A professor at the University of Vermont, Nicholas Gotelli, got an invitation to debate one of the clowns at the Discovery Institute. Here’s what they wrote.
Dear Professor Gotelli,
I saw your op-ed in the Burlington Free Press and appreciated your support
of free speech at UVM. In light of that, I wonder if you would be open to
finding a way to provide a campus forum for a debate about evolutionary
science and intelligent design. The Discovery Institute, where I
work, has a
local sponsor in Burlington who is enthusiastic to find a way to make this
happen. But we need a partner on campus. If not the biology
department, then
perhaps you can suggest an alternative.Ben Stein may not be the best person to single-handedly represent the ID
side. As you’re aware, he’s known mainly as an entertainer. A more
appropriate alternative or addition might be our senior fellows David
Berlinski or Stephen Meyer, respectively a mathematician and a philosopher
of science. I’ll copy links to their bios below. Wherever one comes down in
the Darwin debate, I think we can all agree that it is healthy for students
to be exposed to different views–in precisely the spirit of inviting
controversial speakers to campus, as you write in your op-ed.I’m hoping that you would be willing to give a critique of ID at such an
event, and participate in the debate in whatever role you feel comfortable
with.A good scientific backdrop to the discussion might be Dr. Meyer’s book that
comes out in June from HarperCollins, “Signature in the Cell: DNA and the
Evidence for Intelligent Design.”On the other hand, Dr. Belinski may be a good choice since he is a
critic of
both ID and Darwinian theory.Would it be possible for us to talk more about this by phone sometime soon?
With best wishes,
David Klinghoffer
Discovery Institute
You’ll enjoy Dr Gotelli’s response.
Dear Dr. Klinghoffer:
Thank you for this interesting and courteous invitation to set up a
debate about evolution and creationism (which includes its more
recent relabeling as “intelligent design”) with a speaker from the
Discovery Institute. Your invitation is quite surprising, given the
sneering coverage of my recent newspaper editorial that you
yourself posted on the Discovery Institute’s website:http://www.evolutionnews.org/2009/02/
However, this kind of two-faced dishonesty is what the scientific
community has come to expect from the creationists.Academic debate on controversial topics is fine, but those topics
need to have a basis in reality. I would not invite a creationist
to a debate on campus for the same reason that I would not invite
an alchemist, a flat-earther, an astrologer, a psychic, or a
Holocaust revisionist. These ideas have no scientific support, and
that is why they have all been discarded by credible scholars.
Creationism is in the same category.Instead of spending time on public debates, why aren’t members of
your institute publishing their ideas in prominent peer-reviewed
journals such as Science, Nature, or the Proceedings of the
National Academy of Sciences? If you want to be taken seriously by
scientists and scholars, this is where you need to publish.
Academic publishing is an intellectual free market, where ideas
that have credible empirical support are carefully and thoroughly
explored. Nothing could possibly be more exciting and electrifying
to biology than scientific disproof of evolutionary theory or
scientific proof of the existence of a god. That would be Nobel
Prize winning work, and it would be eagerly published by any of the
prominent mainstream journals.“Conspiracy” is the predictable response by Ben Stein and the
frustrated creationists. But conspiracy theories are a joke,
because science places a high premium on intellectual honesty and
on new empirical studies that overturn previously established
principles. Creationism doesn’t live up to these standards, so its
proponents are relegated to the sidelines, publishing in books,
blogs, websites, and obscure journals that don’t maintain
scientific standards.Finally, isn’t it sort of pathetic that your large, well-funded
institute must scrape around, panhandling for a seminar invitation
at a little university in northern New England? Practicing
scientists receive frequent invitations to speak in science
departments around the world, often on controversial and novel
topics. If creationists actually published some legitimate science,
they would receive such invitations as well.So, I hope you understand why I am declining your offer. I will
wait patiently to read about the work of creationists in the pages
of Nature and Science. But until it appears there, it isn’t science
and doesn’t merit an invitation.In closing, I do want to thank you sincerely for this invitation
and for your posting on the Discovery Institute Website. As an
evolutionary biologist, I can’t tell you what a badge of honor this
is. My colleagues will be envious.Sincerely yours,
Nick Gotelli
P.S. I hope you will forgive me if I do not respond to any further
e-mails from you or from the Discovery Institute. This has been
entertaining, but it interferes with my research and teaching.
How do you falsify this “hypothesis” that design is required? It’s not enough for you to claim that design is required because you see design in everything and cannot see how it could arise otherwise. If you’re going to argue that ID is scientific, then you need to be able to falsify that hypothesis. So, in short, how do you test the idea, you wrote, that “design is required?”
And by the way of that question, how do you falsify the designer?
And, since you’re still here, and since FTK scurried back into her hole without answering any questions (I’m SHOCKED I tell you), perhaps you’d care to provide an answer to this:
The Ozark cave fish, Amblyopsis rosae, lives in the dark in caves. It has nonfunctional eyes in its head, with no optic nerve. The ToE has an explanation for this observation (a blind cave fish that lives in the dark and possesses eyes that don’t function) which is quite satisfactory and is congruent with the available evidence. What is ID’s explanation for this observation? Why would a fish that lives in the dark and has no need for eyes, be designed with eyes that don’t function? Why wouldn’t it be designed with no eyes at all? How does ID explain this?
Good, I could do with a beer after spending so much time dealing with these IDiots…
We’ve hit the thousand mark; perhaps PZ will give us the gift of a fresh thread – though it’s probably not going to help with the creotard infiltration. They’ll only be satisfied, Comfort-style, by a crocoduck or something like it. Which is kind of ironic considering they can’t produce anyone’s interpretation of the ToE which predicts the emergence of such creatures.
Like I said upthread, they agree that you can walk across a room but be completely outraged if you suggest you can walk across a country.
@1002: with the smarter ones it’s more like, if I keep my right foot still and move only my left foot, I can’t move more than a few inches; and if I keep my left foot still and move only my right foot, I can’t move more than a few inches; therefore by moving both feet I can’t move more than a few inches…
This guy has done it: http://www.jonmuir.com/
Trekked right across Australia, all by himself. Nice guy too, very genuine down-to-earth person.
I see Brent the IDiot still hasn’t presented any evidence in support of his pathetic idea (it’s not a theory). Brent, since you are a godbot, I would resume you mean god as the creator/intelligent designer. Your job now is to show physical evidence for your imaginary god that will pass muster with scientists, magicians, and professional debunkers as being of divine origin. Until you do that, you have nothing.
David the IDiot presented nothing of substance.
Jim M. mad a drive by presenting no rejected paper with referee/editor comments. What a waste of a post. Show the evidence or shut up.
BTW, P.Z. Meyers, you look like you’ve been gang raped already judging from your picture. David
Who is this “P.Z. Meyers” you speak of, and where can we see his picture?
I’m guessing our creationist ‘friends’ have never thought very hard about the thousands of flaws in the human body; perhaps none of them wears glasses, or suffers from athritis or back pain.
What I also wonder is how these my-benevolent-and-loving-god-made-absolutely-everything pissants explain things like David Attenborough’s favourite reply to questions about creationism – the Onchocerciasis. Is that something a kind of loving god would create and inflict on people*?
Now we’ll see some tapdancing…
*I suspect that, for them at least, because it’s a problem that only affects filthy Africans – who are probably heathens or the wrong kind of Christians anyway – it’s not really that big a deal.
Bah, I’m pushing the good Rev. BDC for the KoT title this morning.
Second sentence in 1005 should read …presume….
Last paragraph: Jim M. made…..
I need coffee.
I wonder if Brent will move the goalposts again…
Brent, please.
All we are saying is that we would like to see some actual research on the topic of Intelligent Design.
It doesn’t have to be published in peer-reviewed scientific journals. A book, or even something posted on a blog somewhere on the Internet would be more than enough for a start.
“Darwinism” started from the basic hypothesis that all life on earth is a result of couple billions of years of natural selection.
Then more research has been done, and is still being done, to refine the details of the theory. Today the “Darwinists” have detailed explanations of many aspects of their theory, and more explanations and details are being added all the time.
We would like to see the same process in the Intelligent Design camp.
The basic hypothesis is there, all right.
“Life on earth is too complex to be a result of natural selection. All of it, or some of it, must have been designed by an intelligent agent for a specific purpose.”
Now you are expected to work from there, do some research, discuss the results of your research with other Intelligent Design proponents, and try to fill in some of the details.
Some research areas from the Intelligent Design perspective could be:
1. Which biological systems are intelligently designed, and which (if any) are a result of adaptation (“microevolution”)?
2. What are the exact limits of adaptation, i.e. how much, and in what ways, can a designed system change?
3. Were all the designed systems designed at the same time, or at different points in time, and in what order?
4. What does the fossil record tell us? Do the remains come from:
a) Lifeforms that have existed at some time in the past, but do not exist anymore (if so, were they deliberately destroyed by the designer at some time or did the designer just introduce new lifeforms who eventually drove the old ones to extinction?)
b) Lifeforms which still exist in some part of the world, but have not yet been discovered
c) Lifeforms which still exist and are well known but the fossilized remains are misinterpreted due to their incompleteness or different adaptations at the time when they were living and today
d) All of the above, and if so, which fossil belongs to which category?
…and so on, I’m sure you can come up with many more ideas.
For example, you could write a paper showing that the Platypus is an early prototype of a tetrapod creature which was at some point moved to a far corner of the Earth to make space for newly designed tetrapods.
And remember,
even if you do think that “We don’t know and we will never know because it is too complex for us to comprehend” is the only valid answer to all the questions regarding the history of life on earth, you cannot force everyone else to stop trying to find the answers, no matter how futile and misdirected their efforts might seem to you.
Brent (#981):
As I pointed out in #935, this simply isn’t true. We know absolutely no such thing, and you have made no attempt to demonstrate it. But I guess it’s just easier for you to keep repeating an unsupported assertion than actually address a counter-argument.
And a note on your usage of the ambiguous term “purpose” – this can be used as no more than a synonym for the non-teleological notion of function, but normally people will think of “purpose” in teleological terms, i.e., having a function which is determined by the intentions of an agent. You should clarify what you mean when you use terms like this, if you don’t want to stand accused of equivocation and/or question-begging.
Oh, and showing that natural processes can lead to “specified complexity” wouldn’t falsify ID. It would just mean that “specified complexity” could not be used as a criterion for ID. Basically, your argument makes about as much sense as:
“We can tell that apple trees exist because there are such things as fruit, and fruit can only grow on apple trees. So if we could show that non-apple trees can produce fruit, it would show that fruit don’t grow on apple trees.”
That’s not what “fitness” means in biology. If you won’t define your own terms properly, at least please desist from redefining other people’s.
My pricipal problem with ID has always been this. It wants to infer the existence of a designer of biological organisms. The basis of this inference is that the things we know to be designed (watches, airplanes, etc) all have a designer.
The giant chasm of a flaw is this – biological organisms look nothing like any of those things that we know to be designed.
They try to get around this by saying that a cat is a lot more complex than a watch – so if a watch is designed then a cat must also be designed.
Well, a snowflake or a geode is also more complex than a watch and they are clearly not designed.
And yes, male nipples are a nice refutation of ID – but I thing male breast tissue is even better. It has no function but to occassionally kill the unsuspecting male with breast cancer. Like the appendix, it is akin to a self-destruct button under the dashboard of your car – a really poor design idea.
devolutionist (#1010):
Actually, a good start for the ID-ists would be to come up with:
(a) a non-question-begging criterion for identifying design, or
(b) a specific hypothesis about the nature and intentions of the designer (which is basically one way to provide a).
That way, they might be able to make some testable predictions that would allow them to garner evidence that was specifically for or against ID, as opposed to merely being against the current theory of evolution.
Oh my god. I can’t believe he snubbed this opportunity. More proof that scientists don’t know the first goddamn thing about how to change anyone’s mind. This is a political game that scientists just don’t know how to play. You won’t beat creationism unless you can engage the broader public constructively, just like EVERY OTHER political interest group, and scientists have shown time and again that we’re better at acting like petulant children than at actually winning political points.
And you wonder why half the goddamn country still believes in creationism. Get it straight, we might have science on our side but in the court of public opinion it’s a split decision at best.
Gotelli writes, “If you want to be taken seriously by scientists and scholars, this is where you need to publish.” To paraphrase, “If you want to be taken seriously by nonscientists and nonscholars, this is where you need to engage.”
Jersey, yet another in the long line of people who don’t get it.
Funny, Rev, I tend to think the same thing every time I come back to this retarded blog.
So, have I missed anything interesting?
