m fairly sure such a creature exists only in your imagination; there are no arch-Einsteinsts or arch-Newtonists, after all) as ‘close-minded’, that you were limiting access to your blog to only people ‘you know’?
I do it out of necessity to limit the frequent blasphemies and various other incidences of vileness posted.
_____________________________________________________________
My blog is blocked to those I do not know as a result of the vileness that has been so frequently posted in the comments.
Peter Rooke wrote:
What I find funny is that conservatives rail so vociferously about liberals and the “culture of victimization”, yet so often they are more than willing to play the part of poor, put-upon victims.
Plus I find it highly amusing that he has shut off dissent on his blog but continues to infest the comments section of this blog.
I see Pete “well meaning fool” Rooke is living up to his name. I also see he is limiting access to his pitiful web site, like a typical scared of criticism godbot. Open minded? Pete, are you open to concept of no god? Then STFU. Pete, I won’t ever even look at your site, much less post there. Cat-o-lick cooties and all.
Without reading the paper, all I can do is guess.
1. The virus itself could be 20 million years old and infected chimps after the human chimp divergence.
2. More likely they mean it was in the common ancestor of humans and chimps and was subsequently lost in the human lineage. ERVs are dynamic on evolutionary timescales and can be gained or lost and/or move around.
The usual, someone with a nonexistent biology background quote mining a paper to display their ignorance.
Hmmm, looks like Pete Rooke has blocked all access to his blog ramblings. I always thought that the whole point of a blog was to attract new readers.
Looks like an all-round win situation there, then.
I myself am an arch-Hubbleist. The universe is expanding, and I’ll defend that finding until all data showing the expansion is invalidated. I would have been an arch-Darwinist 100 years ago, but there’s no point in being on any more. Evolution is true as much as heliocentric orbit of the solar system is true. You’d have to be a retard to think otherwise, it’s like knowing the earth is spherical. Not a point that needs defending at all, despite the flat earthers who use the bible or those who think it sits on the back of a turtle. (what does the turtle stand on? It’s turtles all the way down)
This blog is great, but I just remembered what it really needs: annoying “.sig files” on the end of every comment. Thanks for reminding me, Pete.
________________________________________________________
Wank, wank, wank
Regarding Teno’s intellect, keep in mind the curious case of “Currious” who apparently looked up to Teno as some sort of authority on the bible and evolution.
ManhattenMC: One possibility that springs to mind, assuming the science is legit, is that the virus genes were secondarily lost, perhaps during chromosome fusion.
If you dislike “blasphemies” so much, why, then, do you come here?
I’d prefer to have Pete’s blog open for all to see, since it (and he) provides a excellent object lesson as to what strong religious belief does to a person’s mind. Right now I’d like to see what was written there that so offended him.
Pete, can you at least give us some specifics of the ‘vileness’ of which you speak?
Also, you closed the other thread two posts too late.
Why? Because David posted some SVP abstracts? I agree that they’re kind of annoying because although they get indexed in GEOREF, the once-over that the committees give them can’t be considered any sort of real peer-review (i.e., you’re really trusting that the authors have their shit together–not something that’s universally true), but they’re a hell of a lot better than any frickin’ Wikipedia entry.
He was communicating data. I don’t know what’s wrong with that.
Good question Owlmirror: I do it to offer a different perspective to those who would otherwise muddle on in continued misunderstanding. The abuse I receive is an unfortunate after effect.
Clearly, he enjoys resisting forbidden fruit. Like an ascetic with a secret cookbook filled with lavish recipes and lush photographs, he comes here and licks his lips.
Oh, ewww. Did I really just say that?
Naw, we know the reason. You don’t want to share your latest victim or carcass with the other monsters. That would be communism.
So, how is St. Dracula’s Church of the Undead doing these nights? Must be all downhill till next Halloween in 11 months.
I usually quit after I realize how close minded arch-Darwinists can be.
Uh, Pete, are you accusing us of having been close-minded with Teno? Example?
Pete “well meaning fool” Rooke, you receive abuse because you give abuse. You come to an atheist web site and godbot. You will be refuted. For example, can you show me physical evidence for your imaginary god that will pass muster with scientists, magicians, and profession debunkers? You seem to think you should not be refuted. OK, show me in writing from legitimate sources outside of yourself that you cannot be mocked at this site.
Pete Rooke @ 50
Why do you substitute arch-Darwinists for rationalists? If there is anything counter to the insanities of religion you always manage to attach a description that will lessen your irrationality and try to defame the offending principle. Why don’t you call us arch-rationalists? Because the opposite of rationalist is irrationalist which is the correct term for the religiously insane. When you call me and my fellow idealists arch-Darwinists, even though you mean it offensively, we accept it as the highest praise to be so linked with the man who reminds religion that they originated from the gutter of abject insanity.
On the one hand, that “different perspective” is exactly what you reject on your own blog, which is more than a little hypocritical.
On the other hand, the “misunderstanding” is in fact confirmed rather than refuted: everyone here is more certain than ever that devout religious people are insane to a greater or lesser degree. And that is reinforced directly by everything you have ever posted on religious beliefs.
Come now Pete Rooke. Teno demonstrated over the course of 800 posts that he didn’t even understand the most rudimentary knowledge of anything to do with science. People here over those 800 posts tried explaining the basics to Teno, yet he without even the slightest understanding proceeded to try and show how right he was. It’s embarrassing to read creationists, they are the only people I’ve seen who wear their ignorance as a badge of honour.
So Pete Rooke, why is it the ones who have gone to great lengths to know and teach others are the ones you label close-minded, while the one who refused to even learn the slightest bit of rudimentary knowledge is a victim of arch-Darwinists? It just seems you want to play the persecution card against those who reject the concept of the magic sky daddy.
Really? Even I know the creationist answer: God created the light on the way coming out of the a pre-exploded Supernova… Really, don’t these guys listen to Gish anymore?
Really, there is no evidence that you can’t “explain away” with “God did it!”
Of course that has the theological implication that God is deliberately trying to hide the age of the universe, that he is not only testing faith but deliberately trying to mislead people in the process. The question could be answered “Goddidit”, but by doing so it’s commenting on the nature of God and in such a negative way that it constructs a God that is not worthy of worship.
In short, the question was never there to get a legitimate answer about the nature of our reality, just there to highlight the absurdity in the way that idiots like Teno construct the concept of God.
Well meaning? Only if “well meaning” translates to “openly expressing brutal and excessively perverted rape fetishes”…
“It just seems you want to play the persecution card against those who reject the concept of the magic sky daddy.”
Tell that to the “IDiots”, (as the posters on here refer to them as). Tell that to their families after they are fired from their positions at public universities.
I have to go though, until next time, Pete Rooke.
Which IDiots were those?
http://www.expelledexposed.com/
Who was fired?
Can you even name one person who was fired simply for being an IDiot?
*waits for an echoing of Expelled*
Also, good non-sequitor there, way to avoid answering the question. You’ve called us closed-minded for not listening to people who don’t even have the slightest rudimentary knowledge on the subject at hand. Why is that? Because people want their beliefs to have a fair go?!? They do get a fair go, and in the academic arena those beliefs have been found not to be of any value. That’s the problem isn’t it? It’s that what you hold sacred has been shattered by science.
You are nothing more than a self-deceiving hack Pete Rooke. Get an education before you spout off nonsense.
Let’s put it into context, Pete – you love analogies; here’s one for ya.
A medical doctor in a first-world hosptital has a sick patient. Instead of using modern medicine to treat them he/she does a magic healing dance instead. The patient dies.
Do you think the doctor should be fired, yes or no? Because the situation I described is exactly the same as what ID proponents do – go against what is known to work, and instead claim that magic is just as likely an explanation.
Rooke gets abuse because:
1. He is crazy, possibly a serial killer wannabe at the least.
2. He is dumb and ignorant.
3. He is dishonest. There is definitely persecution going on in science. The vast majority is from the christofascist Liars, Haters, and Killers for jesus bunch: Old post below. One evo guy was knifed to death.
Whack-a-troll indeed. This thread was set up to whack one creobot and another one pops up!
Really? Even I know the creationist answer: God created the light on the way coming out of the a pre-exploded Supernova… Really, don’t these guys listen to Gish anymore?
@Kel
Out of curiosity, do these people think that anything exists farther than 6000 light years from the earth? Or is all of that empty space, with heaven-sent light coming from appropriate distances to confuse and bewilder us?
I have no idea, I can’t comprehend how they can think that the universe made as said in Genesis with everything being only 6000 years old. It would mean that every star apart from our son would have had to have been an illusion at one time or another given the closest is 4.5 light years away. Day 4 he created the stars, but Adam and Eve couldn’t see it until well after they bumped uglies and produced the demonspawn known as Cain…
This is what happens when people try and rationalise faith, it’s absurdity is highlighed. If anyone wants to believe the world is sitting on the back of a turtle, then they are welcome to. But to try and take that belief and apply it to the spherical earth orbiting the sun based on the curvature of space as caused by gravity will make a silly concept even silliar. Creationism is all about believing, not about science. They had their answer 3,000 years ago and despite all the knowledge to the contrary that belief hasn’t wavered. If they aren’t going to be convinced by looking up the night sky and seeing the Andromeda Galaxy 2.3 million light years away (or for the Southern Hemisphere creationists, the LMC 168,000 light years away) means that the universe and everything in it is quite old, then nothing will change their minds.
Out of curiosity, do these people think that anything exists farther than 6000 light years from the earth? Or is all of that empty space, with heaven-sent light coming from appropriate distances to confuse and bewilder us?
Oh heck. Light isn’t confined to moving only 186,000 miles a second. Speed of light in a vacuum? Shit. They don’t believe in radioactive decay rates. Why should we think they would care about a little thing like the speed of light? I’ve met creationists who think that there are stars many millions of light years away from us. They’re just convinced that the light is moving much faster than we think it is.
I see the the Rooker has crawled away to talk to his imaginary slime mold for comfort from the onslaught of the crushing rationalists. I would sacrifice ten creationists to debate this deranged moron, even giving him the chance to have his imaginary god present to “help” him with the unanswerables.
*head asplodes*
Posted by: Pete Rooke | November 23, 2008
Tell that to the “IDiots”, (as the posters on here refer to them as). Tell that to their families after they are fired from their positions at public universities.
Tell that to any person who cannot do their job properly.
Hmmm…..Imagine a thread where delusional Pete and Pilty are the only posters. Add Teno if he ever returns. The level of the rest of the threads would rise enormously.
Rule 34
http://homepage.mac.com/cygnusx1/
this site talks about some of the arguments that creationist make
wow, I didn’t realize that young earthers were being critical of astronomy, but I guess the ardent ones question all science. Then they sit down behind the results of human scientific research and read stupid crap on the web.
Yeah, and visit a doctor when they’re sick. I tend to ask hard-core fundamentalists if they stick to their guns when it comes to medicine – i.e. do they anoint themselves in oil and pray to be healed, or do they go to the hospital?
At least the Christian Scientists have the courage of their convictions.
Moses #75, I use “well meaning fool” from Heinlein’s Time Enough for Love, where some words of wisdom say “Always vote. If you can’t figure out who to vote for, ask a well meaning fool (there is always one around), and vote the other way.” If Pete says something is true, you know it is false. So, if he says god exists, we know god doesn’t exist. It also irritates him to no end when I explain it to him.