Jersey,
Evolution is a difficult topic with many lines of evidence. You can’t fully debate it to the lay. These ‘debates’ usually favour the emotional response to cold reason. Therefore, the good doctor was right in declining. He should have also mentioned the Dover trial…where a federal court ruled that ID is not a science. It’s really over after that.
No Jersey, you are the one who isn’t getting it. Creationists are free to argue with science in the proper venue, the science literature and scientific meetings. Funny how the creobots/IDiots stay studiously away from those venues…
Brent (#981):
“I.D. does not predict against random mutation that may infer some benefit. What I.D. would predict against is that an organism like a bacteria can, by a beneficial mutation (or any other natural unguided process), become more and more fit…”
It sounds like you’re saying it predicts that any lineage can be subject to at most a single beneficial mutation: a bacteria line can get fitter through a mutation but not repeatedly through many.
I can’t believe that is what you’re saying, but I can’t work out what else you could possibly mean. Maybe you’d like to clarify?
I think he’s saying that any evolution that we actually see happening is OK with ID, while anything else is ID. It’s roughly like saying “Sure, a seed can naturally turn into a seedling, and a seedling can turn into a small plant, and a small plant can turn into a big one. But to grow a whole tree from a seed requires an Intelligent Carpenter.”
And then we release the spiders.
Are you even aware of how stupid you sound?
Here you go, blithely saying that tens of thousands of people worldwide all conspire with each other. Can it get any more stupid than that?
And no, I’m not pulling that figure out of my ass. I gave a talk at the 2nd International Paleontological Congress in 2006. I was one of two thousand participants. And those were just the paleontologists — and among those just those who were able to afford to go to Beijing!
The mind boggles!
Show that the ID point of view is falsifiable and so far not falsified in the first place. This you would be able to publish; you’d even get the Nobel Prize in Physiology Or Medicine for it*. Then you can build on that.
* Yes, “or” is part of its name.
And indeed, this is the case. Show I’m wrong, and I’ll help make you famous.
Why did I put this in Comic Sans?
Because it shows that you really haven’t spent a lot of time thinking about these matters.
Let’s start with purpose. What purpose does a mosquito serve? What purpose do I serve? Do these questions even make sense — or are they wrong (like “why did Napoleon cross the Mississippi”)?
Then let’s talk about complexity in the absence of design. Take a box full of ball of different sizes and shake it. The biggest ones will end up on top — because the small ones can fall through between the big ones much more often than vice versa. Order without design. Or take snowflakes. Nothing at work here but electrostatic attraction and repulsion — and yet such a diversity of such complex shapes! Or let’s talk about storm deposits in the sediments of shallow seas. They exhibit “fining-upwards”: the biggest debris falls out of the churned waters the fastest, and the finest stuff stays in suspension for the longest time, settling on the bottom last. Same causes as with the shaken balls, but just add water and you get the opposite sequence (biggest stuff on the bottom rather than at the top).
Or let’s talk about protein transcription. What mysterious force guides the mRNA, the ribosome, and the tRNA to each other? None whatsoever. All are in Brownian motion, and when they happen to touch each other in the right spots, they stick. Nothing at work here other than electrostatic attraction and repulsion.
If you really want to argue that a “complex, working […] system or entity” requires design, you have a lot of facts to explain away.
No, you do not have the right to take scientific terms and redefine them at whim. Here, look what “fitness” means in biology. Sometimes more complex organisms are fitter, sometimes less complex organisms are fitter; it all depends on the environment.
See, this is the problem I have with all this. You are defining the “proper venue” WAY too narrowly. The vast majority of the population will never read a scientific journal, attend a scientific meeting, or otherwise engage on the turf of the scientific elite.
I assume we all support the end goal of increased scientific literacy in the public, and a decline in belief in religious hocus-pocus, right? Well, in the free marketplace of ideas, that goal is better served by leaving these cloistered venues and engaging like real citizens of a real democratic society instead of pouting, or acting like elite snobs.
What scares scientists is that when you do this, you are no longer operating along the clear, cold, rational, empirical lines to which science is accustomed. You are shifting into the real world, where things and ideas are messy, emotional, and not always based on logic or fact. What’s scary is that this is not a world where the best science will always win, but you know what? You might lose a rigged debate with creationists, sure – but you might also connect with half-a-dozen people in the audience who entertain doubts about the creationist explanation and would never have had the chance to hear the opposite pro-evolution side in this debate up close had the debate been turned down.
Ultimately, my point is this: this is a free market of ideas, just like Dewey, Holmes and others have argued. It might be scary engaging non-scientists and “regular people” (god forbid), but in a free market of ideas the truth will rise – you just need to have faith.
So stop pouting and man up.
Who are you who are so wise in the ways of science?
Jersey,
Is any amount of debate enough? Or should it continue as long as there’s someone who thinks they know better? It’s not like these debates are not held and have not been held for generations.
#1024 You talking to me? I work for a science policy group in DC.
Curious that, of all halfway rich countries, it’s only “the country” and Turkey where any significant number of people are creationists. I wonder if it’s connected to the appalling underfunding of the public schools in those countries.
Hey, the Internet has already been invented. There’s no reason to stop continuing the written debate, where tactics like the Gish Gallop don’t work.
#1026,
Actually, I was talking to David. But it was just a monte python joke.
Science Policy? Is that a lobbyist group or something?
That explains everything. Give our love to Nisbet.
Jersey is right in that scientists should be explaining their work to the public. He is absolutely wrong in that debating creobots/IDiots is the way to do it. Creationism/ID deserve absolutely no credibility, which they gain every time a real scientists debates one of their rhetoricians. Colleges and universities should give more credit to those faculty who develop and give 15-20 minute talks to non-professional audiences. I’m not holding my breath for that to happen.
#1025 No I don’t believe you stop. That’s the point of building science literacy, there’s always someone who could use more of it. Celebrating a guy who snubs a debate invitation seems supremely stupid to me.
@Jersey: also, geographers should be out there, seriously engaging the Flat Earth Society in debate.
#1031
At some point you (general, not specific) need to come to the realization that a ‘science’ is not scientific. Astronomers need not debate with astrologers and MDs need not debate with Homeopaths.
I think we’re at the point where evolutionists need not debate with creationists.
Jersey, should scientists waste their time “debating” gravity? A heliocentric solar system? Black Holes? The function of the kidney? How bees fly?
Just because someone doesn’t understand the science or is willfully ignorant doesn’t give them the right to call science to the mat for a debate.
Creationists lie, distort, quote mine and will do anything in a debate to make the science appear wrong. It’s quite easy to do. The scientist is at a disadvantage because they use science and facts.
It’s kind of like have a discussion with Storm.
(fixed that for you.)
You must get wood every time someone uses the bandwagon fallacy,
#1033 That’s the thing, and that’s where we disagree: recognizing that a “science” is not scientific is why you need science literacy, because lots of folks still buy creationism as a legitimate scientific enterprise. I disagree that we’re at a point where the debate is unneeded.
#1030 I also disagree that creationists gain credibility when scientists debate them. For a lot of people, creationists don’t need scientists to gain credibility, which is why this is an issue to begin with.
And yes, I would argue that geologists should be engaging flat earthers. Not running around picking fights, mind you, but where opportunities present themselves (i.e. invitations popping up in your emails), then why not?
Jersey, you are wrong that creationists/ID don’t gain credibility in the publics mind if scientists debate them. That makes their ideas appear scientific and equal to sciences. Which is exactly why they shouldn’t be debated.
Now which science group do you belong to? The creationists lobbying group?
So basically, Jersey, are you an advertising wank, a spinmeister who paints a happy smiling face on issues that are irreconcilable and swear they can be reconciled?
A propagandist? What?
You want to be the arbiter between people who believe in spooks and a world spoken into existence with people who understand science draws conclusions from empirical data and that there is no such thing as the supernatural? Good luck with that.
They don’t debate Jersey. You don’t seem to get it. It’s pointless because just as much misinformation and distortion is manufactured. You’re leaving it to the audience to sort it out. It doesn’t make them more informed, if anything more confused.
@EV and Nerd of Redhead: I work on legislation. Which means I advocate and secure funding for basic research, among other issues. You’re welcome.
#1036
I guess we’re at a crossroads then. Creationism is not a science in my mind and it is in yours. And just because people think it’s a science does not make it so.
That’s called psychological projection. Your earlier argument has been refuted repeatedly in the many comments already posted. Get over yourself.
@Steve_C I guess I think of it like this: best-case scenario, if the scientist does his/her job, then they’ve been able to convey information that moves or gets through to someone. Leave it to the audience to sort out – and some will do so correctly, more than you might think in fact. Worst-case scenario, the scientist doesn’t show up, and one less audience gets to hear someone explain real science.
Science should never debate pseudoscience. Rhetoricians, which pseudoscience masters, will always win the debates. But science should explain to people why it is pseudoscience.
Jersey, you do realize that if, say a professor of geology debates a flat-earther publically, the flat-earther will forever after claim that there is a legitimate debate about the shape of the earth? Do you recognise the phrase “That would look good on your resume, not so much on mine”?
#1041 Agreed, this is an argument nobody is winning. I’m out of time anyway. Thanks for being civil, unlike some of the other children on this thread.
Jersey, you are the child. We are the adults. I’m a gray haired old fart.
#1041 Actually, wait – you’re misstated my position a bit. Creationism is not a science in my mind – but for many “out there” it IS a science. That’s the difference.
#1045 The flat-earther will claim there’s a debate whether you engage or not.
Okay, really got to go. Next time, all.
Yeah he doesn’t get it. Apparently he’s never watched Hovind debate.
The “polite” comment. That says it all. It is important to be “nice”. And if you believe that, I have a bridge across the east river…
Well I am a Physics major and I nearly punched a hole in the wall after reading that.
It never ceases to amaze me how people can accept really crappy arguments when the conclusions favour their point of view. Just search Pharyngula for “facilis” and you’ll see an horrible argument repeated over and over for the existence of God. We kept telling him to substitute God for Flying spaghetti monster, Greek gods, Wowbagger’s Sideshow Bob figurine, etc. to see how bad the argument was. He refused to do so because we didn’t really believe in those gods (why that mattered, I don’t know).
This cartoon doesn’t just represent creationism, but all apologetics. The whole field boils down to assuming your religion is right and finding a way (any way) to justify it, completely disregarding the principle of parsimony, intellectual honesty, etc. It’s just rationalization of the fairy tales your parents told you.
#1048
I apologize, I made the wrong assumption.
But to your point, people believe it’s a science because they are not taught what science is in schools…and until they are, debate is meaningless.
Damnit, #1051 was suppose to go here . Never post before you’ve had your morning coffee.
Apparently, it’s only OK for him to be “uncivil”. Is this his idea of reaching out to people “out there”? I only see an arrogant ass with no substance.
Did everyone catch that particular exhibition of tap dancing? All he left out was “but, who am I to say…”
According to Jersey, everyone’s opinion is valid. He must have gone to a Montessori school.
RD at #405, #427 and passim:
You are equating ID with other ideas that have “challenged long standing orthodoxy”. This is not the case.
ID / creationism was the *old* “long standing orthodoxy”, challenged (and defeated) by the idea of evolution by natural selection. *You* are the one doing the jeering from the sidelines. Your problem is that you’re 150 years too late.
Steve_C@#530
Not at all. You can say just about anything you want.
Although, I don’t what your comment has to do with being scientist or not.
“…Celebrating a guy who snubs a debate invitation seems supremely stupid to me.”
Alright then. I think you should offer that bit of perspective to a Jewish group the next time a Holocaust denier rolls into town and wants to “debate” whether that even ever happened. After all, it IS debate, is it not?
You people don’t understand that they are using the word “debate” as the locus for leveraging your perspective on something about which there is no debate: the efficacy of evolution. The DI and AiG, and their ranks, do not actually “debate” anything. They come with PowerPoint files and books full of abject tripe, display them and rifle through them in front of an audience, and then demand that any evolution supporter oblivious enough to have accepted their invitation debunk every single charge they make on the spot, all within the span of a couple hours on stage. Science doesn’t work in that black-n-white world and they know it, so they use their ability to machine-gun 900 different charges in a short span of time about an auditorium, and then pack everything up and declare near immediate and incisive victory.
Further, people attending debate many times do not have the education and background to even understand a lot of what a well-educated biologist would say. And this is before we discuss how the DI and AiG often stock the ranks of the audience. DI and AiG are not honest brokers. Their points have been refuted thousands of times, yet they still keep publishing books making both bald-faced lies and stealthily concealed twists of logic to make their crap seem credible. They don’t keep the arguments focused on one area, and are in actuality more political organizations than anything else.
They don’t do research. They haven’t come up with any solutions to anything other than the problem of trying to tear real science education out of the American classroom and replace it with god-bothering bullcrap. They are entirely dishonest. They do not learn. And most of all they should not be treated with the kind of respect they demand, and that is normally reserved for people that do real work and research and make all of our lives the better for it. DI and AiG have done none of that, and thus deserve Gotelli’s rebuke and any further such response until they stop lying and get on with the work they always say they’re about to start doing, but never find the time in their busy debate schedules to sit down and do.
Bob#535
It seems I have hit a nerve, Bob. Whether or not you are a scientist has little bearing on the conversation.
So, how is what I wrote rude?
I’m operating under the assumption that the many people who post here are scientists and that some are not, but want to be. Like the goofball who follows police cars around and works as a mall cop. You know, a “Wannabe”.
So, some think they are scientists, thus the “self described” modifier.
BTW: Do quotation marks scare you? (“scare-quotes”) Does this phobia have a name?
Thanks
How about this.
We do away with the argument over the argument and make with the evidence. And until there is evidence presented to support ID, no argument/debate will be heard.
Mover, your attempt at sarcasm was stillborn.
And the only nerve struck is the annoyance nerve.
Let’s review, shall we?
Just about everything you write is dripping with condescension. You continue to play the concern troll while talking down to everyone here. That and you have no argument. Your only position that I’ve been able to detect is that you think science is moved ahead by debating creationists. Do you actually have anything worth discussing, or are you just here to try and start a fight?
Mover is just a godbotting neocon troll. So, he has no point or evidence. Just uninformed opinion and bile.
Mover @ 525:
“…I’m merely pointing out that the lack of civility that you self described “scientists” lack. And seem to be proud of it.”
Your statement assumes we all call ourselves “scientists”, which we do not. Steve_C was correct in saying we are sick and tired of being told to play nice with people who come in here A) with a perspective that is complete intellectual garbage but that we are supposed to just accept because they don’t like evolution (because it tramples the petty sensibilities of their religion), and B) who come in here yelling all sorts of charges about how our atheism will bring about destruction of the human race and basically manufacturing conspiracies and reinventing history to make their vapid points. There is nothing in that sort of behavior that could reasonably demand that we sit and take it and just shut up. There *is everything* in that sort of behavior that bespeaks a poor level of intellectual development on the part of creationists, a lack of true curiosity about the world, and a tendency to demand that others follow their group or else.
You can describe our response as “lack of civility” if you so choose, but make no mistake about who starts these things.
Helfrick #1062
You must be feeling small and reading from that angle. I have only learned to ‘talk’ on the level. I don’t know nuanced writing. Besides, it would be foolish to assume that just because someone calls a point into contention that they are stupider than me.
BlueIndependent#1064
I had already allowed for that. You must have missed it.
Nerd of Redhead, OM#1063
Godbot?
Jersey, I agree with you in principle, on one level anyway: A bad idea should be countered with a good idea; lies should be countered with facts; offensive free speech should be countered with more free speech.
Unfortunately, on this level, the “debate” format often fails to accomplish what we suppose it will accomplish, for reasons detailed in many comments already posted. It’s critical for you to at least acknowledge the fact that bitter experience – EXPERIENCE – has taught us this, even if you don’t fully agree with the decisions stemming from the conclusions drawn from that experience. However, I strongly advise you to heed the words of Professor Gotelli, and to do your best to apprehend not only what he wrote, but why.
Or just don’t use an RSS reader. What is that good for anyway?
Posted by: Mover | February 24, 2009
Prime?
You know what they say about assumptions…
By the way…you’re pretty much showing that you don’t really have a good handle on what makes up science or how to approach scientific questions. You’re focussing WAY too much on the people with your assumptions and are ignoring the intellectual guts of the matter. Doesn’t matter if a person is a “scientist”; it’s the intellectual rigor of the arguments.
@Mover
I’m not sure if English was your first language, but you might want to polish up a bit before engaging in a written exchange. It would make misunderstandings less likely and it would no doubt improve your ability to MAKE A DAMNED POINT!
Here, lets start from a common point and work from there. I say debating ID gives it credibility it does not deserve. Now it’s your turn.
Mover:
So you say. That’s quite an impressive run of accidental snark you’ve put together on this thread, then. From where I sit, Helfrick’s #1062 is right on the money.
That’s a very fair point, but it’s not quite that simple. When someone calls the same point into contention over and over again, having been proven wrong over and over again, it’s not foolish to assume that they’re either obtuse or dishonest.
Janine#1068
Sorry, But I don’t know what you are talking about.
Brilliant response!
Bowel?
& Shaker?
The Pro-debate-creationists and the Anti-debate-creationists positions both have some merit, and, though I’m leaning more to the latter, I don’t think it’s clearly superior in every possible way. A good performance on the part of the scientist can indeed change people’s minds, and succeed in presenting the scientific viewpoint to people who would otherwise not be exposed. (One can also use the same argument to support atheism vs. theism debates.)
I forget who his opponent was, but as I recall PZ went on some Christian radio show and the creationist did very badly, and we all pretty much thought it was wonderful and creationism pwned and all that. So we’re not always consistent here.
Massimo Pigliucci is an evolutionary biologist who has been involved for a long time with the creationists. Years ago, he positioned himself against Richard Dawkins on the advisability of debating Creationists. He thought it was both necessary and important, for many of the good reasons Jersey brought up. He wrote articles and, I think, even a book arguing Pro-debate-creationists. He did many debates.
And then he changed his mind. Why? His accumulated experience with creationists and their debate tactics — the good reasons brought others on this thread. He is now on the Anti-debate-creationist side, and last I checked still explains why, using his usual eloquence and insight.
This is not definitive evidence for either side, but I think it’s worth bringing up.
My argument against debating creationists is that it doesn’t change things enough to matter. Less than a percent might be swayed somewhat. If PZ pwns a Creationist, the Creationist’s supporters will still feel their vindicated somehow, someway; nothing PZ can say will sway them from the premise that PZ is simply deluded or swayed by the reification of evil.
Faith is about ignoring any facts that are contrary to sacred beliefs. Giving creationist pseudo-scientists validity by debating them only reinforces the notion that their ideas merit intellectual consideration and credibility.
Never cry “fake” at a pro wrestling match no matter how obvious it is, you’ll get ass kicked by loyal fans.
their/ they’re. ugh, multitasking sucks
But the followup to that was the radio station invited the creationist back for a second appearance to give a rebuttal sans PZ. The problem as I see it is that creationists simply don’t argue in good faith (as ironic as that might be). They don’t see the process as a mutual attempt to use rationality to find the truth, but rather as a propaganda opportunity to promote The Truth by any means necessary. They are fundamentally dishonest, and there is really no utility in debating such folks.
Until now I only knew Gotelli through his papers.. which I always enjoy reading/using/thinking about… But he is correct, I am now jealous of him for the ‘street cred’ he just earned… aouch! Another enjoyable read, but of a totally different kind.
“Prime” “Mover” “Aristotle” Look it up.
I was assuming that was where you got your moniker.
I think the main problem is anti-intellectualism and a failure on “science’s” part to be “sexy.”
The IDers have the high ground in public debate because they can connect with the average American dolt. They ally with “culture warriors” who repeatedly paint christianists as victims within the pseudo-democratic society in which they possess a majority.
The number of trained scientists in America is falling, and with that drops the numbers of Americans who have a suitable and workable knowledge of the scientific method.
In the public sphere, Americans tend towards homeostasis nearly 100% of the time. They are offended by news that disrupts their narrow worldviews, and quickly jump to conclusions of their own, or those fed to them. A good example of this is 9/11. A majority of Americans still believed Al Queda attacked the U.S. because of its “freedoms”. When in reality, Al Queda said they did it because of: A) our unquestioning support for the state of Isreal; B) our presence on their “holy soil” in Saudi Arabia. Again, Americans believe the easy explanation that was fed to them, rather than believing the truth based upon the very words of their own assailants.
I find the Discovery Institute’s response to this laughable. Their response to the good doctor from the Green Mountain State is one for discussion and consensus (as if science worked on consensus). What I find truly laughable and down-right offensive is that they refuse to allow an online debate to be held on their site, as you can surely find on this and many other science-based blogs and such. They argue for discussion, then deny any discussion in close proximity to their argument. That would be like a candidate for the U.S. presidency walking out of a debate in a victorious and triumphant manner after answering the first question and not waiting for his opponent’s response.
So, the answer to our whole problem lies in education. We must not only fight to keep creationism out of the nation’s schools, but we must also push for an increase in spending for education in the sciences. If your local school district wants to build a new pool, or football stadium, ask if they’ll also procure new lab equipment or computers at the very least. If that is not in the district’s plan, get vocal, get organized, and get tough. If there’s one thing I’ve learned it is this, soccer moms and football dads are just as ignorant and annoying as the wilfully abusive creationists.
Anyhow those are my two cents on this Mardi Gras! Time to go celebrate some phoney-baloney holiday that promotes excessive consumption, and wanton disregard for civility and morality. Just like Jesus would have wanted.
Atheism vs Theism is something that lends itself well to debate. I’m looking forward to watching Hitchens vs. D’Souza when I have some free time. ID vs Science just wouldn’t work because the proponents of ID are just so dishonest. They would only benefit from sharing the stage with someone who was actually credible. Looking at the discovery institute’s web site I noticed this:
“the theory of intelligent design” It just cheapens the idea of a scientific theory.
Tom #1082 wrote:
As you point out, the problem is rather sweeping. It is therefore unlikely that there will be one “magic bullet” solution to the whole problem. Education is one solution, and an excellent one, for the reasons you say. But probably not the only one.
I think another part of the solution is to try to “break the spell” that religion has placed on American culture (and in other cultures where creationism and other pseudosciences are growing) — and make criticism of both religious belief and religious methods respectable. As long as having faith, believing in supernatural phenomena, and knowing things ‘in your heart’ are seen as wise and sacred signs of maturity, character, and self-discipline, pseudoscientists will always be able to claim the high ground by appealing to these values as important ‘additions’ to science, needed to make it better.
It is not necessary (and not possible) to completely eliminate society’s hearty appetite for magic and reverence for being what they consider “open-minded” (and we consider being “dogmatic.”) But I think it would be helpful to try to curb it with a sense of caution, and a recognition that not everyone will admire and approve — nor should they.
Jersey’s position seems to have a fundamental flaw. That is that he’s not taking into account that the people from the DI do know how to advocate in public. So when the group instigating the action knows how to play the game, and the ones they are asking don’t, surely it should be obvious that scientists participating in debates is only going to have negative consequences.
I’m more for public teaching of science, there simply needs to be more. But playing the game that the DI wants is just playing into the DI’s hands and will be overall negative. A public debate at an obscure university is not going to change anyone’s mind.
I’d like to have your response to these quotes by Michael Behe in Edge of Evolution –
“Design denies not only that some specific piece of machinery (say, the bacterial flagellum) would be produced by random mutation, but that any complex, coherent molecular machinery would. Although random processes can account for small changes, there are real limits. Beyond those limits, design is required.” (page 235)
“Darwin and design hold opposite, firm expectations of what we should find when we examine a truly astronomical – a hundred billion billion – number of organism. Up until recently, the magnitude of the problem precluded a definitive test. But now the results are in. Darwinism’s most basic prediction is falsified.”(page 235)
Willie, just consider that Behe is a paid liar for DI. So, take eveything he says with a grain of salt the size of Montana.
#1086, quote 1: Argument from ignorance (or maybe ‘argument from I won’t cite my source but take my word for it’).
#1086, quote 2: Argument by bald assertion.
And what are those limits? Can those limits be quantified?
And those expectations are? What is the evidence that the expectations of evolution are not supported?
Behe has been proven wrong. EVERY TIME.
Behe has said that, but he’s been demonstrated to be wrong, both in the Dover trial and in subsequent scientific papers. We’ve know how to evolve a bacterial flagellum through a drawinian process, we can even make it “irreducibly complex.” Anyway, here’s a video explaining how it works http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SdwTwNPyR9w
#1091
The music makes that unwatchable.
There’s a volume control at the bottom. It’s all text so you don’t need sound.
#1086,
They look like a couple of unsubstantiated assertions to me. Am I missing something?
Nope. Didn’t miss a thing.
Formal, verbal debates have been around for a long time. So has science. Formal, verbal debates are rarely if ever used as part of normal scientific procedure, or of scientific education. There is a good reason for this: they are of absolutely no use if your aim is to get closer to the truth, or to impart understanding of the issues. This is, of course, exactly why creationists like them.