Nice link Newfie. Creationists pretty much have to oppose all science because pretty much all science contradicts their doctrine. Between a complete repudiation of science and Theistic Evolution, there is no intermediate point where a creationist can make a stand.
Yes! They believe that God created the light ON THE WAY! I’ve heard it out of Gish’s mouth. Other creationists have taken up the apologetic.
Josh #86 wrote:
I knew a Young Earth Creationist who refuted the discrepancy in the data from starlight by explaining that the stars had no light of their own: they reflected the light from the sun. I had known him for years, but still had to ask him to repeat it, for surely I must have misunderstood him. No. Astronomers were making mistakes in calculations because they were working on the assumption that stars generated their own light. They did not. They only reflected it.
He wouldn’t speculate further on how close to the sun they actually were. Nor would he tell me if they were held up in the sky by paste or not. I think he sensed my last question wasn’t a serious question. Since he was homeschooling his two little girls, I still have a faint hope he was only yanking my chain. I’ve not seen that argument elsewhere, so maybe.
This might be a minority opinion,but I used the initial thread topic and the first few posts to get my arguments regarding the creationist entropy argument up to speed.
And that was much more rewarding then the ensuing 1000 posts trying to argue with intellectually disabled fundie morons.
oh shit sastra you’re right! Some of the more ignorant idiotic creobots Homeschool!! No wonder they don’t die out! They’re intellectually inbreeding. Gross.
You got that right the first time. Ugh, it was a mess.
Peter Rooke, are you really defending Teno Groppi?
Man, you really are in need of help.
Isn’t that funny, that the people who know the least are more likely to push their ignorance on children. I guess if you have some intelligence then you have the intelligence to send your children to people who are far more qualified than yourself to teach.
ChrisC, Pete won’t be answering. But he is a very conservative Catholic, and truly believes his god is behind everything, and he is a closet creationist since his church officially supports evolution. He hates PZ and all atheists, and tried to constantly disrupt things here. Like all people who art tightly compartmentalized, he has a few problems.
I’m sure Heinlein had a benign simpleton in mind, rather than a willfully ignorant gobshite who’s proud of his own vacuity.
Emmet (Frazz fan?), I think you have the way Heinlein meant it. But Pete also fit the bill, in that you could invert what he said and be closer to the truth. Pete was so filled with his righteousness and self importance that it became a very good way to get under his skin, so I used it. Now to return it to the bag-o-tricks, hopefully to never have to use it again.
Sastra #96:
“Astronomers were making mistakes in calculations because they were working on the assumption that stars generated their own light. They did not. They only reflected it.”
1st thing I would have asked him: “Wouldn’t that make the stars *twice* as old as we think they are, sin the sunlight now has to go there *then* reflect back? It certainly doesn’t get us to a *younger* age…”
2nd thing, and much better: “So why do different stars have different spectral types when measured through a spectroscope? Reflected sunlight is still sunlight, it might drop some spectral lines for whatever reason but it’s not going to gain any.”
Kel @101:
“Isn’t that funny, that the people who know the least are more likely to push their ignorance on children.”
At first i thought you said “That isn’t funny!” and i couldn’t agree more. It is a joke i made because, as i love to quote, “you gotta laugh to keep from crying.” The behavior is disgusting, it is the memetic version of incest. Not that any Young Earthers have problems with fucking thier sisters, brothers, uncles, neices, ect. because it’s IN GENESIS. Very unfunny dumbassery that is propogated by raping childrens minds. Good work Xian fucktards, you have Epic Failed to even uphold family values, the torch which you stole from Secular Humanists.
Funny as in ironic, not as in humourous. Alanis Morisette killed the phrase “Isn’t that ironic” by making a whole song without a single example of irony.
Jason A, #105
Badly tuned signal regeneration circuitry
Like Luskin’s argument from the Ford Pinto!
Just because it’s badly designed doesn’t mean there’s no designer!!!1!
I tried to read that thread, I really did, but if you combine my lack of concrete knowledge with the seemingly incoherent ramblings of Mr. Groppi… Bleh.
I get a fairly lost when the more advanced papers are linked, but I understand enough to realize that almost the entire creationist argument is completely fabricated bullshit. The rest just looks like lack of understanding. Though maybe I should give them the benefit of doubt and say that the bullshit follows the large lack of understanding.
Ah Allen. Now we have three “moles” to whack!
@Nerd of Redhead,
I hadn’t thought of that about Pete specifically, but yeah, if he denies evoloution he’s taking a heretical stance because two popes have acknowledged evoloution’s existance, and by his rules, that means that God must endorse the idea.
He’s No True Catholic!
Teno Troll came in to what he thought was a dying thread where he might be safely ignored or at most rebuked desultorily.
Didn’t work out that way, and now PZ is offering this thread there’s no sign of Teno.
The Teno that first posted would’ve been gleeful at this opportunity, I think, but the Teno that last posted is probably still a bit too bruised and sore.
Which is a shame – a .7 TimeCube kook is not an everyday occurrence.
“Teno Groppi” is an anagram for “GOP protein.” Make of it what you will.
Are we betting that Teno, unable to grasp the basics of blog management, is even now complaining to any who will listen that HE WAS BANNED FROM PHARYNGULA and PZ LOCKED THE THREAD WHERE THE GREAT LIE OF SCIENCE WAS BEING EXPOSED !!111!!!eleventyone and a bit!!!
Sastra wrote: I knew a Young Earth Creationist who refuted the discrepancy in the data from starlight by explaining that the stars had no light of their own: they reflected the light from the sun. I had known him for years, but still had to ask him to repeat it, for surely I must have misunderstood him. No. Astronomers were making mistakes in calculations because they were working on the assumption that stars generated their own light. They did not. They only reflected it.
Holy shit. That’s even worse than the dude I talked to who didn’t think light was restricted in how fast it traveled (keeping in mind, as Teno would instruct us, everything moves as a particle and a wave). I’m sitting here fucking bewildered at that one. Reflected from the sun? Holy shit. And how is letting these people home school not child abuse?
Jason @105: do keep in mind that not answering questions seems to be chapters 1-15 in the Creationist playbook.
“The stars shine by reflected light” is one step away from “Turtles all the way down.” I tried to work out what shape that would make the universe- given that stars have no apparent angular size and are brighter than the outer planets- and I think it means that this guy’s universe model is Ptolemaic, with a hard sphere covered with glitter just outside the solar system.
Voyager should have broken the Firmament by now!
Looks like we have a little deletion that contains CERV2. Maybe it managed to cut itself out and reinserted itself elsewhere in our genome.
I did. If you return (and wait 3 minutes for it to load), you’ll see your comment is not at the bottom of that thread, nor is it directly above PZ’s notice that the thread is closed.
That said, I don’t have much to say on it anymore.
Because God cannot defend Himself?
Also, comment 62.
What. Are you really saying Casey Luskin supports Stupid Design? That’s hard to believe.
Incidentally, did anyone else notice he never replied to any comment of mine? I think he’s afraid of something.
Not just outside the orbit of Saturn?
The attempts to penetrate the skull of Teno Groppi with rationally-arrived-at thoughts was like stirring, splashing or otherwise wacking away at a vat of a homogeneous mixture of chemicals and expecting something resembling a dead horse to materialize.
Behold Stupidity:
“It is very difficult to fake the appearance of being an eye-witness if you do not really know first-hand what you are writing about. Case closed!” [from Teno Groppi comment #1199]
Naturally, of course not. It kept on a goin’ (“You’re stupid”…”No I’m not, you are”…feedback loop limited only by human endurance and the final machete wielded by the merciful PZ.)
That stupid sunuvabitch made his grand entrance at an already-respectable comment posting #507, with the announcement, “I was told you love CREATIONISTS here!” [sic]…but within another 100 comments after that, I really DID begin to think I could make out the stench of a dead horse. By the time comment #1199 arrived, that dead horse carrying Zorro was galloping fast to nowhere.
The common wisdom against “feeding trolls” shouldn’t just be about discouraging them from dominating a thread or deflecting the course of a discussion (which they do) or trying to persuade them that they’re wrong (impossible) or even to demostrate to any 3rd-party visiting readers that the troll is full of crap (innefficient and futile) – but to free ourselves from a pointless exercise and a waste of time better invested on…well, just about almost anything else.
One thing I’ve noticed in my own reading habits: once that kind of thread takes on its cancerous proportions, only the combatants ever bother reading any of it. And that’s a shame, because so much of the neat things Zorro has to say is galloping away – from people who MIGHT learn or be persuaded, where it’s most needed – on that stinking dead horse.
Well, since there is a void created by Groppi, i prescribe the whacking of a different mole. here guys, look and be amazed:
http://womenintheword.wordpress.com/2008/11/18/cultivating-faithfulness/
Any assistance would be greatly appreciated. She has stated, “I appreciate intelligent conversation.” Let’s give her an earfull. But you don’t Have to participate. Just thought it would be fun to demolish her security in her own deluded ideology, that’s all.
Rickr0ll,
Done, and done. Dimwit was plagiarizing that crap about Prescriptive truth. My comment busting her for it is “awaiting moderation.” Time will tell if she possesses a shred of honesty, or if she’s just a garden-variety Liar fer Jebus…
Here’s the link, if my comment doesn’t get past the censor.
it made it CJO, and again, thanks. i wasn’t aware of this behavior. She has after all, been fairly good with the compliments and acknowlegments, even with me. But she seems to vary wildly from this from time to time. She is far from a Teno Groppi, i will give her that much, but she is still quite far from being rational. I think there may actually be some hope of turning her; maybe i’m too much like Candide lol.
I was way late to the Temo train wreck and I just got done slogging through the thread, but there are a couple of choice bits I wanted to comment on.
First, from #913 Temo tries to give examples of modern practices derived from the Bible (and only the Bible! No one else thought of sanitation or military tactics or herbal medicine!):
Unsurprisingly, that is false. The single major factor in the formation of the FDA was the public outcry that followed the publication of Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle and the lobbying by meatpackers for Congress to pass legislation to oversee and regulate the food industry. This was helped along by a few previous efforts by citizens’ groups and scientists concerned about the adulteration of pharmaceutical drugs (the D) and who also lobbied for proper labeling of the drugs and for food items, as well.
Kosher laws in the Bible had nothing to do with it. A dirty, un-American, Socialist author gave you your sanitary food suppply.
Now this from #579, after several posts spanning 8 hours:
Nov 17 saw a marathon 11 hour run, Nov 19 was 10 hours and Nov 21 was about 9 hours. It seems he got a little more quiet after that, but I suspect that he still spends plenty of time lurking here, slowly succumbing to PZ’s satanic mind control. I doubt we’ve seen the end of him. That kind of crazy just can’t help throwing itself to the wolves again and again.
Ugh. I need to go wash my brain now.
Rickroll-
You are too kind. But alas, I fear there is no hope of my “turning.” You see, the purpose of retaining an open mind is so that when you are exposed to the TRUTH you are WILLING to accept it. Atheist thought denies truth. So, I suppose I am a sad sap destined to raise scientifically ignorant children with no social concience. Pity me.
“Dimwit was plagiarizing that crap about Prescriptive truth.”
(nailbiting) I’m goin’ to hell fer sure!
The word “truth” should be considered entirely unacceptable in these discussions. It’s essentially meaningless in this context, and only serves the rhetorical purposes of the self-deluded. Anyone using phrases like “seeker for truth” (I’m looking at you, Walton), “acknowledge the truth,” etc., should have these phrases flung right back at them with “evidence” substituted for “truth” and then challenged to justify their statements.
What is the TRUTH and is it different than the truth or the Truth?
“The word “truth” should be considered entirely unacceptable in these discussions.”
Is THAT true?
Nance, define truth, Truth, and TRUTH.
“Anyone using phrases like “seeker for truth” (I’m looking at you, Walton), “acknowledge the truth,” etc., should have these phrases flung right back at them with “evidence” substituted for “truth” and then challenged to justify their statements.”
Is THAT true?
“Anyone using phrases like “seeker for truth” (I’m looking at you, Walton), “acknowledge the truth,” etc., should have these phrases flung right back at them with “evidence” substituted for “truth” and then challenged to justify their statements.”
Is THAT true?
Do you have any evidence to justify your truth claim?
Nance, what is the TRUTH?
“Anyone using phrases like “seeker for truth” (I’m looking at you, Walton), “acknowledge the truth,” etc., should have these phrases flung right back at them with “evidence” substituted for “truth” and then challenged to justify their statements.”
Is THAT true?
Do you have any evidence to justify your statement?
Nance, either define truth, Truth, and TRUTH or shut up.
Is THAT true?
It’s a principle concerning the conduct of debate in a particular context for which I’m attempting to make a case. *rolls eyes at the utter stupidity of the question*
Let’s give it a try, shall we?:
I challenge you to support this claim.
And for fuck’s sake stop posting slight variations on the same thing.
Mr. Chimp-
Webster’s defines truth as:
1. the true or actual state of a matter: He tried to find out the truth.
2. conformity with fact or reality; verity: the truth of a statement.
3. a verified or indisputable fact, proposition, principle, or the like: mathematical truths.
4. the state or character of being true.
5. actuality or actual existence.
6. an obvious or accepted fact; truism; platitude.
7. honesty; integrity; truthfulness.
8. (often initial capital letter) ideal or fundamental reality apart from and transcending perceived experience: the basic truths of life.
9. agreement with a standard or original.
10. accuracy, as of position or adjustment.
11. Archaic. fidelity or constancy.
–Idiom12. in truth, in reality; in fact; actually: In truth, moral decay hastened the decline of the Roman Empire.
In laymans terms, truth is telling it like it is, corresponding to its object and in agreement with a standard.
Sorry, this is delayed. The site said I was posting too many comments in a short amount of time. No need to get nasty.
Nance, do you have Tourette syndrome of the hands or are you just really bad at posting comments?
Ok well I apologize then. You seemed to be posting the same thing over and over.
And so in what manner are you using the term TRUTH? What are you staking the truth claim to?
Nance, I know the dictionary definitions, but what definitions do you use? For example, some people use TRUTH to be the word of their imaginary god.
“Absolute truth exists.”
I would love to continue this discussion with you fine folks later, but my son is hungry. Duty calls. Not good bye forever, just goodbye for now.
Always seems to happen that way doesn’t it?
Sir Francis Bacon began his essay On Truth with
We need to differentiate between “religious truth” and “scientific truth.”
Religious truths, asserted by Christians based upon revelation and testimony set forward in the Bible, are central to Christian beliefs. Some denominations have asserted additional authorities as sources of doctrinal truth, i.e. in Roman Catholicism the Pope is asserted to be infallible on matters of church doctrine. The central person in Christianity, Jesus, claimed to be “Truth” when he said, “I am the Way and the Truth and the Life; no one comes to the Father but through me.”
Science seeks to approach truth through the scientific method. Strictly speaking, the scientific method never “proves” a theory or shows that it is definitely true. Except when it comes to directly observable facts, the scientific method never claims to reveal “the truth.” Rather it attempts to approach the truth by continuously refining theories so that they better approximate the truth.
Well, Red, if absolute truth exists, then the standard is not imaginary. Is it?
I really have to go, sorry. Later, babes!
Yeah, Rev., they don’t want real dialog where they might learn something.
Nance: Atheist thought denies truth.
What do you mean by “truth”, and what atheist thought denies it?
Myself, since I take as foundations the Commutativity and Associativity of Logical Disjunction and the Robbins Axiom, by “Truth” I mean “TRUE = (P OR (NOT P))”. I also hold as truths the self-consistent joint affirmation of the ZF set axioms, and that Reality is Relateable to Evidence.
What “truth” are you talking about?
Nance, god doesn’t exist. If you want to posit god for an absolute TRUTH, you have to first prove god. When you come back, please tell us where to find the physical evidence for god, so it can be examined by scientists, magicians, and professional debunkers to confirm is actually there by divine will. I’m not holding my breath on you presenting any evidence.
Note that this is posited as a conditional. Obviously, the existence of absolute truth cannot be self-evident.
So… how would you know if “absolute truth” exists?
What methods would you use to show it?
Nance #145
This is a non sequitur. If your aunt had balls she’d be your uncle.
The only people who claim to have absolute truth are political ideologues and religious dogmatists. “God is. I don’t have to prove it. I have faith. Period. End of discussion.”
No evidence is offered to support these statements. Nance believes it, that’s enough for her. She doesn’t even need evidence because her “belief” tells her that “atheists thought denies evidence.” This is called projection. Her religious thought forgoes evidence, so she automatically assumes everyone else works on the same principle.
(nailbiting) I’m goin’ to hell fer sure!
No you’re not. There’s no such place, and the fact that anybody over the age of eight sincerely believes there is makes me unutterably sad. (The fact that anybody under the age of eight believes it, on the other hand, makes me angry.)
But you do have to live out the rest of your sorry existence here as an intellectual wannabe, posting pseudo-erudite (and no doubt frequently outright stolen) obfuscatory prose about apologetics and dead-end 17th Century philosophical concepts on your backwater blog.
Either way, you’re hardly to be envied.
“If you want to posit god for an absolute TRUTH, you have to first prove god.”
Who said anything about god? I find it amusing that in discussions such as these, it is the atheist who brings up god.
“the existence of absolute truth cannot be self-evident.”
Hmm, is that a self-evident truth claim?
non sequitur:
1: an inference that does not follow from the premises ; specifically : a fallacy resulting from a simple conversion of a universal affirmative proposition or from the transposition of a condition and its consequent
2: a statement (as a response) that does not follow logically from or is not clearly related to anything previously said (Webster’s)
If the statement is a fallacy, you should be able to quite easily dismantle it. So dismantle away. Here, I’ll help you. We can start with this:
Absolute truth exists.
Truth corresponds to a standard.
An absolute standard exists.
CJO- Mis-matching wits with you has certainly put me in my place.
How ironic that you yourself are providing it.
I agree.
If I’m not mistaken, what Nance really means is TROOF.
Of course. It follows from your own wording, which was a conditional.
Fallacy of assuming the consequent, or begging the question.
What is “absolute truth”, and how would you know that it exists?
“Absolute truth” sure sounds like god to me. And Nance is evading defining what is meant by truth, Truth, and TRUTH. Until you define the terms, we can’t have a logical debate.
“What is “absolute truth”, and how would you know that it exists?”
My apologies, I thought we already covered that.
Please review the Websters definition of truth from which we are working which is a correspondance view of truth. Truth corresponds to reality or a standard. For instance, if a factual statement need not correspond to the facts, then any factually incorrect statement could be acceptable. To deny that absolute truth exists is a self-defeating claim, for one must use the very claim they are denying to deny it. To say that all truth is relative, is an absolute truth claim, again self-defeating.
Sophistry makes me yaaaaaaaawwwwnnnnnnnnn…
A correspondence is a relationship, no? Therefore since the definition of truth you are “working with” (albeit laboriously) demands a correspondence, it demands a relation, making truth, by your own definition, relative. That it is relative to something you choose to call “reality” just shows how mired in fallacious reasoning and circular argumentation all such pretenses of rigorously defining terms like “truth” are.
Take you maunderings back to your dunghill.
If you can’t keep up, go take a nap, babe.
Yeah, if I can’t refute you, I’ll make a smart remark. Doesn’t say much.
“To say that all truth is relative, is an absolute truth claim, again self-defeating.”—Nance, have you ever taken an anthropology class?
In this same post, you only define “truth”, not absolute truth. Of course, any such truth is absolutely true, thus absolute truth. Very circular reasoning. If only i could recall the name of that fallacy. Nance, as always, your semantics are worthless without proof=evidence=basis on real things=not philosophical wanking. Any 5 year old can consistantly ask “is That true?” By asserting that everything is some sort of truth claim, you are saying that:
A) God definitavley does not exist (would require exhaustive tests of veracity, testing his omni-characteristsics)
B) there is no free will (there is a very famous sea battle argument, where the outcome is A wins is true or untrue, forever)
C) there are no dergrees of error, only black and white. (excrutiatingly unscientific and irrelevant to the discussion)
D) i do not precribe for myself the undertaking of reality’s immenance (philosophy is more realistic than science, or even psuedo-science)
and
E) i instead wish to continually posit statements that are childishly simplistic and pointless (20×10^5 Questions)
“Non-sequiter’s R Us- welcome!”-Nance
So you’re saying that which is real is true, and that which meets a standard is true?
I ask only so as to clarify.
Hm.
I think self-defeat can be avoided by phrasing the assertion as something like “The only absolute truth is that there are no other absolute truths besides this one.”, or “All truths, besides this truth, are relative.” That is, we can build in single self-exceptions to the general rule.
“A correspondence is a relationship, no? Therefore since the definition of truth you are “working with” (albeit laboriously) demands a correspondence, it demands a relation, making truth, by your own definition, relative. That it is relative to something you choose to call “reality” just shows how mired in fallacious reasoning and circular argumentation all such pretenses of rigorously defining terms like “truth” are.
Take you maunderings back to your dunghill.”
The correspondance view of truth demands a relationship between the truth claim and its corresponding fact, not a relationship between the truth claim and the observant. Close, but no cigar.
Oh, wise CJO, how fortunate I am that you would take the time to impart your precious pearls of wisdom upon a dunghill slug such as myself.
Seriously, though, thanks, you made a good point.
Ahhh, absolute truth. Surely there’s a objective way the universe works, but confusing the objective truth with our ability to comprehend it?
It’s funny that the people who talk in absolutes are most often the ones who talk out of their arses. They’ll come up if ideas and manifestations of our reality that not only have no evidential backing but go against the evidence there is.
Mr. Wise Owl- “that which is real is true” I think that is fair, or maybe this, “that which corresponds to reality is true.”
“I think self-defeat can be avoided by phrasing the assertion as something like “The only absolute truth is that there are no other absolute truths besides this one.”, or “All truths, besides this truth, are relative.” That is, we can build in single self-exceptions to the general rule.”
Not necessarily. The truth claim itself must agree to its own standards otherwise you have a paradox. Besides all that is needed to prove that absolute truth exists is one absolute truth.
I like the way you think.
Nance #125 wrote:
Atheist thought does not deny truth — or even “absolute truth.” However, the method of empirical rationalism (which is used in science) does cast quite a bit of doubt on the existence of Absolute Knowledge (which is usually expressed in terms of Absolute Certainty.) Aside from analytic derivations and direct, raw, uninterpreted personal experience, we (as flawed human beings) should not claim Absolute Knowledge or Absolute Certainty. People make mistakes. We might be wrong.