Written exchanges of view, extended over days or weeks, bilateral or multilateral (as on a blog), have a much shorter history, but are much more promising, at least as a part of scientific education, and if fairly moderated. It is much more difficult to get away with bald assertion, deliberate obfuscation, or tactics such as the “Gish Gallop”. This is why creationist blogs, unlike (for example) Pharyngula, generally just refuse to print comments questioning their claims. A challenge to a verbal debate from a creationist could be met with a counter-challenge to an online debate, either unmoderated, or with an agreed moderator who will edit for tone only.
Willie, here’s a link to a collection of reviews of The Edge Of Evolution – http://www.sunclipse.org/?p=123 there’s dozens of reviews to choose from. Pick one and start reading.
@Kel
Behe in the Dover trial. There is some gold there:
“Q But you are clear, under your definition, the definition that sweeps in intelligent design, astrology is also a scientific theory, correct?
A Yes, that’s correct.”
Anyone looking for some cognitive dissonance should take a look at this. I actually -choke- agreed with -gag- Lush Rimbaugh.
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=48062
Creationists like to point out that polls show that the majority of Americans don’t believe in evolution. Of course, this is irrelevant since science isn’t a democracy and what the public thinks doesn’t matter.
But notice how telling this poll is about how creationism works: instead of actually doing science, they focus on public relations.
I guess one does what one does best …
Helfrick #1098 wrote:
Actually, I agree with Behe on this. Astrology is not some vague metaphysical belief or value statement which science can say nothing about, one way or the other. It makes testable predictions. In theory, astrological predictions could have been tested, replicated, and verified — and it would have changed our scientific model of how reality works.
It’s a failed science theory.
ID, on the other hand, is less like a science theory than astrology. It doesn’t make predictions, and posits no model. At least Young Earth Creationism, like astrology, gave enough detail to be found wrong.
I weep for you all. For the scriptures speak of you, just as they spoke of me for the first 29 years of my own life when I too mocked as you do…
I use to say much of what you say here. But once I stopped fearing what I may hear if I listened to what proof may be presented by believers of creation or of intelligent design (which by the way are NOT the same thing if you fully understood them!). If you spent time with the bible, real time, not zipping through it… not afraid it would convert your mind. If you are so sure you are strong in your views, then give just see what it is about cause then why are you so afraid? What harm will it do? If it is meaningless, you won’t be swayed? You say you are so wise! So what do you fear? Maybe what I feared… And what most people fear… That maybe, just MAYBE… you are WRONG. Then what! Well then maybe you better check it out, cause what IF you are wrong? WHAT then? Well then how amazing to discover what there is to discover in an amazing God. And if not, then go back to what you know. Have you never tried a different item on the menu?
God bless you! As a believer of Jesus Christ – I know that myself and fellow believers only care to share what we know because we love other people like yourselves enough to know that what we believe is true (just like what you believe is true). We just disagree in our belief systems. And what we believe is true is something we believe is critical to your eternity. We CARE about you and we want you to have eternal happiness. Think about it this way…. If I saw that you were about to get hit by a car, I would tell you. Now you may not believe me, but you would appreciate that I told you about it. Well consider people who believe in the gospel as those who really believe in something like that and are just trying to keep you from getting hit by a car. One day we will all know if that car is really there or not… Are you sure you don’t want to learn a little more about what we really, really believe we see? What some very, very brilliant people for thousands of years (inclusive of Abraham Lincoln, CS Lewis, etc. all believed)…
It is okay if we don’t know all the answers in our lifetimes or ever. We are not God! :) That is very freeing a concept in and of itself.
Brothers, listen! We are here to proclaim that through this man Jesus there is forgiveness for your sins. Everyone who believes in Him is declared right with God – something the law of Moses could never do. Be careful! Don’t let the prophets’ words apply to you. For they said,
‘Look, you mockers,
be amazed and die!
For I am doing something in your own day,
something you wouldn’t believe
even if someone told you about it.’*
– Acts 13:38-41, *Habakkuk 1:5 (NLT)
Amy, So what do you fear? Maybe what I feared… And what most people fear… That maybe, just MAYBE… you are WRONG. Then what! Well then maybe you better check it out, cause what IF you are wrong? WHAT then?
Think about it. You’re scared of nothing.
Amy, ever pause to consider that many of us may have been christians? That perhaps we’ve read the Bible a few times, some of us even studied it in depth? That we realized there were no answers in your faith and no evidence for a god?
No, I didn’t think so.
Amy, discovering Jesus turned you into a myna bird.
I am an atheist and I would tell you if you were about to be hit by a car. Welcome to the wonderful world of being a responsible adult.
Yah-hoo-huh.
If you read the bible carefully, and spend real time with it, you realize that while God may be the main character, he’s also the villain.
You’re coming way too late. Many of us here were religious, and have given it up as meaningless from disenchantment.
Of course, those who didn’t buy into the whole religion thing to begin with have also read the bible… and figured out that God is the villain.
That sounds friendly, but not particularly coherent.
Sigh. Do you believe that the natural world is real?
If God wants to hit me with a car, there is nothing that you can do to stop him.
If God wants to not hit me with a car, then he won’t.
Isn’t that simple?
Been there. Done that. Found better things to do with my mind.
See? God is the villain.
Oddly enough, the Greek term “αφανισθητε” (translated as “perish” and as “[become] corrupt”) does not appear in the original Hebrew of Habakkuk. Well, biblical translation can be a chancy thing.
And people say Intelligent Design is a science… why is it that everyone defending ID is really just preaching for Jebus?
Amy, can you answer this:
If all the evidence points to evolution, what does that say abut God? Does it say that God has deliberately deceived us by making it look like evolution happened, or does it tell us that God worked through evolution in order to create us? I’m really curious, because when so many lines of evidence all point to life evolving over time, when the size and age of the universe are huge, it brings theological implications of either a deceptive God or a God who works through nature.
It’s people like Amy that make me wonder if ALL the crazy Christian fundie letters out there (including those in PZ’s I get email posts) are actually written by just one dude; a veritable “suspect zero.”
Aside from some occasional word changes, their rhetoric, their (lack of) line break, their bible quotes – heck even their grammatical errors – are almost the same.
And of course Brent scurries off in the honorable tradition of creationists everywhere (yes, we are still looking at you, FTK) as soon as too many substantive questions get asked of him.
I wonder if Amy has read all the other holy books carefully before coming to the conclusion that she picked the right one?
I doubt it.
Amy, one of the leading causes of atheism is to read the bible cover to cover. God acts very much like a mafia don, and the rules simply cannot be followed since they contradict each other. Atheism is rational and sane.
Amy, the creationists / ID folks are the ones claiming all the answers, not the scientists.
It certainly frees you from having to think.
Well, I learned something new today. I was not aware of the history of astrology other than it diverged from astronomy long ago. I always had the impression that astrology was used to explain current and past events and the only predictions were vague generalizations that could be rationalized to conform to observation. I’m curious though, doesn’t a prediction require the process as well as the outcome?
Amy (#1101):
It’s interesting how you make your embrace of ID sound exactly like a religious conversion, i.e., an emotional experience, rather than a sober assessment of arguments and evidence. That’s kind of revealing.
Also, didn’t you get the memo from the Discovery Institute? You’re not supposed to to let on in public that ID is a religious doctrine. You have to pretend that it’s science. Otherwise you won’t be able to get it onto school science curricula.
But what if we are wrong? Do you really think that none of us have considered that? Well, most of us have looked at the arguments that purport to show that we’re wrong, and we’ve found that those arguments simply don’t stand up. We’ve seen that they are fallacious, based on false or unsupported premises, and often more than a little dishonest.
If we are wrong, then the arguments offered by ID have come nowhere close to demonstrating it. Which is kind of why there’s been a recurring refrain in this thread, the request that the ID-ists show some evidence.
Uh, what? You know what you believe is true because you love other people strongly enough? What the hell kind of an epistemology is that? Do you even know what the word “know” means?
Lincoln’s actual religious views are a source of controversy (there are several indications that he was a deist and somewhat critical of Christianity for much of his life), and C.S. Lewis is responsible for one of the most asinine fallacies ever put forward by an apologist (the “Lord, Liar or Lunatic” trilemma). So even if we were impressed by arguments from authority, you could have chosen a couple of rather more compelling examples.
Which is a very good reason for not signing up to your authoritarian little cult. If “eternal happiness” (whatever the hell that is supposed to consist of) is awarded first and foremost for ideological and emotional commitment to your cult’s figurehead, then I for one want no part in such a morally corrupt system. You may enjoy living in the metaphysical equivalent of North Korea, but don’t expect it to have any appeal for the rest of us.
Oh, I am so, so bored with the crocodile tears of concern trolls.
No. That’s what makes theories in science so much better than mere laws (although unfortunately there’s a certain amount of overlap and randomness in the way names are bestowed). Theories, such as evolution by natural selection, explain. Laws, such as gas laws or laws of cooling or gravity, merely predict / calculate based on prior observations. They don’t necessarily have to include an explanation for how the law came to be the way it is (though some eventually have a theory retro-fitted to them).
So, if astrology hadn’t been bogus anyway, it could have made valid enough predictions (under a limited range of conditions) without requiring an understanding of how it was meant to work.
Testable predictions dripping with confirmation bias.
exactly.
Being testable is just the first part. Passing the test is the important part. It’s like what Jerry Seinfeld said.
Anyone can take a reservation, it’s HOLDING the reservation that’s the most important part.
ID doesn’t know what a reservation is.
I prefer to think of the trilemma as the “Gandalf- liar, lunatic or wizard” argument.
Helfrick #1113 wrote:
Sometimes. Other times it was used to make specific predictions, and sometimes astrologers claim to be able to tell when a person was born just by asking them some questions about their personalities and lives. There are many schools of astrology, including one that was (and in some places still is) taught as a science in universities in India.
Astrologers have done studies and experiments which they claimed were successful in demonstrating that there’s really something there to be tested. The studies were either flawed, or not replicated. But astrologers could make predictions specific enough to at least set up something scientific, sloppy thought it may be.
One of the hallmarks of pseudoscience is that its advocates refuse to accept defeat. Their belief is testable — but only if the results fall in one direction. They rationalize failure away with increasingly elaborate, strained, and bizarre excuses — such as ‘it only works if you believe it will.’
In that sense, it’s similar to religion. Amy in #1101 above talks of us performing a kind of test: “If you spent time with the bible, real time, not zipping through it… not afraid it would convert your mind…” then, presumably, we would find ourselves struck dumb with amazement over how true it all seems. I suspect that her advice to not be “afraid it would convert your mind” means that we must approach a claim with an eager and willing attitude, looking for confirming evidence through a haze of bias familiar to pseudoscientists everywhere.
It only works if you believe it will — and want it to.
That’s not approaching something with a questioning, “open mind.” It’s guaranteeing that you will find only the result you hope to find.
Someone give Amy some delicate laundry and a soap filled bucket so all her hand wringing won’t go for naught.
Oh, brother.
Re: astrology.
There was a brilliant BBC radio series a few months back about the history of astronomy.
It appears that the Chinese, centuries ago, kept very precise astronomical records – looking for portents, changes in the firmament – and, btw isn’t it vaguely interesting how pseudo-scientifically inspired investigations have sometimes been very useful to real science? – for the use of the emperor.
In order to make these observations, there were five dedicated sky-watchers who would observe the heavens on any clear night. They stood atop a tall tower. One would face North, one South, one West, and one East. The fifth would lie on his back and watch the sky above.
How cool is that?
As regards Amy, a one-post witnesser I reckon.
But please come back and try again – if you dare.
You have nothing to lose but your stupidity.
Maybe that’s where I’m falling down since astrology was referred to as a theory. I think I see what you are getting at though. What’s still troubling me is that without the underlying mechanism, any effects might be construed as a correlation and not a direct result of planetary position or movement. I might also be confusing prediction in the broader sense with predictions by astrology. Please be gentle, I can be slow as molasses in a well diggers ass sometimes.
From the New Yorker archives of Block That Metaphor!:
=o
Amy, let me tell you a little secret: I’ve been participating on internet discussions regarding atheism, Christianity, and the existence of God for over 10 years, pretty much my entire adult life. I have met dozens of unbelievers personally and probably thousands virtually. Among all those people throughout all that time, I can recall not one instance of one of those unbelievers saying:
“Hey, guys, I just started reading the Bible for the first time a little while ago, and it’s all so true! I was so wrong! Why didn’t anyone ever tell me Jesus died for our sins?”
Never. Not once.
Yet somehow, a large proportion (perhaps a majority) of Christians who I have seen entering these discussions to win converts have claimed that they were once unbelievers themselves, and all that was required for them to see the error of their ways was to read the Bible with an open mind.
How do you explain this? The population of atheists is insufficient to make up a majority of the Christian population even if 100% converted (and the atheists I’ve known who later re-converted can be counted on one hand). Do only ex-atheists undertake to preach online to unbelievers? If so, I still cannot reconcile their numbers with the conversion rate I have observed. Are my online experiences simply wildly at odds with those of other unbelievers? Hard to believe since I’ve frequented many of the more popular online gathering places for atheists and agnostics.
I have another hypothesis: most of them are lying. Chances are that includes you, Amy.
For a mere law type of situation, for just making predictions, that wouldn’t actually matter. Whereas, for a theory, for understanding and explaining, it would be devastating.
Let’s imagine a universe in which, say, there were big blundering things (not necessarily intelligent ones) tweaking stuff on Earth but also bumping into stuff in space in the process. In such a world, astrology could correctly predict some particular things had happened on earth by observing the effects in space (the little-end birth of a king typically dislodges a shooting star or whatever at the big-end of the blunderers). The astrologers could have the mechanism all wrong and still make a worthwhile prediction from the observation of the correlation.
Where such an astrology would trip up is in trying to extrapolate further than the known correlations. Eg it would have difficulty making predictions about wholly new classes of predictions. Without a correct mechanism it would keep looking in the wrong places if it risked looking for any other properties of the incorrectly supposed connection. Eg if the blunderers were mistaken for intelligent intentional agents, the astrologers might try praying or performing rituals to gain effects. Instead of working out that they needed to blast the things along their length with rockets. Though perhaps the Chinese tried that too. ;-)
Of course, as it happens (ie in the real world), astrology doesn’t work anyway. So there’s no observational correlation to explain. There’s just the human failing, of self-reinforcing imagining non-existent correlations, to explain.
I deny that! Astrology is 100% true in 50% of the possible directions of time’s arrow! That’s 5000% of the time!
“I weep for you all. For the scriptures speak of you, just as they spoke of me for the first 29 years of my own life when I too mocked as you do…”
No, the sorrow’s all mine, believe me. So many people rejecting reality and opting out of some of life’s greatest experiences because of what an old book says. That’s pretty sad from my perspective. And you were an atheist the first 29 years of your life? Even before you were born?
“…I use to say much of what you say here. But once I stopped fearing what I may hear if I listened to what proof may be presented by believers of creation or of intelligent design (which by the way are NOT the same thing if you fully understood them!). If you spent time with the bible, real time, not zipping through it… not afraid it would convert your mind. If you are so sure you are strong in your views, then give just see what it is about cause then why are you so afraid? What harm will it do? If it is meaningless, you won’t be swayed? You say you are so wise! So what do you fear? Maybe what I feared… And what most people fear… That maybe, just MAYBE… you are WRONG. Then what! Well then maybe you better check it out, cause what IF you are wrong? WHAT then? Well then how amazing to discover what there is to discover in an amazing God. And if not, then go back to what you know. Have you never tried a different item on the menu?…”
Yes I have tried different items on the menu. Perhaps you should as well. Of course, in my case, the menu was fed to me with only one item on it: Believe in God or roast in Hell. So I ate that one for quite some time (about as long as you said you were an atheist), and then figured out that all of that nonsense was useless. I have no need for a god to run my life because I was made into a good person by good parents, not the knowledge that some unseen force was auditing my every breath.
But I don’t think you used “to say much of what” we say here, not at all. You speak of fear a lot. Why did you fear in the first place? Were you born fearing? That doesn’t make sense. You feared reading anything, then one day decided to just let go and read a book, which ended up swaying you completely? You sound like the other creationists that come in here trying to save us by explaining in odd and non-logical terms how you went from being an atheist (with what we’re supposed to understand was a terrible life), to someone who has unremittent joy now because they “accepted Jesus”. Please stop making up stories and trying to convert. Do you not realize that quite a few of those you are speaking to went in exactly the opposite direction, and maybe have much more experience than you do about religion, enough to make them want to dump it wholesale? Do you honestly think we were all born into atheist families and lived that way up to this point? You apparently do, since you seem to be assuming we all here have always been atheist, which is patently not true. But why else would you proselytize about how much you care and love us, and want us to find the joy you found in your Christ? I am generally thankful when others care for me, as I should for fellow citizens and humans. But I am quite wary of those that do it because an old book told them to, and because an unseen force is demanding they do lest they be cast upon the sstones of eternity. Do you mean to tell me you didn’t care for others when you were a supposed atheist?
“…We just disagree in our belief systems…”
Yet another mistake. We don’t have a “belief system”; you do. Atheism is the opposite – the lack – of belief. What is so hard for you to understand about this? No means no. There is no believing going on here, at least not outside of what the creationists and religious zealots coming in here toss about as if it’s their right to do so.
“…And what we believe is true is something we believe is critical to your eternity. We CARE about you and we want you to have eternal happiness. Think about it this way…. If I saw that you were about to get hit by a car, I would tell you. Now you may not believe me, but you would appreciate that I told you about it. Well consider people who believe in the gospel as those who really believe in something like that and are just trying to keep you from getting hit by a car. One day we will all know if that car is really there or not… Are you sure you don’t want to learn a little more about what we really, really believe we see? What some very, very brilliant people for thousands of years (inclusive of Abraham Lincoln, CS Lewis, etc. all believed)…
It is okay if we don’t know all the answers in our lifetimes or ever. We are not God! :) That is very freeing a concept in and of itself…”
Well, therein lies the problem, because we don’t *think* any of what you *believe* is critical to anything for us, least of all our “eternity”, whatever that is. Your car analogy is illustrative of the type religious zealots throw around for why we should take you seriously. You yourself have no evidence of your god or savior, yet you implore us to follow your lead. You say we are standing, waiting for a bus to hit us; what bus is this? what car? Show us or be gone. You have no measurable expertise on which to tell us we should do anything.
And your citations of brilliant individuals in human history is a lame attempt. Even impressive accomplish individuals are still human, capable of expressing illegitimate theories and views. You are using an argument based on the false premise that just because eminent personality did something, we must. But Newton’s advances in science and mathematics, for example, didn’t come because of his religion, but in spite of it. He had to hide a lot of his work lest he be persecuted and ruined by religious orthodoxy for his “heretical” studies. Ditto Galileo, and myriad others.
Regarding your plea about “all the answers”, nobody here is claiming they know everything. Why do you people always assume we think we know everything, when we never said we did? Because your god supposedly knows all, and by our rejection og “him” we think we know all? Please explain this logic to me.
“…We are not God! :) That is very freeing a concept in and of itself…”
No shit. But what’s truly freeing is not having to follow stupid rules set by stone age mythologies for no discernible reason other than it pisses your sky apparition off. Your god seems to be only good at creating the things that allow “him” to become angry and exact revenge from. Sounds like a child playing with his army men more than it does a real force with powers spanning the cosmos.
“…Brothers, listen! We are here to proclaim that through this man Jesus there is forgiveness for your sins. Everyone who believes in Him is declared right with God – something the law of Moses could never do. Be careful! Don’t let the prophets’ words apply to you. For they said,
‘Look, you mockers,
be amazed and die!
For I am doing something in your own day,
something you wouldn’t believe
even if someone told you about it.’*
– Acts 13:38-41, *Habakkuk 1:5 (NLT)
…”
And what sins would we need to be saved from exactly? The one that says we’re sinful when born, and must be rended from them in order to be worthy? Sounds like a cult to me. No thanks. I’ll handle my “sins” myself. I do not need to be saved by you or anyone else in your tribalistic cult. Perhaps you should save yourself and requestion why you bought in to begin with? After all, what’s to fear from questioning yourself?
Hellfrick #1121 wrote:
Astrologers generally do posit some sort of mechanism to explain the results, usually one that implies a supernatural, magical universe where everything is connected to everything else not just physically, but through meaning. Red means anger: if you were born when there was a red planet in the sky, you would be a person quick to anger, because you would be shaped by what the planet signified. That’s sympathetic magic as both a mechanism and a theory.
In Europe, Galen’s beliefs on the “four humors” which effected the human body and mind linked them up to the four elements that made up everything on earth and in the sky, including the stars. They all had to work harmoniously together in a divinely ordained balance of life — and changes in one area would mean changes in something else. Later, astrologers came up with a mechanism by borrowing ideas from Plato on everything having its own soul — including planets and stars. According to Carl Zimmer (I’m reading his book Soul Made Flesh right now), “The planets influenced the human soul through a cosmic sympathy, just as a plucked lute string could make another string vibrate.”
It’s not a well-defined mechanism, granted, but it’s something other than a complete blank. Such a general mechanism ought to demonstrate itself in something other than astrology, though.
Remember the Blasphemy Challenge from December 2006?
One reaction to it was:
…to which this comment here on Pharyngula added the fourth option as follows:
I have nothing to add.
Exactly. Even if the correlations (laws) supposedly observed by astrologers were true (which they aren’t), then trying to look for further properties of the supposed mechanism would be how one found out that the explanation (theory) being posited was faulty.
There’s a long-standing similar falsehood about red haired people being quick to anger. One could make up “theories” as to how that might work but, since the underlying “observation” is false anyway, there’s not ever going to be a right mechanism to find. But, if it had been true, it would still have been a useful law to know even without having a valid theory for it. Just not a law which took you any further. You’d be stuck with merely collecting such unconnected examples of predictable things in the absence of an over-arching theory telling you where to look for other types of examples.
What the theory of evolution by natural selection does (ie part of its outstanding success) is tells one where to look next. And, unlike religion (which can’t really predict anything), its predictions just keep on working. Suggesting very strongly that it’s quite right. Too strongly for any sane and well-educated person to do anything other than accept it as a fact of life (literally).
For those of you who criticize the car analogy as something “common of those religious fanatics” to come up with… I actually heard this analogy from outspoken atheist Penn Jillette. However, he used a bus and does it much greater justice. Check it out for yourself.
http://crackle.com/c/Penn_Says#id=2415037&ml=o%3D12%26fpl%3D328072%26fx%3D
For those of you correcting my grammar… I agree with your corrections! Maybe I should hire you to work on some of my projects as I do have a day job and so spending the time editing this for you is time consuming. I won’t bother editing your comments. I am educated with two masters degrees, and a bachelors degree from an extremely liberal university. I am also a senior partner at a consulting firm, all be the grace of God.
I actually believe in micro-evolution. And if you were willing to hear about ID v. evolution (which was the original point of this discussion: the unwillingness of the gentleman and the larger community to even entertain such discussions) there are people I can bring together who can provide a pretty remarkable SCIENTIFIC, empirically sound series of topical discussions before you. I am certainly not an expert in that area as we all have our areas of expertise. But again, this is something you need to welcome and not merely dismiss before seeing any proof. But you dismiss it blindly.
Some of you have said that I am incorrect in saying that atheism is a belief system. Is it not true that to believe there is no God is not a belief? Everyone worships something. What do you worship, what is your God? I fail to believe that any one of you does not worship something. Just look in your checkbook or your visa bill or however you account for you spending and see what you invest your time and money against. That is likely the best indicator. Is it you work? Is you job your God? Your children? Shopping? Career growth? Fame? You in general? Your girlfriend? Wife? Popularity? Food? Drugs? Alcohol? Perhaps another religion? An obsession with evolution? Obsession with t.v.?
Well I choose for my God to be Jesus Christ. I use to have other Gods. And when I had other Gods my life was always lacking something – which is why people jump from one thing to another. If you have never felt this way… give it time, you will. So how is your God working for you? Well when I was introduced to Jesus Christ, something changed. Now keep in mind I had been raised Catholic but never quite “got it” when I was a kid and dismissed religion as hokey until about 29 years. But then I heard about Jesus again at around 29 and how he loved us regardless of our past. And that he came to unburden us, if we would just believe. And I had always felt I was doomed by that mean God many of you spoke about. But I learned that the Old Testamant was and the commandments were there so we could be aware of the fact that we are sinners and our need for a savior. But noone, not one is perfect. And that is not good news. Because if you are not perfect, you are doomed. But that is why Jesus came. Cause he paid our debt. And he paid it for ALL of us! THAT was why he died! And if we just believe this, that GOD (yep – that mean old guy), that GOD died on a cross so we would not have to go to hell! Wow! He loves us that much that he DOES NOT want us to go to hell. And this is for anyone who believes. I don’t know why, but it was suddenly clear to me!