Humanists and Christians can agree on this, I think.
The purpose of retaining an open mind is not just being able and willing to accept the conclusion most likely to be true — even if you don’t like it. It also means that you’d be prepared to reject even this conclusion, if new evidence or argument seemed to demonstrate that it, too, was wrong.
An open mind is open to recognizing error. It can take any idea, and think of events and experiences which would show it to be true, or false. An open mind says “if I am wrong, I must be able to tell.” It does not protect a cherished belief by constantly spinning and rationalizing. It does not hold to unfalsifiable beliefs, because a belief that cannot be falsified makes the believer Invincible on truth. It turns them into a God, who cannot be wrong.
So, is it possible that theists are wrong, and God does not (and never has) existed? What would have to happen, in order for you to decide that atheists are not denying truth, but accepting it?
Kel-“It’s funny that the people who talk in absolutes are most often the ones who talk out of their arses.”
Are you talking in absolutes?
Nance, show us an example of what you consider to be an absolute truth.
Actually, that’s logically wrong. All it takes to show that there isn’t absolute truth is to show one example where absolute truth doesn’t work. You can’t prove by example, only disprove.
The correspondance view of truth demands a relationship between the truth claim and its corresponding fact, not a relationship between the truth claim and the observant.
Can you define “observant” for me, used in the sentence as you did, as a noun? AFIK, it’s an adjective meaning “paying close attention especially to details” or “adhering strictly to laws and rules and customs” neither one of which makes any sense in context.
That old rhetoric. Now it needs to be distinguished between human logic and empirical truths about the universe. They are two very different things. Language is our descriptor, it’s not an absolute of reality. You might as well point to mathematical truth tables, and say “look, absolutes exist”.
So don’t insult my intellect, be able to understand between constructs of language and constructs of reality.
Nance:
1. You wrote that you find it a worry that you’re scared that there’s no hope of you becoming rational –
I think you meant to write that you’re close minded.
2. Yeah*, but also that your beliefs are provisional – able to change in the light of more convincing evidence.
3. That’s a silly claim. You mean it denies “the TRUTH”.
4. As you wish: you’re pitiful.
Where you’ve used CAPITALS instead of scare quotes, yes, you are.
So, what is “the TRUTH” atheist thought denies?
Oooo, me next, Nance! I find it funny that you not only ignored me, but continued with the same behavior i was calling attention to. Exhibit (what are we on now, r?):
Posted by: Nance #168:
Kel-“It’s funny that the people who talk in absolutes are MOST OFTEN the ones who talk out of their arses.”
Are you talking in absolutes?
——+—-
I repeat, MOST OFTEN, not an absolute.
Oh, by the way, did you guys know that she thinks evolution is impossible due to 2nd LoT? vey fitting for this post, don’t you think?
Oh, hahahahahahahahahaha. What a fool!
Sastra-
I think we can agree on most of what you have stated. But I need to think on this: “It does not hold to unfalsifiable beliefs, because a belief that cannot be falsified makes the believer Invincible on truth. It turns them into a God, who cannot be wrong.” and get back to you.
“So, is it possible that theists are wrong, and God does not (and never has) existed?”
I may be mistaken, but I am assuming an implication to faith here. We cannot in our finite understanding fully comprehend the infinite. However, there is reason to believe the truth of an absolute standard. Belief in anything(scientific theory included) depends more on will than reason. Scientific theory is always “changing”, we can choose to believe by faith in spite of the ambiguities or choose to reject it. However, the truth itself remains constant, existing prior to our discovery. As we employ new discoveries our understanding of the truth may change, but the truth itself remains absolute.
“What would have to happen, in order for you to decide that atheists are not denying truth, but accepting it?”
I’ll answer this with a question. What would convince you that mono-theists are not denying the truth, but accepting it?
Thank you for the inquiry. I really must get back to tending the fam. Holidays and all. I look forward to future discussions with you all.
Happy Thanksgiving!
geez kel, don’t be rude. After all, there is a whole thread full of that:
Entropy and evolution thread (up top, Nance)
Anyone who thinks that evolution violates the 2nd law of thermodynamics is either ignorant, misinformed or an idiot. What does the dynamics of heat transfer have to do with descent with heritable modification? Nothing at all. Those who say that it does have no idea what they are talking about, which I guess is evidence to back up my earlier assertion that those who talk of absolute truth are most often just talking out of their arse.
But it is not a paradox; the “standards” include a single, self-referential exception.
No, if one absolute truth existed, all you can prove is that one absolute truth exists. That says nothing whatsoever about additional absolute truths, or general absolute truth.
And as noted above, the existence of non-absolute truth, and non-absolute non-truth, demonstrate that “absolute truth” cannot be true in general.
Consider the classic paradox: “This sentence is false.” It cannot be absolutely true, and it cannot be absolutely false. It is absolutely undecidable in truth value.
OK, and how do you know what “real” is? How do you go about determining what is real, and what corresponds to real, and that your knowledge is justified?
You don’t understand how science works.
Scientific theory does not change randomly. Scientific theory changes with better evidence and better tools.
And as I pointed out before when someone complained about “science changing”: Science changes from greater ignorance and less knowledge to less ignorance to more knowledge.
That’s what learning is.
Hearing God speak for himself, instead of all those who are claiming to speak for God.
i wouldn’t count Nance as an idiot, not just yet. After all she has been incredably kind and honest comparetavely. So the first two.
And yes, she is in the majority of people who talk out of thier arse. until she presents proof otherwise…
Nance #176 wrote:
I think your answer to my question is yes: it is possible that God does not exist.
I’m not denying that there is an absolute standard to measure truth against. Perhaps we can agree to call it “reality.” God may, or may not, exist in reality. It of course exists as an idea, or concept.
I think you’re conflating different meanings of the word “faith.” A provisional belief which is open to change given new evidence is not really what I’d consider a belief that rests on faith — certainly not if used in a religious context. Religious faith is “the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” Assumptions in science rest more on “pragmatic reliance.” And science, as a series of methods, was evolved over time to help us guard against being biased towards only seeing what we expect, or want, to be true. It’s the human attempt to be more objective, and reject the “we all believe what we want” form of relativism/faith.
I’d really rather you answered it with an answer. It is, after all, the main point of what I wrote. If you might be wrong about the existence of God (and you agree that yes, you might be wrong about that), then how would you know?
A well-formulated and falsifiable theistic hypothesis supported by evidence which stood up to scrutiny, and counted against naturalism.
Sorry that’s vague, but you didn’t answer your question at all.
To be more specific, I guess I would consider either ESP or PK to be evidence for mind/brain dualism, and mind/brain dualism counts against naturalism. It would not convince me that God existed by itself, but it would falsify the working theory underlying my atheism and give support to both disembodied Mind, and will or intention as a causal force. That would be powerful support for God. Its absence counts against it, and for atheism.
Yeah, I’ll give her the benefit of the doubt and put her down as misinformed. Hopefully she shows she is not an idiot and learns that her understanding of both evolution and thermodynamics is wrong. Her understanding of the scientific method is wrong too, and it’s funny that she’s here typing on a computer – the triumph of the scientific method (I’m a computer scientist so I may be a little biased there.) She has the opportunity to learn now, hopefully she takes it.
kel, as a computer scientist, tell me: the internet- particle physicists, or the military? What about Al Gore lol?
I likes me some PK, particularly pyro lol.
Owlmirror #180 wrote:
That wouldn’t convince me — and it shouldn’t. It shouldn’t persuade anyone. After all, a lot of people from different religions all claim to hear God’s “voice” — some of them actually say they hear a real voice — and we’re comfortable explaining this as hallucinations generated by the brain. Many of the people who hear voices are neither crazy, nor lying (though some of them are one or the other.) Yet they’re mistaken in how they interpreted their experience. You don’t have to get into pathology to explain it. It’s a relatively common human phenomenon.
I could hear a voice, and be neither crazy, nor lying. Just wrong if I think it’s externally generated. If I wouldn’t accept other people’s sincere feelings of certainty that they “really knew it was God,” then I shouldn’t accept any of my own feelings of certainty that I really, really just know it’s God. The rules should not change when it comes to me.
That voice then would have to tell me something genuinely amazing and impossible to just guess at or make up. If it’s God, it should be something that is a little extreme even for space aliens with some kind of thought transfer process. Hallucinated space aliens are always telling the people they abduct to “love one another” or “don’t pollute the planet.” God better do better.
In a proof theoretical sense, the only true statements that are unconditionally true are syntactic tautologies (e.g. p ∨ ¬p in classical logic); the only false statements that are unconditionally false are syntactic contradictions (e.g. p ∧ ¬p). All other statements are contingencies, whose truth value depends on the truth values in an interpretation. For example p ∧ ¬q is true in all interpretations where p is true and q is not, but no others.
Even then, an interpretation is a mathematical structure, which may, or may not, bear any correspondence to reality. Whether a given interpretation corresponds to reality can only be established by empirical evidence. Non-contingent propositions cannot tell us anything about reality, and the truth of a contingent proposition is ultimately no more, and no less, than its correspondence with empirical evidence.
I can see the writing on the wall, the direction that this thread is taking, the last refuge of sophomoric vacuity looming. Threads that begin with quibbling sophistry (like “Is THAT true?”) inevitably degenerate into useless solipsism: it’s just a matter of time. Once you see “what’s true for me is not necessarily true for you”, you know you’ve hit rock-bottom.
The pseudo-philosophical wanking has started. All that remains for us to decide is whether we’re going to hang around to get the money-shot in the eye.
Eject! Eject! Eject!
Sastra,
It’s all about love, really… ;P
Seriously, I spent the afternoon tromping through the pouring rain, cramped on stuffy T trains with crazy people, and fiddling on a bench in a damp, grey room waiting for my number to be called – all in the service of accomplishing a task at Motor Vehicles which I failed to accomplish and for which I’ll have to return tomorrow. And I’m still glad I wasn’t around for this discussion. Nance never said a single thing of substance or value (though y’all here were insightful as usual). On the other hand, I’m now in a very abstract mood…may have to go find a political theory blog…
Emmet Caulfield #186 wrote:
The ultimate irony is that many arguments which begin with “without God, all you have is relativism” reduce to “all beliefs are equivalent matters of faith and preference, we have our own ways of knowing and choose what we want to believe.” Postmodernism was a rebellion from the Enlightenment, back into the arms of Faith.
SC #187 wrote:
Awwww. It all comes down to love, though. ;)
Nance you take “Truth” seriously, no? Well, does Jesus?
Give me a little credit, will you? I was being terse.
I do try to pay attention to information about abnormal psychological states, and I am quite aware of hallucinatory and illusory voices.
I would no more accept at face value a voice that simply claimed to be God than you would accept a mentalist and/or prestidigitator as proof of ESP and/or PK.
(Unless, of course, it said it loved me and that I should love others. Then all my careful skepticism would fly away like a hat in a hurricane. D’awww!)
(When Joan of Arcadia was on, I wondered, “Is it really God talking, or just some advanced entity that’s smarter than Joan and can inhabit more than one body? Hm, how could we test this?”. Of course, later episodes demonstrated that “God” was actually pretty damn dumb.)