It is clear to some people and crazy to others. And to those who it is crazy to, one day it suddenly becomes clear. If that person is you – let me know! Even if in 10 years. Trust me, you will know if you are that person. It just happens. If you had told me this would happen to me, I would have thought you were nuts too. So I totally get why you all write these things to me.
But I beg of you to be somewhat merciful. If one day you are that person who gets it, I know you will remember this and be sad for it. But please know – I forgive all of you. I have had to consider this this morning that in truth none of you know what you are saying for you do not have the Spirit of God. For only those with the Spirit know Spiritual truths. And that is the most amazing thing that happens when you trust in Jesus. Suddenly you are aware of Spiritual things. If you do ever experience this, just wait until you read the bible then! It will be an entirely different experience. But until then, it will just be another book of foolishness.
If this is something you secretly want – you can pray for it. Even if you think it is silly to pray, just try. And it never needs to be fancy like churches make it seem. Mine surely aren’t.
Bless you all. If you want to keep slamming me – that is okay. I will probably not respond. Well unless you are welcoming of a forum on ID (in which case I can get you in touch with the right people – as I am not that person) or you want to talk about a relationship with Jesus Christ.
For His Glory.
p.s.
Forgive my grammatical errors as I am sure there are many. I have not edited and will not be as I need to get back to work. Shalom.
Following up on my own post:
One of the things that makes translation chancy is that ancient written Hebrew has no vowels. The phrase “והתמהו תמהו” certainly looks like it should read “v’tamahu tamahu”; “and you shall wonder wonderingly”. Yet the verb “tamah” is not too far off from another verb written with almost the same letters, “tm”, tav-mem (תם) (which would be pronounced something like the English word “tome”), meaning “finished; completed”, and when referring to a future plurality, would be written using the same consonants. It may be that “wonder” was the literal sense, but some exegetical interpretation (or alternate text) may have added that the actual sense was “wonder and be finished“, which is why the Greek Septuagint adds “και αφανισθητε”.
@E.V.
Sorry about that. I manage to mix them up sometimes. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve answered affirmative by blurting out “Is the pope’s ass water-tight?”
@SEF & Sastra
Thank you. That made it click.
Amy, I understand you are new here but take time to do a search just on this blog for how many times ID has been discussed. That’s just this blog.
We know all about ID. We’ve handled it hundreds and hundreds of times.
ID needs only to produce science. It has not.
ID is not scientific. Period.
sigh
the first paragraph should of course be blockquoted
The problem for me, Amy, is that to believe as you do, you have to give up your mind. You have to stop looking at the world with true wonder, because you have been told what to think. For me, the joyous certainty of your true knowledge would not work – I want to think for myself and make my own mind up.
For example, your anti-evolutionary views are the sole product of the brand of christianity you’ve signed up to (as you know, many many christians do accept evolution without it diminishing their faith) and are wholly ridiculous. You might as well deny gravity. The problem with those christians who do not accept evolution is that they do so because they do not feel that they can accept the presumed consequences of us having evolved. They deny it because they think that if it happened – it did – then they must deny God his preconceived place.
As a matter of fact, I personally deny Christianity for many reasons. A minor one is that some christians deny the obvious fact that we have evolved, so their beliefs, at least, are not to be trusted.
A much more important reason is that if there is a loving god who interacts in any meaningful way with humanity, then he permits unbelievable evil to take place.
As I write this, it is inevitable that somewhere on the planet a child is being raped and will be tortured to death.
Why would I worship a being who permits this?
Anyway, I don’t think you will be coming here often. You will be shredded by the posters here – me too – and will give up. Or be converted to rationalism.
The latter possibility is, like the existence of your Jesus-centric deity, remote.
Amy 1130 wrote:
One of the points we have made in this very long thread — made not once, but many times — is that scientific issues are debated among scientists according to rigid, strict, disciplined rules of evidence and argument. Both Creationism and ID — like astrology and vitalism — were fairly entertained in that community. They were even at one point accepted. They were later rejected by the scientific community because they failed to live up to the standards, and were replaced by theories which could. Telling people to ignore this and “look at the other side and decide for yourself” is dishonest, and illegitimately flatters the person you’re appealing to.
If you are not an expert in biology — as you admit — then you ought not to argue against the consistent, persistent, and overwhelming consensus of thousands of people who are, based on “having your own opinion.” You do not have a right to that opinion, without having done real work in the actual field, and having genuine expertise and knowledge.
You are using those terms in a very loose and sloppy way. One can admire something without “worshiping” it, and making it a God. You seem to be implying that everyone is a dogmatic fanatic in some way. Not necessarily.
I don’t believe in God because I don’t think the hypothesis stands up to critical analysis, and what it purports to explain is better explained in other ways. Thus, it is unlikely to be true. And truth matters to me. I don’t slavishly “worship” it — but I do value it.
Is Christianity a form of “personal therapy?” If so, then I guess all that really matters is that it “works for you.” You can sell it like any other self-improvement or self-esteem program on personal development. Try it and see if it works to make you and your life better better better! It won’t matter if it’s technically true, as long as it works.
All the religions work. Just ask their customers.
But if you think that truth matters — not big-T Truth (absolute rightness and certainty) but small-t truth (what is provisionally likely to be accurate) — then stop trying to sell Christianity like a salesman selling a vitamin package or success seminar. I’m glad it makes you so happy, but the only relevant question to me is: Is it true?
There’s are better objective methods to use than the methods of science science and a reason unclouded by a desire to believe to answer that question. And if God is a failed hypothesis, then there’s no need to go further and study to find out which religion God is not in. God is not in any of them.
Garbled. Should read “There are no better objective methods which one can use to answer that question, than the methods of science — and a reason unclouded by a desire to believe.”
It’s really the quadrilemma: Lord, Liar, Lunatic, or Legend.
Wait, what?
What do you think “worship” means, anyway? I don’t bow down to “evolution”. I don’t sing the praises of nothingness. I don’t slaughter sheep on the altar of no god.
If “worship” means “have an intense interest in”, then “worship” is so weakened in meaning that it becomes meaningless. If anything and everything can be a religion, then “religion” doesn’t really mean anything.
Right. Because God is cruel.
If it’s truly “paid for ALL”, then I don’t have to do anything.
If God doesn’t want us to go to hell, God won’t send us to hell.
And God could not possibly have “died” for real. Jesus had a bad weekend, then was alive again. Whoop-te-doo-dah.
Fascinating.
Calvinists would say that God regenerated you. Well, until God regenerates us, we are doomed to unbelief — and thus, doomed to hell. Because God damns and saves according to his whim.
Right. Because God hates us and wants us to burn forever in Hell. Look, if God saves and damns by his whim, then preaching at us will not convert us. You might as well give up and find a better use of your time.
Right. Because I secretly want to believe that God will torture me forever and ever unless I pray to him.
“Dear God, please bring your fan club to their senses. Thanks, an atheist.”
First you state that you used to mock believers, implying that you were an atheist. And than you claim that you followed different gods. (You do realize that we mock non-christian theists here?) Which is it? And you cannot use the canard that non belief in a god is a religious belief.
You cannot show up here, showing off your confusion and expect us to respect your confusion.
Wow, you have seen into the personality of every person here know that everyone has a “god shaped hole in their soul”. Such power of perception you show here. Is it at all conceivable to you that a person can be an atheist and have a reasonably happy life? It is all conceivable to you that an atheist’s unhappiness is related to a tangible reason as opposed to a vague feeling of a lack of god?
Amy, just because you have a limited view in what it means to be human does not mean that we will grant you any respect for that.
In our daily life, we have your “message of love” many times. It is nothing new or unique. You are here to preach to us and it frankly makes many of us cranky. It is also reason enough to get banned here.
Stop testifying here, go find a street corner by where you live and let your word out.
To get back on topic, there’s something of a similarity with science and debate and all the people trying to make excuses for “needing” a debate.
Science is (or should be!) regarded as the best method ever invented for discovering the truth about reality (at all levels and even in subjects not normally regarded as scientific in themselves). That’s a law. Science has repeatedly demonstrated it to be the case.
Quite separately from that law, there could be theories of just why science is so stonkingly good at what it does. Extrapolating from valid ones of those can help people make science work even better. Whereas trying to apply false ones would soon show that they fail to help.
Meanwhile, debate is one of the worst methods ever devised for getting at the truth of something. It favours fast-talking charismatic liars and fantasists over careful and perhaps unappealing (in message if not necessarily personal appearance) truth-tellers who are backed by reams of detailed evidence.
If debate actually worked for the desired purpose (ie of scientists and truth-tellers rather than of religious liars), there would be some reason to go looking for excuses/theories of why it should work and to make it work better. However, since it demonstrably (throughout history, around the world and across subjects) does not work (ie is not fit for the stated good purpose but only for the evil one of convincing gullible fools), contriving apologetics for it is a waste of effort.
In the legal system, the worst possible part of the process (in terms of actually establishing the truth of a case, which is what trials pretend to be doing) is the rival lawyers pontificating (ie effectively debating each other) at the jury. The best part of the process, only recently added, is any scientific evidence (and I don’t include medical “experts” in that) presented in full – as long as the jury isn’t entirely comprised of moronic and/or corrupt people.
Amy #1130.
I worship the wonderfulness of Shakira’s perfect ass.
Amy (#1130):
Oh bloody hell, Amy, we’ve heard the arguments. We’ve read them and we can tell why they are wrong. Now maybe you know of some new argument that we haven’t heard before. Maybe you know of some new version of a previous argument that overcomes the objections raised against it. If so, then present those arguments so that we can examine them. Don’t just tell us that those arguments exist, and patronise us as if we were novices in this debate. Most of us are old hands who have been debating creationists for years. That is, really debating: listening to what they have to say, analysing their arguments carefully, asking for clarifications, listening to their responses to our counter-arguments etc etc.
Wrong. Wrong as stupidly and offensively wrong can be. I worship nothing, since I consider “worship” to be a demeaning activity unworthy of human beings. I am in awe of the beauty of nature, but I do not worship it. There are many people alive and dead whom I greatly admire, but I do not worship them. I consider certain values to be sacrosant (e.g., skepticism, honesty, compassion, friendship), but I do not worship them either.
You’re confusing worshiping something with valuing it. These are not the same thing. One can value something, even greatly, without personifying it or performing rituals in obesiance to it.
And as I mentioned earlier, this is a morally repulsive doctrine. Not being perfect merits damnation? Salvation is only possible by believing? This isn’t “good news” – this is a sick, totalitarian fantasy.
A feeling of clarity about something is no guarantee that it is true.
Frankly, Amy, your prozelytising is getting quite tedious, and more than a little nauseating. Do you actually have anything intelligent and constructive to say?
And do you really talk like this in real life?
This is like saying “I believe that it’s possible to walk across a room, but impossible to walk across a country”.
What is supposed to stop evolution from just accumulating? Which miracle is supposed to remind a mutation of how many mutations have already happened before?
Then please do it already! We’ve been waiting for that for years!!!
I’d rather say it’s a conclusion: the hypothesis that anything supernatural exists is not necessary to explain anything, therefore it should be considered false unless this situation changes.
What makes you think so?
See, that’s the whole purpose of science: to save us from falling prey to the fallacy that everything which appears logical and/or obvious to us must be true.
Almost impossible. Of all religions in the widest sense, only some kinds of Buddhism and most kinds of communism are compatible with atheism — note how wide that sense of “religion” is, and how narrowly I had to define atheism, because the mentioned “religions” still require belief in something supernatural (karma and nirvana respectively historical inevitability), even though it doesn’t make sense to call that a god.
You were raised Catholic, but had never heard of those claims?!?
Does not compute.
So you kept believing in a god all the time. That means you were never an atheist. Maybe a dystheist like Michael Behe the cdesign proponentsist, but not an atheist.
And why on the planet do you act as if these claims were news to us!?!
Apparently unlike you, I was raised Catholic. I (gradually) stopped believing when I found out that I’m incapable of believing without evidence.
Just for the record… you haven’t mentioned any way to contact you, so… LOL.
Maybe so — if we tacitly assume that there is such a thing as a spiritual truth in the first place. That, however, is something you (or anyone) have yet to demonstrate.
Go ahead, we’re listening.
Note the moving goalposts. In comment 1101, we were told to read the Bible in order to gain the Spirit of God (“If you spent time with the bible, real time, not zipping through it… not afraid it would convert your mind“). Here in comment 1130, we are told to first gain the Spirit of God and then read the Bible in that new light.
Shame on you, Amy. Admit it when your claims are disproved. Don’t just change them and pretend we have always been at war with Eastasia.