Owlmirror wrote:
Oh, I know. I was pretty much speaking past you, to Nance, or theists in general. The Argument from Personal Experience of God is incredibly popular.
Because it’s Love, and all.
Never watched Joan of Arcadia. Not surprised that Omniscient Omnipotent Timeless Beyond Human Comprehension God got caught up in plot problems and ends up looking painfully stupid. Happens in the Bible, too. God should never be a character.
Unless it’s funny!
Second (possibly third) the acceptance of a personal encounter with God as ample evidence of Him. (Subject, of course, to caution regarding hallucination or external fraud.) If I’ve considered and rejected those non-supernatural explanations, then I’d have to accept the experience as evidence. Others might dismiss my experience as non-evidence, of course, but for me to dismiss my own experience seems to verge on insanity.
Mind you, it’d have to be pretty convincing for me to reject the notion of Hollywood-style special effects being run by Liars for Jebus. And so far, there’s not been any such experience at all – let alone one that forces me to consider possible explanations.
So, Nance, there’s at least a couple honest and fairly clear answers to your question. Care to return the favor?
All God has to do to prove himself is turn my water into Vodka.
*sips* still water
Nance won’t be back for a while. She is much busier in the world than on the intertubes lol. Besides, she has to give careful thought to what she says next lol. I wouldn’t expect earlier than tomorrow.
Kel, vodka is already “little water” so the miracle has already happened. You have been living with the happy aftermath.
I’m still feeling sober and the back of my throat isn’t burning. I call shenanigans.
Posted by: Sastra | November 25, 2008
Oh, I know. I was pretty much speaking past you, to Nance, or theists in general. The Argument from Personal Experience of God is incredibly popular.
Because it’s Love, and all.
Wrong! God is Hate, it lets me know who to scorn. I am so looking forward to smelling the sweet scent of the burning of the faithless.
Posted by: Kel | November 26, 2008
I’m still feeling sober and the back of my throat isn’t burning. I call shenanigans.
Your faith is weak. If you believed strongly enough, you cannot help but be drunk.
Or I could forsake my faith and just drink what I know to be alcohol instead. Though that won’t get me through this last 30 minutes of work for today… I’ll have to wait until I get home.
And you could still be wrong. People who have hallucinations do not frequently understand them as such. But it doesn’t even have to be a hallucination in the traditional sense. People like to ascribe fantastic events to simple misunderstandings or misinterpretations. My sister swears there was a ghost in our grandparents 100 year old gigantic house. The curtains moved. Lights changed.
Well breeze houses have this issue frequently.
She could not be convinced.
People who get so emotionally attached to an idea tend to work themselves into a higher emotional state when practicing the ceremony (ie. prayer etc..) of the idea. This higher emotional state can easily be mistaken for a connection to something bigger than themselves.
Rev Big Dumb Chimp #201 wrote:
Indeed.
There’s also another factor. I have a slew of books on neurology written by such folks as Oliver Sacks and Ramachandra which examine how the brain works in part by looking at unusual brain states or injuries, and seeing how they effect subjective experience. One regular topic has to do with the part or parts of the brain involved in “a feeling of certainty” or “a feeling of intense significance” (or both.) When it’s stimulated or activated in some way, it imbues ordinary sensations or events with an indescribable sense that they convey important information. This is easily rationalized and integrated by the subject into a narrative which fits prior expectations.
A trite example would be the person under the influence of LSD who stares at his hand for hours, saying “wow, man, my hand is the whole universe and everything is God, you know?” Outsiders — and the man himself when he comes down — do not assume that LSD must open the brain up to Deep and Profound Knowledge. The simpler assumption is that the drug effects the brain so that it seems that way to the stoner.
But religious experience — because it is self-generated and culturally enforced — usually isn’t interpreted using the same rigorous criteria (at least, not by the general public.) And since the effects are not as temporary as drug-induced significance — indeed, they can permanently alter how people orient themselves both to their inner and outer worlds — they’re often seen as very, very different than just some hippie thinking his thumb is the Secret of the Universe. But the mechanism is basically the same, and the way the brain works is basically the same. The most parsimonious assumption is that the same thing is happening in both cases.
Sastra and the good Reverend – all you say is true, and I have to agree. Nonetheless, I hold that what I experience is all that I can use to detect reality, and to reject an experience out-of-hand would be insane.
Note that I’m NOT suggesting a mere quiet voice in my head, a blowing curtain or slamming door, or even an internal feeling of certainty is evidence of God. (I read about that last in Sawyer’s Hominids Trilogy – great books.) I’m speaking more of an experience similar to that of Moses – a full-on conversation, with visual and tactile effects and a cool souvenir at the end. As a good atheist skeptic, experiencing a conversation with God standing next to me, I’d need to consider things carefully – am I short on sleep? Ill? Under severe stress or emotional disturbance? Are there hidden speakers and projectors in the room? Any sign of having been slipped a mickey? (Quick! Go apply for a job that requires a drug test – if I fail, I have an answer.) Have aliens landed on the White House lawn? Do the stone tablets show tool marks on the carvings? Or a “Made in China” sticker and the left-over adhesive of a price tag on the back? Yes, it is only fair and just to be skeptical. But after having checked out and rejected those as insufficient (and getting independent help for such things as the drug test), I’m still left with the experience. For me to arbitrarily raise the burden of proof TOO high seems just as unfair as the creationist faced with a transitional form fossil who cries “But that was still a complete form! You need the transitional fossils from and to THAT species!” Yes, it’s an extraordinary claim, and deserves extraordinary evidence, but if we deny even the possibility of SOME level of evidence upon experiencing it, then we are as dogmatic as Teno.
BobApril #203 wrote:
Yes, rejecting an experience out-of-hand would be nuts. Fortunately, nobody’s been talking about doing that.
Instead, we’re pretty much talking about doing what you seem to be talking about doing: testing alternative hypotheses which would explain the same evidence, seeking objective confirmation, considering the unreliability of personal interpretation, looking at similar examples in neurological case studies, etc. Given strong enough evidence which doesn’t fall under this kind of scrutiny, continued skepticism starts to look like rationalization and special pleading. At some point, you’d have to believe the likelihood has shifted to an experience not just “of God,” but actually caused by God, as the best explanation.
But I’d still be careful about any experience which lacked intersubjective or objective confirmation. Our minds are notoriously tricky things.
One of the most interesting books I’ve read on the power of belief is Susan Clancy’s Abducted: How People Come to Believe They Were Kidnapped by Space Aliens. She’s a clinical psychologist who deliberately picked something virtually certain to be untrue in order to examine false memories, and how they form. It’s interesting that people who are utterly convinced that they were kidnapped up into a space ship will sometimes be aware and even knowledgeable about hypnopompic and hypnogagnic hallucinations, the fallibility of memory, invented memories, and other technical explanations for false memories.
Yes, they readily agree, “night terrors” are a kind of waking dream where the person is in a state of consciousness where they feel and even see “something” on their chest, and this hallucination is impossible to distinguish, at the time or afterwards, from the real thing. Yes, someone who underwent a night terror experience could very well think they were being held down by aliens, and remember it that way, even though it didn’t actually happen that way. The alien SEEMS 100% real. And it IS a 100% real experience. But not an experience of an alien. Indeed. That happens.
“Could you have had a ‘night terror’ experience, then, and there was no actual alien?” No. “Why not?”
“Because I was there. It was real.”
Sastra – I think we’re in agreement, and only my poor initial wording suggested otherwise. Now, the REAL question – can Nance provide an equally fair answer to the question she dodged?
I notice Nance didn’t reappear, and neither did ChR from the Helicopters thread. IIRC, the writing/logic styles were similar. Same person?
Since this thread has ventured into alien abduction and night terror territory, I would like to share my experience.
I was in bed asleep, aware that I was in bed asleep, when a dark figure (outline of man all black, not in the racial sense, but literally black) opened my bedroom door said something I could almost make out but not quite. He then walked away into my place. I got up to confront him (first clue I’m still asleep), but couldn’t find him. I went back to bed and then my alarm went off. I woke up terrified. I spent the next ten minutes seriously considering calling the police. Notice that this is a fairly mild occurrence as these things go, but I was still genuinely uncertain about what had just happened. Biographical info: I have a science degree, am, and was familiar with hypnogogic and hypnopompic events, Demon Haunted World is one of my favorite books, I’m pretty smart and have a skeptical view of these things. In spite of all this, the only thing that allowed me to figure it out was going over the events in my head and realizing that the place I had just looked for him was different from my actual place (it was slightly nicer for one thing hmmm) even though I recognized it as my place at the time.
My experience is that these events are very intense and very disturbing. I understand how people who have more intense experiences and don’t have the assets that I have, have trouble believing that the events happened only in their brains.
I’m OK now and think its kind of cool that I experienced such an interesting and poorly understood phenomenon.
No Nerd, Nance doesn’t sockpuppet. Besides, that’s beneath her. You know, there is this little holiday called “thanksgiving” tomorrow, and entertaining family comes before rebuffing complete stangers on the internet.
Maybe thier related though lol?
Hmm, i had two separste very insifnificant events (hallucinations, as it were) both involving my cat lol.
No truly, one was i noticed a cat distinctly jump from my dresser to the hallway, and even heard the “thud” when he hit the floor. I looked. No cat. I analyzed the trejectory, it wan’t feasable. The ‘cat’ was in mid-air before he had even jumped. Besides, it was a shadow cat, nothing substantial.
The other was as simple as hearing him meow, he has a very distinct squeaky meow that is quite odd. Nope, no cat. Complete fabrications of my subconscious. It does that, in real time, and over time as it slowly rewrites our memories. There was a great article on the brain by Steven Pinker in Time Magazine, with several sub-articles, an one was that our memories are constantly being modifies over time, and this is expecailly the case with very emotional memories. Also, some people are completely incapable of rememberin a persons face, even at gunpoint. It happens.
Sastra, have you read Alper’s The “God” Part of the Brain? very facinating study on the neuorolgy of religion and spirituality. Aslo copmplete with a whole chapter on demographics, athiest vs. Theist. Very entertaining read (at least past Ch. 9)
No aliens huh? Oh well. I still think that if they wanted to, it would be a simple enough task to avoid detaction. Did you guys realize that there are, in fact, different catagories of crop circles? Namely those with very distinctive properties- that are very difficult to falsify without laberatory equipment, and garden variety bent-over grass.
Anyone here seen Ghost hunters? opinions? now that this thread seems to have morphed into this discussion quickly.
can someone please descipher this for me, i’ve been going back and forth with this guy for days now, and all over this comment/analogy:
posted by cwfong on the “Is the Multiverse Real” post:
Oh, and as to which direction your imaginary arrows of time might point in any theoretically diverse universe, it says little about the creation of any universe in a cosmos that always was and always will be no matter which way the arrow points.
Two beams of light may pass each other in opposite directions, but neither will be able to reverse that exact process. Their respective “times” will have gone in the same direction, regardless of the beam trajectories. I expect the same will apply to any multi change directional multiverses.
—–+—-
I made mention that the laws of physics do not differ with respect to past and future, and thus, in other hypothetical universes, time might be backwards due to the fact that entropy works in “reverse.” For some unexplained reason, he thinks that’s wrong, and that, in fact, time is a metaphor in science -as opposed to a relativistic entity, which seems to be more accurate, given gravitational lensing, calibi-yau spaces, ect.
RickrOll, have a look at the arrow of time.
I think that’s a confusion based on the invariance of c regardless of reference frame, it says nothing about time’s arrow. It’s just obfuscation, and talking about hypothetical universes.
RickrOll, I suppose cwfong seems to be saying that, if the Universe is but one of many embedded in some Metaverse, and if the Metaverse is eternal, it “says little” to investigate any given universe’s origin or end.
I don’t see how it follows, even granting the premises, and the light beams example doesn’t seem relevant.
cwfong seems to be poo-pooing the very concept of time’s arrow as relevant.
I just don’t get why anyone believes in creationism.
I am no biologist, and I don’t understand evolution except on a very, very basic (high-school) level. But it should be apparent to anyone, biologist or not, that organic life is far from perfect in its design. Human beings have all sorts of biological weaknesses; we are vulnerable to disease, both contagious and genetic; we are, in so many respects, physically flawed. It seems to me to be bad theology, bordering on blasphemy (as well as logically incoherent), to suggest that a benevolent and perfect God designed us from scratch. Some, of course, would contend that our physical weaknesses are punishment for the Fall; but then why do animals, who by definition cannot act sinfully (since they have no moral self-awareness), also suffer from diseases and physical defects?
It’s much more philosophically coherent to accept evolution as a natural, material process – contending that while God set up the Universe and its physical laws, creating an environment in which life could exist, He allowed human life to create itself through natural mechanisms.
Furthermore, if God’s handiwork in nature was constantly visible and scientifically measurable, in a way independent of natural processes, then there would be no need for faith – and we would be deprived of our free will and our free choice of religious belief.
I know that time itself doesn’t even have a direction, and that photons are timeless, due to the fact that they expend all thier energy in the 3 “large” space dimentions of spacetime (for discussion, assume M-theoretical model, as is done on the post). Here we are:
http://scienceblogs.com/evolutionblog/2008/11/is_the_multiverse_real.php?utm_source=networkbanner&utm_medium=link
You know John, i can’t believe i forgot about the Weak time asymmetry *facepalm*
“It’s just obfuscation, and talking about hypothetical universes.”
Yes, and i understand that the 2nd LoT is what, most generally, is cause for the arrow of time. The other factors seem to follow from that. Decoherance happens a lot, and was a particular point of interest in The Elegant Universe at one point.
(Medium difficulty, i would say, for a layman such as myself to understand, but nonetheless invaluable to the discussion at hand.)
In a Multiverse, is it truly impossible for some universes to be exhibiting behavior that would appear to be “backwards” from ours? It fascinates me restlessly (as is apparent by the fact that it is nearly 2 am here)!
John, the reason he got into this mess was because i assumed that “backwards” universes in the Meta/multiverse would exibit the same range of possibilities that ones such as ours does. There will be somewhat of a disparity with the following, as it was garnered from myself elswhere’s on the internets
A Multiverse isn’t a metaphysical assertion, i believe. Somply put: Eternal Inflation. For graeater knowledge on this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmic_inflation
and a specific section on
Eternal Inflation (Chaotic Inflation):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaotic_inflation
Chaotic inflation could mean that as the universe gets to it’s final stages of existance, where nearly all the energy is substantially closer to absolute 0, there would be plenty of opportunity for Chaotic inflation to spawn new regions of space whch would become new universes.
After all, energy in the universe is derived from Gravitational energy, and since energy is generared reandomly by vacuum fluctuations, gravitational energy is similarly chaotically created and destroyed.
However, if any small part of space were to undergo inflation similar to that of the early universe (on the order of 10^26 times its size at that time), then the repulsive gravity would be enough to proliferate the universe with matter and energy like our own. The way that this is possible is because the total matter/ energy of the universe is near or equal to 0, as gravity behaves as a negative energy. So the proliferation of new universes is perfectly alright, given that the time frame for this type of event to occur: it is extremely unlikely, likely to be 1 in a trillion trillion years time.
However, there is no reason to speculate that universe will actually End, per se, just that it will get substantially older, emptier and colder. So, in that sense, eternal inflation is an inevitable by-product of the extreme timescales involved in cosmology.
Feel free to comment on what he said there -the thread has gotten so lonely :{
“Furthermore, if God’s handiwork in nature was constantly visible and scientifically measurable, in a way independent of natural processes, then there would be no need for faith – and we would be deprived of our free will and our free choice of religious belief.”- Walton
Dostoyevsky would disagree; i loved Notes from the Underground.
RickrOll @213,
This is entirely speculative, so any conclusions depend purely on how you premise this Multiverse. The only thing I’d say is that presumably these universes are not causally connected, so no one from any given universe could know (or infer, of course) anything about the actuality of any other. You’d just be speculating.
That might well be what cwfong was expressing – I haven’t seen the thread.
@214, well, I’m not committed to any view. If I were pressed, I’d settle for the current scientific consensus regarding cosmology.
Walton,
Me neither, but I also just don’t get why anyone believes in deities.
There’s good theology? Heh.
Go further.
It’s much more philosophically coherent to accept Nature just is, rather than that God just is, then created Nature.
So you can reconcile free will with a creator, omnipotent, omniscient, benevolent deity? Pray do tell, or which of those deific attributes do you drop, if otherwise.
Consider, alternatively, the hypothesis that God is an invention. It explains reality rather more parsimoniously.
I was asking a simple question this time through. There was no speculation involved. So speculate, it’s your turn. What’s the worst that could happen?
It’s bizarre, because you have to speculate that these universes aren’t causally linked for it to be speculative, hmmm… lol I’m kidding. Yet, if the universes do not interact, then their existance is null and void. The multiverse necessarily means that the universes interact. Doesn’t that mean there is some causation?
Hey, there was always something, right? Something can’t come from nothing, although that sure does leave a LOT out. “In the beginning, there was a Planch-sized nugget…” lol. That’s what we can be sure of ;)
The current scientific consensous being Inflationary Big Bang Cosmology, what i was dealing specifically with, at #214. I hadn’t even brought up Closed Timelike Loops yet lol
So you can reconcile free will with a creator, omnipotent, omniscient, benevolent deity?
Yes. While an omnipotent God certainly could end human suffering and error by taking away our free will and governing as a cosmic tyrant, this wouldn’t really be the benevolent thing to do. I happen to believe that freedom is the most important gift ever given to humanity.
When people live under a dictatorship – even a relatively benevolent dictatorship – they are never as fulfilled or as happy as they can be in a free country. Surely, then, the same is true on a metaphysical level? While God knows what’s best for us, and could govern our lives as a cosmic dictator, would we really be happy, and would our lives really be fulfilled, if we were simply drones doing God’s will without any free choice?
A necessary part of freedom is that bad things have to be allowed to happen. Freedom merely to do good things is not freedom at all. Alcoholism is a bad thing, for instance; but I would rather live in a free society in which alcoholism exists, than a society where the government prevented alcoholism by banning alcohol. Similarly, God allows freedom to human beings and to the natural world, and an inevitable consequence of this is that bad things will happen. But freedom is better for us than blind obedience to a controlling force, and God knows that.
Consider, alternatively, the hypothesis that God is an invention. It explains reality rather more parsimoniously.
Yes, of course it does; atheism and agnosticism are eminently logical viewpoints, and I’ve never asserted otherwise. But they aren’t satisfying viewpoints.
RickrOll, so far as we know the Universe is it. I already said your conclusions on hypotheticals based on pure speculation depend entirely on your premises. It’s a pointless exercise.
Regarding causality, are you familiar with the concept of the light cone?
Walton,
This is an evasion of my more basic point.
If God is a creator, omnipotent, omniscient, and benevolent, then before making a Creation God would know every outcome for every event; why even bother actualising the Creation in the first place? How is God constrained by free will such that suffering and evil (parasites, disease, malformation, malnutrition, harm by nature, harm by others, debilitation and aging etc) are realities? And for what reason, again?
You’re saying God is limited, hence those omni- prefixes are not applicable. God is constrained by the requirements of free will to allow untold suffering and pain, though God is putatively benevolent.
“Furthermore, if God’s handiwork in nature was constantly visible and scientifically measurable, in a way independent of natural processes, then there would be no need for faith – and we would be deprived of our free will and our free choice of religious belief.”- Walton
God is fundamentally limited by nature. After all, even if the universe were some supernaturally artificial construct, that would go a long way to discussing the nature of said universe. Similarly, even God cannot fail to be less than God (though any perusal of the OT would deftly defy this logic), which brings up that ever so important question: Does God even himself have a choice?
He is omnibenevolent, omnipotent, omniscient, so everything would merely follow from that. He can’t even change his mind. Whoops too late, he’s omniscient, what he does cannot be undone. The best alternative was Spinoza by assuming God was nature. But if God=nature, and 2=2, then why are we calling it by different names? God is a Fail of Cosmic porportions. Godz, little ones, are slightly less absurd, because they are anthropomorphic. Oh, the irony, it burns!
-Like a lake of fire perhaps?
No, like how stupidity burns. You know, figuratively.
-Potato,potahto.
So John, you take that the mechanism of Inflatinary Cosmology to be pure speculation? Interesting. We know that it happend once, why not twice, or more? I’m merely saying that things have have been shown to happen usually do so more than once. And it is clearly shown that due to the acceleration of the Universe’s expansion, there will be no Big Crunch to bring it all to a nice clean finish.
You may object to this and say that “the mechanism isn’t well understood, and that the universe could just as easily contract as it has expanded” for example, but then you would be speculating. There really isn’t any reason to think that the universe will end.
RickrOll @223, you’re the one making speculations, and vague ones at that.
Regarding cosmic inflation, it’s the current explanation for the Universe, and certainly needn’t apply to other hypothetical continua.
I’m leery of these stupendous quantum fluctuations you cite, too – as I understand it, such basically are background noise and cancel out at macro scales.
It’s already at the edges of science, so extrapolating further seems speculative to me.
That is vaguely phrased, with no universe of discourse defined.
Will you be born again, in the same year you were born? Will hominids again evolve into humans?
Walton @219
Note to self
Never post after 1 in the morning when you are ill.
And HTML is not your friend
Satisfying in what sense? In the sense of meeting some desire that there be more to the universe than we can see and know?
I think it is far more important to satisfy the desire that what we do know makes sense, which is far better satisfied by the parsimonious rejection of the hypothesis of a God that does absolutely nothing that can be perceived.
And I think your argument for a God that loves freedom so much that he gives no sign of his existence so that we are free to choose anything, even unto destroying ourselves, can be refuted.
You yourself have argued for less government; for a minimally necessary government. But that is not the same as no government; even you reject that absolute freedom is an absolute good. This can be turned to the question of God as well: Some minimal amount of interaction with humans would be better than no interaction. After all, as a result no-one stopping them, the worst humans with the worst of human impulses ruin the lives of many other humans besides themselves, and all too often, claim that God is on their side and supports them. Even if all God did was to say “No, I don’t” to these claims would be better than nothing.
And yet nothing is all that we have.
It’s surprising that free will is actually touted as an answer, it’s nothing more than an assumption. Does free will exist? And for that matter, when believers talk about free will just what exactly do they mean by the term? Is it possible to get a single set definition of free will so it can be a testable (and potentially falsifiable) hypothesis? Even an adequate descriptor would be welcome.