We have already tried that. Systematically even — there are several studies on it. It doesn’t work.
Bring it on already!!!
I think it’s easier if we keep the two questions separate:
1) Does anything supernatural exist?
2) If so, is any of it worth worshipping?
The same way, Amy should keep two other questions separate:
1) Does evolution happen?
2) Does anything supernatural exist?
…though the analogy doesn’t quite work, because Amy’s two questions are completely orthogonal to each other, while your second question depends on your first one.
Tetralemma then, if we want it to stay Greek. :-)
Can you explain, specifically, the difference between micro-evolution and macro-evolution?
I am. I’ve been open to hearing evidence for any new scientific theory. However, that has never been forthcoming from the ID movement. Have you read the Kitzmiller decision? I have. Have you read Stephen Meyers’ paper in Rivista di Biologia? I have. I’ve listened to Behe’s claims about “irreducible complexity”. I’ve listened to Dembski’s claims of “Specified Complexity” and the No Free Lunch theorem. I can tell you without hesitation that they are all crap. A recycling of the argument from ignorance and Paley’s watch analogy, camouflaged in sciencey-sounding jargon, with a generous smattering of outright lies throughout.
Go right ahead. We’ve had thousands and thousands of words in this thread devoted to creationists, enough for several full-length journal articles, but instead all we get is empty rhetoric like yours.
Not so. I’ve given creationists plenty of time to make their case. The fact that they choose to use it to repeat arguments that were defeated in the 19th century rather than present any new research results tells me volumes.
Wow, quite a revealing paragraph. Firstly, it is not in fact true that all people worship something. Many people, myself included, actually live balanced lives and don’t obsess about anything. That really, really burns you, doesn’t it? Especially when they do it without any need for your religion? The fact that, explicitly and by your own words, you utterly refuse to entertain the possibility of a balanced life says much more about your state of mind than it does about unbelievers. It’s called projection. It tells me you find the idea that some people don’t feel any need to obsess or worship threatening somehow.
Notice again how you take a characteristic of your own mental life and project it onto the world at large. I do not feel like something is lacking in my life, nor do I jump from one thing to another. Unable than accept that I don’t need the crutch faith provides for you, you prefer to believe that it’s only a matter of time.
Now this next part is quite revealing:
So, obviously you were never an atheist, despite your allusions to it in your first post and your continuing insistence that you understand how unbelievers think. More interestingly, you suggest there is something in your past that you felt guilty over, that burdened you, that made you worthy of God’s wrath.
Might I ask what that was? Did it involve an addiction of some kind?
Again, here you take your own experience and project it as a generality. In fact the opposite is far more common- believers who thought they had it all figured out finally realizing how crazy their beliefs are and rejecting them.
If we don’t know what we’re saying, then by all means demonstrate it. Empty, condescending claims like this are merely insulting. Can you demonstrate the existence of a spirit? Can you show the practical difference between a spiritual truth and an imaginary one?
I’ve tried. I’ve tried reading the Bible, I’ve tried praying, I’ve tried all the things would-be preachers tell me will suddenly make God’s existence clear to me.
Now, for once listen to me: None of them works. Not one. That’s because you’ve been lied to.
If you actually have evidence for ID Amy, then bring it. No-one here cares about the battle for the eternal soul. They do, however, care about science. So if you have some fantastic evidence that proves that there’s not only a designer but that designer is the Judeo-Christian construct of God, then show it. So the evidence that there’s a designer, empirically prove there is a God.
And if you can answer these two questions, that would be grand.
http://kelosophy.blogspot.com/2009/02/two-questions-for-intelligent-design.html
Assuming that’s all true–a big assumption, considering Amy trotted out the usual “I used to be an atheist” lie–it’s just another example of how religion can rot a perfectly good brain.
I wonder if Amy proselytizes her clients and co-workers, too. I’m sure they just love that.
Don’t the rest of you pray to gravity too? If not then how else does gravity work?!? We need to pray to gravity if we want things to fall to the earth, otherwise gravity will be mad and will let us fall off the earth…
Yeah, I pray to Darwin, otherwise the natural world would stop evolving.
I, like Kel, regularly pray to Gravity, but he does not do it with the right attitude – that is once to Newton for the Attractive Masses, and once to Enstein for Space Curvature. For his failure, Kel will die.
To provide a full list of my necessary obeisances would take almost the 24 hours it takes me to perform them, and so I will merely also note my naked dawn reception of the Star Photons essential to all life, and my nightly Dreamtime devoted to the Sub-atomic Realm.
Yes, you are correct. I worship science, and I guarantee that as far as I am concerned the moment I stop believing and acknowledging the Universal Is, it will entirely cease to be.
Woderful arguments, guys. Anyone would think you’ve argued with silly christians before!
AnthonkyK and Kel are both going to die because they are blasphemous icky boys, and they don’t worship the Chicken Goddess, Cluckhead.
The more I hear this “I used to be an atheist” thing, the less I believe it. I just find it hard to believe that anyone who was truly* an atheist and had rejected religious claims would then turn on a dime and start spouting all the gibberish about how God loves us all – even YOU! – and loves us so much that he would have a bad weekend so that we won’t go to the Hell that he created, and if you just read the Bible and clap your hands and say “I DO believe in Jesus, I DO!”… I mean, that would require a Phineas Gage-level head trauma.
* Yes, I know, the Scotsman. Bear with me.
Damn Chimp cooties! AnthonyK….sheesh.
Am I the only one who hears the Cowardly Lion in this? “I DO believe in spooks, I DO I DO I DO!” : )
I also worship the natural processes that govern the interactions of matter and life. However, I worship them by just going on with my life, because I know that my gods don’t want to make a big fuss about themselves, they’d just get embarrassed.
I’m sure Jesus would have wanted it that way. “The show must go on,” he’d always say.
“Am I the only one who hears the Cowardly Lion in this?”
Actually, it’s a Peter Pan reference, but the Lion will do too.
I, on the other hand, went right to Peter Pan.
“I DO believe in fairies, I DO I DO.”
Religious people lie all the time. It’s there gambit to identify with someone (“I was once a {backslider, atheist, or from another religion} just like you!”).
They will then exaggerate or make up testimony out of whole cloth to persuade you to join their tithing heavenbound club. (guilty as charged)
When you hear “I was an atheist” from a christian, know that he/she has no concept of what that truly means. They all lie, but after all God will forgive them because it’s for a good cause. (yeah, right)
I told you it was contagious.
lol, that’s full of win!
On the contrary, it is you who will die. Praying to Newton is not necessary, he was a myth made up at a time when people didn’t have an explanation for gravity. Rather it’s Einstein we should thank, and we need to pray for quantum gravity. As you know there’s as yet been no reconciliation between quantum physics and general relativity, so the only conclusion is that in order for gravity to work on a quantum level we must pray to it… lest the universe collapses into a singularity with space-time folding in on itself.
I find your lack of faith disturbing!
FLOAT, A-GRAVATIONAL SCUM!
It was because Newton failed to pray to Gravity that He caused the apple to fall on his head! In His attractive mercy, He did not cause the apple to weigh 50 tons and squash Newton flat. So Newton repented and became Gravity’s prophet. The heretic Einstein blasphemed against Almighty Gravity by claiming that He was merely the warping of space-time – Einstein will be punished eternally, being rent unceasingly by tidal forces! Remember There is no Force but Gravity, and Newton is His prophet!
You guys reminded me of one of my favorite classic nuggets fom DaveScot at UD: “gravity is the strongest force in nature.”
(I’m not going to link to UD. Anyone can find it via google, if interested.)
UD. That must be the well known blog Up is Down.
Which it will be, unless you all pray for coninuing weight.
*slow clap*
I’m really impressed with people who do debate creationists. I just really don’t have the time to humor adults who indulge in magical thinking.
In general, I don’t get any further than this statement:
“If you believe Jeffrey Dahmer could be in heaven while every non-Christian victim of mental and physical abuse (ie: victims of the Nazi holocaust) is definitely in hell, we have nothing to discuss.”
Hmmm. Gravitism must be real, there’s already a schism.
There’s no schism, just a right view and a wrong view.
Or so the heretic says. Until you can account for quantum gravity, you’ll always be wrong. And your incessant worship of Newton… he’s a false prophet when it comes to gravity. You might as well worship his as the prophet of chemistry too!
Newton may have been able to diffract light, he may have invented calculus, but he was wrong on gravity. Einstein is the true prophet and we predict a new prophet will come in our lifetime that will be able to explain quantum gravity. Until such time, worship quantum gravity and not Newton!!!
“…Some of you have said that I am incorrect in saying that atheism is a belief system. Is it not true that to believe there is no God is not a belief? Everyone worships something. What do you worship, what is your God? I fail to believe that any one of you does not worship something. Just look in your checkbook or your visa bill or however you account for you spending and see what you invest your time and money against. That is likely the best indicator. Is it you work? Is you job your God? Your children? Shopping? Career growth? Fame? You in general? Your girlfriend? Wife? Popularity? Food? Drugs? Alcohol? Perhaps another religion? An obsession with evolution? Obsession with t.v.?…”
The stupid never ends, it simply reasserts itself. We do not “believe” there is not a god. You are the only one assuming we “believe” there isn’t one. Belief in nothing is exactly that: belief in nothing. But that’s not what we have. We have a 9/10s level of assurance, based on scientific evidence, that a god or gods do not exist. We can’t prove one or many don’t exist, but then, you can’t prove that one does. We prefer the former course, since taking the latter course muddies things up unnecessarily, gets people in a tizzy for no good reason about petty little things, causes domestic and international strife, and basically cause individuals such as yourself to do what you are doing around here: professing your ignorance.
You can “fail to believe” that we don’t worship anything as much as you want; it would not be the first thing you’ve failed at. We do not worship anything. Any thing. Read that as many times as it takes you to understand it.
Sorry I’ve been missing the fun! Doing some international travel tomorrow and have been busy. Lucky for you guys. Really, total lack of logic and honesty throughout the darwinist posts.
Anyway, Kel, I’m well aware of the Lenski research. It’s, again, not a solution for evolution, nor against what I.D. predicts. Wish I had more time, but I don’t.
You fucking great hypocritical coward, Brent.
We’ve shown examples of just where the Darwinian hypothesis has been validated. Not only does the theory fit the fossil record and the genetic evidence, but the mechanisms behind change in a species are also well known. And that’s what science is, it’s about making predictions and seeing whether they are validated or falsified by any future evidence. This is why evolution is considered science and one of the strongest theories in science. Intelligent Design on the other hand has made no predictions, shown no mechanisms by which it works, and certainly doesn’t have any validated testing data. This is why ID is not science, which brings be back again to the two questions I posed earlier. How has the designer worked through nature, and how do we test for it? If you can’t answer either, then why should ID be anything more than personal conjecture?
Fuck Brent, I’m giving you a chance to state the scientific case for Intelligent Design, and all you are doing is complaining about mechanisms in evolution that have been tested and validated countless times. Even if evolution weren’t true, that doesn’t make intelligent design any more valid. If you want your idea accepted, you need to show evidence, plain and simple.
Safe travels, Brent… you oblivious git.
Talk about projection…
Brent, clueless pissant, wrote:
Thank FSM I chose the industrial-strength irony meter* – anything less would be a smoking ruin right now.
*Rated to ten Comforts, according to the warranty.
Brent, you also have the chance to show just where were are being illogical or dishonest. It’s one thing to assert it, it’s another to back it up. So if you please Brent, show us where we fail…
Any evidence, Brent, or is this another of your rapidly accumulating baseless assertions?
“I don’t understand what the people on this blog, some of who study evolution for a living, are saying regarding the subject that they study, therefore they’re being dishonest.”
Is that pretty close to the mark?
How are we coming with that ID explanation for the Ozark cave fish?
Oh wait, I get it. Expecting ID to explain an observation (you know, ’cause it’s a scientific theory and all), at least as well as the theory it arrogantly proclaims to be better than, is dishonest and lacking in logic.
Brent, you still need to prove your ID theory from the ground up. Presume/assert nothing without evidence, and cite the primary peer reviewed scientific literature to back your assertions. Time to either put up or shut up.
I’ve been slowly working my way through this marathon thread over the last couple of days, and just come across Walton’s post at #691. Walton, that was an outstanding post – I liked it so much I’ve copied it for future reference. I’ve defended you before from other posters who accuse you of “whining”, but I could see there was more to you than that. You’ve just proved me right all along.