Kel,
Obviously, the ‘argument from free will’ is what some clever apologist cooked up to try and deal with the fact that, if their god exists, he’s a dick who lets bad things happen – if he isn’t making them happen.
I’ve always felt it fell short when bad things happen to people who don’t choose them – hence my tendency to ask papists defending god to explain what god’s rationale for not stopping the priests, his agents on earth, from raping kids. The only way the argument from free will can work in that situation is if they claim the kids deserved what they got.
Since bad things happen to people who don’t deserve them, it’s fair to say that their god, if he exists, cannot be both all-powerful and all-loving. Simple as that.
All I want is for those who make the argument out of free will to at least define it before they make the argument. When defining the nature of God, it seems to fundamentally shift from manifest destiny to abstract chaos. To me the idea that God is in control of everything goes against the concept of free will. When God needs to be for the purpose of the argument, He is working through nature and through men. But when that argument doesn’t fly, then it’s simply man exercising free will.
It’s a joke really, but then again all theology is. Nothing more than lame apologetic nonsense to excuse the fact that it really doesn’t look like God is there.
It seems clear to me that Walton is using “free will” rather sloppily, in the sense of “whatever it is that allows us to act against our own best interests”. Even granting that sloppy definition, his thesis has problems…
I think I would rephrase my argument against that as pointing out, not just the inconsistency with his own political beliefs, but also with the simple fact that destructive decisions do not just affect ourselves, but also others, and sometimes many, many others. How does it make sense to support the free will of a tyrant against those whose free will he diminishes while harming them greatly with his tyranny?
I note that the example of alcoholism, is particularly tricky. The argument implies that drinking alcohol is always a choice, yet the very way in which alcohol interacts with brain chemistry to cause addiction means that over time, the choice changes from “have a drink” to “fight craving for drink” to “fight stronger and stronger craving for drink”, and in addition, the choice must be made against the detrimental affect that alcohol has on the brain’s ability to evaluate choices and consequences.
Thus, alcoholism (and other types of addiction) is a change in “free will” itself; it becomes easier to make that decision against our own best interest, and harder to choose in favor of our own best interest. And addiction arises because we don’t have direct access to our own brain chemistry; we cannot choose freely to not be addicted.
So the argument becomes that we have the free will to choose to diminish our free will to choose, against what we would choose had we the knowledge and will to do so.
And God has no problem with letting that happen without warning us or helping us.
Yeah, that’s a God that loves “free will” all right…
Well said Owlmirror, we are in a situation where almost any action we do has some effect on the lives of others and on the planet we reside on. On an individual level, the concept seems at least consistent (though not backed by evidence), but when the individual is put in a context where their actions affect the lives of others then free will breaks down as simply choice.
What the leaders of our countries do when they exercise free will has far wider consequences than us at the bottom. What I do and what I have the potential to do will me mostly inconsequential, but it will still affect those around me. This trickling down of power means that for me and a president to exercise free will in a malicious way would lead to drastically different consequences.
If we live in a society of pure choice, we have to accept that the actions of one person can and do affect the lives of others; that everything we do is tied to an extent to society. Don’t get me wrong, the main goal is liberty through freedom. But there has to be that understanding of interconnectedness between all of us as individuals. Sometimes restrictions are necessary purely because a few restrictions leads to a greater prosperity in overall liberty.
So what’s God’s role in all of this? If free will exists, then God has no control over the fate of mankind without intervention. The choices we each make as individuals affect the choices others can make. Keep doing this repeatedly on a wide base where each choice feeds back into the loop and you have exponential growth of disorder purely from the exercising free will.
Those exercising their free-will in Mumbai over the last few days means that over a hundred people now no longer have the ability to exercise free will, and over 300 more are now suffering as a consequence. Free will and God’s plan are two irreconcilable ideas.
“That is vaguely phrased, with no universe of discourse defined. Will you be born again, in the same year you were born? Will hominids again evolve into humans?”
No, but people that have shared my philosophy have been born before, people with perhaps many physical characteristics to me own, and certainly many males before, on the particular birthday 5-07, even in the same year i was born in.
I don’t have to be specific, though i ought to have noted that Classes of events occure very very often. Evolution happens all the time, Planet formation happens all the time, galaxy and star formation have happend certainly more that one time. Even abiogenisis has many hypotheses regarding how it occured, and more than one could have happened, with merely the most succesful becoming the dominant proto-life-form, and then, organism. Saying that inflation “needn’t apply to other hypothetical continua” is being a little terse. And you aren’t being very specific either, i might add.
Yes, vacuum fluctuations mostly cancel out, but not always. In the early universe, this didn’t occur (obviously). and you never made any claims to the effect that this Couldn’t happen, after all, my argument rests on statistical inevitability, nothing more or less- i am, after all, dealing with quantum mechanics. In an infinite span of time, Any unlikely event will occur, eventually. I was only focusing on one type of event, one of interest. Hell, even entropy could see a dramatic decrease due to this principle. But it hasn’t happened yet, and it won’t for trillions of years due to the extreme unlikelyhood of such events. But i digress, this post is not the place, the “Multiverse” post is, however.
Kel, Owlmirror, this is a bit of a coincidense, but i just had looked into this guys site ( http://tomreedblog.wordpress.com/about/ )
and thought i ought to include him in the fray. His about page talks about this very poigniantly, and yet he fell for the carny-barker christians with thier “ripping phone books in half” and, well, you know the type.
That was painful to read, the author has the linguistic abilities of a young teenager. Though he did sum up the problem I have with Christianity:
1. He said that I was a sinner. I agreed with this because I thought, everyone’s done things that are wrong.
2. He said that because of my sin, I was destined for Hell, and that Hell is a real place and I would be there for eternity.
4. He said that all I have to do is believe in Jesus’ death for me, and I will be in heaven one day. That was it.
yep, he was SO close to being a natural athiest (see Adam Corolla), but then he bought into the “Step right up, sinners and beleivers alike” brand of evangelism. very sad. Speaking of sad:
By: compass1130 (Nevigrov) -Suddenly atheist: Godless bible study:
M[orsecOde],
I think we’ve found one thing we both agree on: some people act like animals or worse.
Man, I truly wish I were smart enough to be able to help you find God. I love you and care about you. I truly and sincerely do not want you to go to Hell when you die. But, it seems like whatever argument I give in support of Jesus Christ being the only true God, you will argue the differ. And, whatever case I make for creation, you will combat with science and evolution.
I’m not much on arguing in circles, so I present you with one final plea for my case, the case of Jesus: what He has done in my life.
At an early age, I was a regular in church (similar to you, the church I went to was of a different denomination, though). I was taught in Sunday School and knew a lot about God, a whole lot. Even when I was still in the single digits, I could spout off every Book of the Bible, in order, and quote from several.
However, as much as I knew ABOUT God, I didn’t KNOW God. There is a difference between knowing about someone and knowing someone personally, as you know.
When I was in the 5th grade, I heard a message or two, maybe more, about how Jesus was coming back soon. I heard about how those who were left behind and had heard the Gospel but said, “No,” and refected Jesus would be left behind (and contrary to the book series, they would have no hope at all).
I was one of those people. I knew at that moment that I would be left behind, and it really got to me. For the next few weeks, I can remember the conviction of the Holy Spirit vividly. I would wake up in cold sweats terrified that I had been left behind.
Finally, I had had enough.
I from my bedroom to my parents’ bedroom and woke my mother. She came to my bedside and we bowed beside my bed.
I knew I was a sinner. I knew I deserved Hell. But, I also knew Jesus died, was buried, and resurrected for me. I also knew that He alone could save me from being left behind.
So, the best way I knew how, I turned to Jesus, I prayed, and asked Jesus to forgive me and save me. And He did!
Morse, I can’t quite put into words exactly what kind of change took place in my life that night, but I know I can still feel its effects today. I mean, I know the verses, the cleaches(spelling?), the hyms, and all that stuff. But, honestly, words fail to express the difference God has made in my life. He has given me life. And, I am petrified to think about what my life would be like with out Him.
Which brings me to you, and our long dialogue. The best possible proof I can offer of the existence of God is experience. By His grace, I have felt Him, seen Him, He’s held me when I was hurt. He is quick to help me up when I fall, and even when I sin now, He’s always there to show me what has come between us so I can get it out of my life, ask forgiveness, and move on with my Savior.
Unfortunately, experince can only be had firsthand. I can tell you of my experince of having a relationship with the God of the universe, but unless you turn from sin, and throw down your pride, and turn to Jesus in faith, you can never fully know the experince. Not even close.
M, its going to be tough to make the choice, but if you do, I promise it will be the best you’ve ever made. Trust me, I know from experience.
For help: Romans 3:23, 6:23, 10:9, 10:13, John 3:16
Oh, by the way, just because I am finished for now with the creation vs. evolution discussion, know that I am still praying for you.
—-+——–
and my response to this:
Wow, compass, your story frightens me. to think that you were so paranoid about those children’s stories and so brainwashed by fearmongering into that state of self loathing at such an early age. cliches seem to have a drastic effect on an impressionable youn mind.
I have heard it been said by many christians that the change is often difficult to spot, because it is a constant slow growing process of spirituality, not a burst of insight.
Read Alper’s The “God” Part of the Brain. It will put things in a different light, maybe put you outside yourself enough so you can look at your desparation objectively. your kindness is offset by your sincerity and whole-hearted devotion to a romanticised despot (merely look at the OT).
Oh, and Kel, you forgot about #3 he mentioned: he made a snap descision based on the emotionality amd “gut feelins” he had at that moment. Props for sticking to his guns, but that doesn’t mean anything:
” Where is my faith? Even deep down … there is nothing but emptiness and darkness … If there be God–please forgive me. When I try to raise my thoughts to Heaven, there is such convicting emptiness that those very thoughts return like sharp knives and hurt my very soul … How painful is this unknown pain–I have no Faith. Repulsed, empty, no faith, no love, no zeal, … What do I labor for? If there be no God, there can be no soul. If there be no soul then, Jesus, You also are not true.[Teresa, Mother (2007). Mother Teresa: Come Be My Light. New York: Doubleday. ISBN 0385520379.]
3 had nothing to do with the point I was making. His reason for believing is bad, but that has nothing to do with the Doctrine itself. Where my problem lies is not only in the idea of eternal punishment for something I wasn’t responsible for (original sin), but the redemption for that is simply an affirmation of faith.
oh i know kel. I thought however that he should be roundly trounced.
On a completely different note, i wonder if an honerary OM can be handed out, to a particularly ingenius Youtube athiest: cdk007. We are all aware of his genius, i’m sure, and his work is perhaps the single best place to refute creotards. Yes, even better than Talkotigins, for the simple reason that they aren’t debating in a scientific forum, as it were, and so they cannot ignore what he says as eisily as talkorigins can and has been dismissed (randy stimpson). Further, he watches [adult swim] lol.
For youtube biology, no-one lays the smackdown greater than AronRa. DonExodus2 is pretty decent too. But I agree, CDK007 makes great videos.
Oh BOY! i’ve found another *sniggers*:
Posted by: John A. Davison- Aardvarcheology post: Sunday confession of a lapsed preist:
Whether one believes in a Creator or not has a firm congenital basis as the studies on separated identical twins have established. I recommend William Wright’s “Born That Way” for documentation. As near as I can tell many atheists abuse the devout. It seems to give them pleasure. Current examples are Paul Zachary Myers and Richard Dawkins. That is about all they do these days. Neither of have them has ever published a word on the major matter which has always been in question – the mechanism of a long ago terminated organic evolution. Atheist, Darwinian and ultra-liberal are for all practical purposes synonymous.
Myers even brags about it with his letterhead which adorns each edition of his Pharyngula “hatespeech.”
“…random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal.”
I thought all ejaculations were biological. What a “jerk” if you get my drift. He also sports his “Dungeon” now on the first page. You will find me as one of the first inmates, a tribute I cherish more than you will ever know.
—-+——-
“swing low, smiting hammm’e’er…..comin’ to crush our pride”
It appears i found more than your averge Joe-Sunday-Vest, but a prize of the hunt. Extra points for whacking this particular Godbot. Stop the infection!
Kel, i’ll keep it in mind. Thanks. Is CDK an acronym for Creationists Don’t Know? Or merely a coincidence?
The dungeon is full of people worthy for this thread.
quite kel. I know, i said good about him before, but this John Shore is becoming a real problem, exhibiting all the classic signs of religous nuttiness. He deletes my comments, ignored my attempt to reconcile, is incredably rude and vindictive off his own blog, and what’s more, i’m tired of waiting for him to be a mature adult. I vote we whack him: http://johnshoreland.com/
Normally i wouldn’t consider him a problem, but he needs to be taught a lesson in manners and some intellectual honesty.
Just a heads up fellows, there appears to be troll (sphere coupler) over on the antarctic octopus thread who has a theory he’s been hinting at. I’m trying to get him to post over here where it is more appropriate. My apologies if I break up your discussion.
Sorry, Didn’t mean to come across as a troll,and I don’t want to change path of this continueing topic, as I have not been partaking in such.Agregation and stress have been my companions of late.
(aggravation)
SC (no, not Scott Calvin, geeez!), i’ve seen you around before, and i have a hard time imagining you as a troll. I think you are making jokes and such, but the electricity thing isn’t my speciality. Anyway, go on. this thread has no particular discussion in mind, though i was trying to rally support for my effort to slap a little sense into John Shore at Suddenly Christian (link above). If any would be so kind, please do.
N.O.R. The problem I have with citing the appropriate source is that I have never been able to locate, due to the fact that there is a lag in distribution of information or my thoughts are original.This is changing with N.A.S.A.’s Helio programs, yet to this day scientist claim the earth body cloud structures are relevant in the sole source creation of elves, sprites and jets and lightning.These are the phenomena created above and below energetic cloud structures.Continuing my investigations regarding electron(or shall I say lepton)linkage from the suns core to the earths core I have obtained tens of reactions and purposes regarding cloud structure. One of the most significant is the overload quality that precedes the disconnection of the ground based current and the Ionosphere.In other words the propagation of observed phenomena due to a function of atmosphere.Lepton transfer occurs from source to sink only.(sun core to earth core)
RickrOll,negative, never heard of him.
And while I’m at it life did not originate in the ocean,small pools yes.When the earth was formed there was no water, only over time was water deposited and accumulated.At some time in history all land became engulfed, then due to rotational forces the land masses separated into the distinction of water and land.When the molten earth formed water could not collect on this body and the atmosphere began it early cycles.
formed,water…I really should preview.
Alright I’ll continue…The Ionosphere will contain eddy currents(circular patterns)that correlate with eddy currents in the earths crust or ocean surface.These forces play a major role in the magnitude of production of weather.
As I have stated before the Ionosphere is the driving force in electron transfer to earth.When you see lightning,most people think they see electricity,However the photons that are released are caused by the disconnection of electron transfer and the renormalization of exited atoms.There are several types of electron transfer and even the fact that this occurs plays no significant role in academia.There is a master,slave relationship between sun-core/earth-core as there is on any body.suncore/marscore…suncore/venuscore.
The slave always tries to become equal to it’s master and given time this will occur.Do you think the role of trees is only to provide commercial products? The sapwood is a very good conductor.Do you not think there is a correlation between the shape of sprites,elves,proton-proton collision jets, trees, and the mineral veins of the earth? There is so much more,but enough for now.
If you really want to know what has set me off…A month ago I came to the conclusion that the L.H.C. Large Hadron Collider could operate safely up to 6 Tev, unsure of myself I acquired the book “Prospectives on physics at the LHC” In the last chapter it stated that microblackholes should be created at around 7Tev.These structures should dissipate due to Hawking radiation.The calculations give a perfect sphere and this is not acceptable, coupled with the fact that the LHC is a prototype never seen before,couped with the fact that nowhere I have looked has anyone provided me with a contingency plan if an aggressive black hole is formed.(Figures can fool and fools can figure)Over 1000 scientists from over 100 countries are participating.All I’m saying is give the nasa satellite program time to study the blackhole production in the atmosphere.We won’t get any second chances,go slow and be very cautious.I know how driven one can become in the quest for knowledge.There may be many entities that qualify as microblackholes.As of this date the LHC has accomplished 5Tev with no beam.And I percieve beam confinement problems above 4Tev which is to be expected.
sphere coupler,
I have no idea what you are talking about,but you seem to be trying to take over the thread,which would qualify as troll behaviour.
And @ 246,
there is only one SC around here,and its not this dude.
Sphere Coupler @252, worried about LHC black holes?
Check this out.
John Morales;#254
Well, not really worried.Thanks for the info,tho not to sound presumptuious I have been studying particle physics for 30 years and I know how stupid (or drunk in the lust for knowledge) the intelligent can become…
Sphere Coupler, you did write that “In the last chapter it stated that microblackholes should be created at around 7Tev”. The linked article shows how collision energies are many orders of magnitude below that required for the formation of even a black hole with Planck length as the Schwarzschild radius.
That contradicts what you wrote, doesn’t it?
yes-I have found contradictory information in other sources.
more later.
I haven’t taken the time to dig out all my books on this matter.I guess what it boils down to is why do they feel the need to ramp up to 7Tev (14Tev) all at once.I may be wrong, maybe they will start slowly which in my view would be the logical course of action.Am I worried about a catastropic event…no… some of the best minds are being tapped for this experiment.Just hope they take it slow and not be in to big of a hurry to win a noble.
Erm… nonsense. :-| Please explain how you arrived at that idea. “I started with
the Enûma ElisGenesis 1, whereMarduk hacks Tiamatunnamed Elohim split the chaos in two, thereby inventing gravity or something; and then I desperately tried to shoehorn geology into it” does not count.In what mystical sense?
“Role”? Dude, trees are living beings. They don’t exist for a purpose.
Please explain how that’s supposed to make any sense. I don’t understand it.
If that were true, you’d already know about this here. Short summary: There is no black-hole production in the atmosphere. Not even by cosmic rays with energy way, way, way above anything a collider can reach.
That’s Nobel Prize, named after the Norwegian industrialist Alfred Nobel. Pronounced no-BELL, roughly.
“Studying particle physics for 30 years”? Reading popular articles isn’t the same as studying. Please.
BTW, if you had been studying pretty much anything for 30 years, you’d also know to hit the space bar behind all punctuation… :-D
You see, this is why i usually love John Shore: open-mindedness. He is rather excited about talking to you guys! I say give it a spin: http://johnshoreland.com/2008/12/02/from-a-john-tesh-nod-to-me-being-gnawed/
OK, that was very sweet.
Sphere, IIRC, it will take at least a couple of months of testing to get the LHC up to full power.
David, re:
I think the reference is to such as these, whereby electron discharges take the path of least resistance.
A clear example of numinous pattern-seeking alluding to unknown super-science. Crankish.
This is the SIWOTI thread, after all :o)
I came in earnest and have been ridiculed by what looks to be preprogrammed idiots. Try thinking for yourself.
David Marjanović,are you proposing that water formed on a molten planet?
There is a difference between existing for a purpose and a purpose for existing(evolution).
Your mockery using,what,religious characters…lame.
I don’t know why I even bother.
If you think clouds gain their power (elec.)solely from passing thru the lines of force from the planet then you have been just as thoroughly brainwash by academia as those brainwashed by religion, from my vantage point…NO DIFFERENCE.
guy with big Spheres: David is an Order of the Molly recipient. Don’t go there. Unless you reeeeally want to have a bad day lol. Additionally, he asked you first. Ad hominems are PA-thetic. come up with something. I would ask you to leave, but we are in a SIWOTI syndrome thread after all.
no need to ask
what im looking for isnt here goodbye
<howl>
I’m not proposing that water formed. What I can tell for sure is that continents and oceans already existed 4.4 billion years ago; the water may have been vapor (and thus part of the atmosphere) when the whole planet was molten (after the moon-forming impact 4.51 billion years ago), or it may have come in the form of comets, or (probably most likely) both.
Then what do you mean by “the role of trees”? I asked a question, and I asked if the answer I could think of was what you had in mind. Don’t take everything so personally. :-|
I don’t. Inside thunderstorm clouds, there’s convection and friction; that friction can separate charges is not exactly news.
Sphere, if you have such good ideas, why don’t you write them up and send them to an appropriate scientific journal? Or were you just seeing if you could find some sycophants?
The APJ Entropy and evolultion article that spawned this fun is the subject of a One on One two-week online debate at a popular (1.1M posts) religious site, TheologyOnline. “Johnny” has the side of evolution, and the debate is in the Coliseum, One on One area.
The APJ Entropy article that spawned this fun (including the “trillion times” quote by PZ) is the subject of a One on One two-week online debate at a popular (1.1M posts) religious site, TheologyOnline. “Johnny” has the side of evolution, and the debate is in the Coliseum, One on One area.
Good grief.
http://www.theologyonline.com/forums/showthread.php?t=53199
Refuted.
http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CE/CE401.html
And the stuff about entropy looks even more confused. I’m not even sure what you’re even trying to say. People define entropy incorrectly, and therefore… what?
Uh Bob.
You won’t find any of us heading over there for “debate”.
Owlmirror, the whole entropy argument re evolution is a “red herring” (a red herring for non mystery buffs is what looks like an important clue, but is meaningless at the end of the story). The good old Gibbs equation states that the free energy of the system is what matters for a reaction, chemical or biological, to go, not the enthalpy (heat) or entropy, but a combination of the two. An adverse entropy term can be overcome with an exothermic reaction, or by pumping energy, say from sunlight, into the system. Evolution has a negative free energy overall, which means it can go forward chemically, so the actual value of the entropy term is meaningless.
Besides, as you say, they always get entropy defined wrong. It sounds like what they want to hear, which is why creobots have latched unto it.
If I read him right, though, he might be saying that, no, it’s not thermodynamic entropy that’s the problem, it’s the Shannon entropy that doesn’t work, see, because there’s all this information in life, and Shannon entropy means that information degrades, and therefore…
Like I said, I am not entirely sure what he’s arguing.
I am pretty sure, though, that he’s doin’ it wrong.
By the way, in looking at Styer’s web page again in the hope that he might have posted the paper online, I found that he has an entire draft book on Statistical Mechanics.
@270: If you’re the same Bob Enyart mentioned in this Wikipedia article, then a great big fuck you to you, sir. If not, my apologies and you should really consider changing your name.
Holy suffering shit, that is him.
KGOV is his radio station.