Brent (#1171):
Funny, all these creationists turning up to winge about how Gotelli won’t debate with the DI, but as soon as they get put on the spot themselves, all of a sudden they’re too busy to debate with “darwinists”.
Anyone would think they were a bunch of dishonest hypocrites who were trying to prove Gotelli’s point for him.
Odd, that.
Brent, if you don’t have time to argue your point, why do you come back to this thread at all?
Do you believe I could publish a paper or even just a conference abstract saying “yeah, everyone else is wrong, but I don’t have time to demonstrate that, see you later”?
An ID prediction? What? Where? Oh, please please please please please!
And I’m assuming it’s not thise one:
Or is that a mere goal?
Indeed – and he KNEW he was wrong about the mechanism, but the mechanics of it worked beautifully, so the theory stood up for quite a few years.
Meanwhile, I wait with baited breath for Brent to return to read us bedtime stories from the gospels according to Dembski and Behe.
It worked for Fermat! ;-)
http://mathworld.wolfram.com/FermatsLastTheorem.html
Iain Walker @ 1181 makes one of the top 3 points in this thread: Why is it creationists can always find time to set up grand debates in the public square, and huff and puff when they don’t get evolution supporters to join them in their fancy game, but they can’t spend an hour on a thread reading and rebutting? If you guys have all the answers, bring it! But you guys seem excessively content with bringing in the same old annihiliated arguments with the names of the variables changed to try and distract us, or making belicose prognostications about how great your god is, how friendly your prophet-savior is behind closed doors, how evil we are, how much the world should thank you for your existence, etc. ad nauseum. You guys *never* come with anything. You have nothing. All you have is empty assertions backed by years or decades of family-based inculcation, with the kind of efficacy only gained from pointless rituals carried out as laws for millenia.
Brent is another example of the creationist, who dart in, regurgitate idiocy, and then leave with self-assured grins on their faces as if they did something worthwhile.
I always wonder if people like Brent ever stop for self-reflection in a situation like this. After having every challenge he put forward answered and was not able to even provide the slightest bit of evidence to back up his position, does that make him sit back and think “shit, I’ve been going about this the wrong way”? I’m guessing no.
Well then maybe you better check it out, cause what IF you are wrong? WHAT then? Well then how amazing to discover what there is to discover in an amazing God.
Well you’ve convinced me Amy!
I hearby renounce my atheism. Praise Odin!
Or wasn’t that the god you first thought of?
“I always wonder if people like Brent ever stop for self-reflection in a situation like this. After having every challenge he put forward answered and was not able to even provide the slightest bit of evidence to back up his position, does that make him sit back and think “shit, I’ve been going about this the wrong way”?…”
Of course not. Why question the position you are advocating when it’s backed by assurances your support will guarantee you a timeshare on the astral plane? It’s a lighter version of what makes suicide bombers in the ME fling themselves into throngs covered in explosive material. If you are above the law – scientific facts in this case – you don’t have to trouble yourself with playing by the rules. It’s the kind of thing that makes secularism great as an alternative.
The thing that makes me laugh (or cry) most about godbots of any stripe is that they really think that being part of a massive worldwide religion with 2 billion people is “bucking the system” or being edgy or different. How the F are you so hip and avante garde if you’re doing the same crap 2 billion other people are, and that countless million have been doing for 2000 years? The answer is, they’re not breaking any molds or challenging any conventions with their supposedly awesome gods and trendy saviors (that conveniently always needs to find a way to integrate secular popular culture characteristics and turn them into “hip” religiosity). They’re just doing all the things most people are told to do from the very age they can understand words, except with (sometimes) less emphasis placed on following less important traditions.
Following religion is not separating oneself from the crowd. It’s the epitome of following.
That’s one thing throughout that’s really annoyed me. Practically no-one here has been advocating that these people renounce their god and accept that the universe is without a divine hand, yet it seems that time and time again the advocates for ID are playing a dichotomy between God and evolution. Well it’s not even that, it’s a dichotomy between the biblical account of God and evolution.
One more thing too is the sheer amount of emotional arguing that is going on by many of the advocates here. I’m sure their empassioned pleas for us to see Christianity are genuine, but really they are not conveying it in a way that’s going to influence anyone here. The ‘e’-word keeps coming up time and time again, and that’s the one thing that all of the ID people here lack. We are asking for evidence, yet we are getting arguments that play on hopes and fears, or at the very most logical arguments that don’t really cut it. If they really want to convince a sceptic, all they need to do is show evidentially that their proposition is valid. Seems like too much to ask for though.
We are all individuals!
Joe the Peacock has a good post in his blog on “How To Actually Talk To Atheists (If You’re Christian).”
Wow, a true Grand Slam! What a put-down! What a well-crafted, demeaning blend of wit, cutting sarcasm, belittlement, inuendo and sweet disrespect. But is that really how you would settle a dispute scientifically? I regret that Prof. Gotelli who professes to welcome controversy since “one of the best ways to refute intellectually bankrupt ideas is to expose them to the light of day” responded in such an unscientific fashion. It is embarrassing to those of us confident enough to call the bluff of charlitans. I’d rather blow pseudoscience out of the water publically, in front of a full auditorium for all to see, than stoop to the unprofessionalism and rather juvenile tactic of name-calling.
My students prefer to see how, by using real science, rather than insult, we quickly win the day. The claims of the opponent crumble; ours stand strong! It is a real eye-opener for budding scientists, builds confidence in application of the scientific method, and is a lot more fun. Students learn from the challenge valuable lessons which will serve them throughout their lives. For all those reasons I welcome any invitation to lay my cards on the table because I know I have the better hand. It is then so obvious that all agree with our side and the big-mouth is humbled and silenced more effectively than any slam.
We’ve seen this in the past although students in college today won’t remember the hundreds of debates on college campuses in the ‘80s & ‘90s. The Creationists made such mincemeat of the Evolutionists that they refused to debate Creationists any longer. The audiences, primarily students who had never been exposed to the scientific problems with evolution nor the scientific support for creation, were amazed by the facts part of the growing data base at ICR.org, AnswersInGenesis.org, and Evolution-Facts.com. They realized how brainwashed they had been. I’ve seen both sides of the coin from the vantage point of prep and pre-prep schools, Ivy League college, and grad school. There is no question that evolution hasn’t a leg to stand on.
By his own admission, Prof. Gotelli obtained over $3,000,000 from our taxes to support him in his research which has resulted in over 82 journal articles and three books. Yet, in reviewing his conclusions yesterday evening, we see that he constantly admits, “The results appear to contradict the hypothesis… cannot account for the observed pattern…lead to spurious statistical correlations…additional distortion… about the same or slightly less than woulld have been expected by chance…insufficient evidence…no consensus has yet been reached…all models failed completely to predict…in summary we have failed…we have found little evidence… more research is required.” (of course)
While I applaud his honesty in admitting defeat when it comes to mechanisms of evolution, I wonder what has been the return on this investment? What has he discovered which can benefit society or be put into practical use? Most importantly, in this particular discussion, what one bit of evidence has he uncovered in all this research which supports the theory of evolution? You, too, would find nothing there.
Several of his articles addressed speciation. He even spoke at Harvard on Evolutionary Biology. Yet see if you can get him to give you the best, specific bit of scientific evidence in favor of evolution. It is all a house of cards and he knows it.
If you’ve seen Expelled which came out in major theaters last fall, you know it, too. How can any fair-minded person condone educators and scientists being ridiculed, denied tenure and even fired for the crime of discussing evidence of design in nature? The evolutionists have tried to rebut the proof presented in Expelled but have been unsuccessful. For the details you can check http://www.evolutionnews.org/2009/02/expelled_exposed_exposed_your.html
And by the way, if you follow Prof. Gotelli’s reference, you’ll find that Dr. Klinghoffer whom I’ve never met, did not author the “sneering” article which Prof. Gotelli decried as “two-faced dishonesty.”
Because Truth matters,
Nat Weeks
Nat Weeks #1193 wrote:
Unfortunately, the scientific choice isn’t ‘debate your idea in public’ or ‘call someone names.’ The second alternative was ‘persuade the scientific community through the usual channels.’
I think that, until you do the second, the first one is really rather trivial, isn’t it? Your goal, as an advocate of Intelligent Design/Creationism, isn’t to win the hearts and minds of the American public.
Your real goal — as a scientist — is to win over your scientific peers, meet the internal objections of the skeptics, and eventually persuade the mainstream the hard way — through the evidence, research, and the quality of your work. So I’m sure you’re busy forming a testable theory of some sort, in order to do that. Forget the crowds. Take your time and do it right.
Nat Weeks, ID is a fraud masquerading as science. If you can’t recognise that then you are intellectually incompetent and not a fit person to teach anyone. Your post is full of lies and all you can do is attack the reputations of scientists. You did not in any way, shape or form address the mountains of evidence in favour of evolution in the scientific literature. Until you do that you will remain a fraud and a tool of frauds.
Ah, another creationist, swaggering in with a deluge of insults, condescension, and unsupported claims just like those before him.
Nat, do you have any new research results to present supporting I.D.?
Mr Weeks, do you or can you recognise that this quote-mining marks you as someone who is transparently dishonest and not to be trusted?
I’ve confessed before that I actually bought a ticket for Expelled, and watched the entire film in a local theater. So I won’t feel any guilt what so ever in lowering myself to the dumbass trolls level. Nat Weeks, you are an idiot, a fool and a moron. If you are teaching your students that goddidit then I hope you get fired for promoting fraud. I wouldn’t trust you to tell my Bulldog the sky is blue.
Troll rating: 0
Hmmmm Nat. Well it’s a well written piece, better than average. Is he a new one, or an old one with some “new ideas” and a bottle of wine?
Bed time for me, or I’d go for it.
Heck, let’s start the ball rolling.
Nat – you are wrong. Wrong wrong wrong wrong.
So you object to Prof. Gotelli’s letter, for its mocking, condescending tone? A childish reaction to a polite request for reasoned argument?
Please put it down to frustration. Prof Goteli, a working scientist, is pissed off having to address a long settled question that, his opponents insist, mean that everything he knows about nature is a colossal fraud. I mean, if you were an accountant, wouldn’t you feel upset if you had to spend time defending double-entry bookkeeping – from people who couldn’t count to 10?
That is the reason why you are wrong. Your religious affiliations have led you to think that evolution cannot be true, and therefore it is not.
As for the view your own religion has of this, you know much better than I do what that is, but you have to understand that the natural world is indifferent, in every conceivable to what you, or anyone believes.
The “therefore” is your own personal error.
Evolution happened. We evolved. All life on this planet, now, then, or ever is linked – and its life force is evolution – however life started.
I’ll leave you to the others – often ruder, but no less eloquent than I to fill in the details.
Go and read Don Prothero’s “Evolution” – lovely hardbound book, great photos (men with tail, yes really!) and find out why you are wrong, and stupidly so, about science.
If you really are a sincere Christian, God’s wonderful handiwork, in all its strange beauty, should only deepen your faith.
What are your really afraid of?
Knockgoats quotes me in post 831:
Obviously he is proud of his correspondence which, in my opinion, doesn’t say much for him or for Meyers who gladly published it on his site. – Jim M.
KG says: Who is this “Meyers” you speak of? Why is it IDiots like you so often can’t even get PZ Myers’ name right?
My reply: OK Knockgoats, I apologize to you and to PZ Myers for messing up his name. Let’s see, did I see a post where Myers or Gotelli apologized to Klinghoffer for falsely accusing him of posting the negative article about Gotelli on Discovery Institute’s site? (I could have missed it, it’s true.) My bad, but this is not what the argument is all about. Why don’t you get on Gotelli for his mistake as well?
Another quote from my original post:
“But who needs religion anyway?” Jim M.
KG’s response: That would be the intellectually challenged and morally feeble, unable to think for themselves, or act rightly without threats and bribes from a mythical sky-daddy – such as you.
My reply: Thanks KG. You just answered my question for me. After reading your post, I’ll let the readers judge who it is who needs a healthy fear of God more, you or me? It seems to me that your own set of morals did little to temper your anger, hatred, and condescension towards IDiots in this post.
I should clarify something. I prefer to say that I need God rather than I need religion. I agree with you that religion itself is not the answer. A personal relationship with God where we experience a change of heart due to His indwelling spirit, that is what we need. So perhaps I should have rephrased my original question. I can’t remember why I used the word “religion”. It was probably in response to some post I read criticizing religion. Anyway, my bad!
Knockgoats, according to your own system of morals, is this permissible? Why or why not? What is the reasoning behind it? Just curious.
According to God’s moral system, this is not permissible. It would be called a sin.
Now you might be able to view yourself as a good moral person who basically lives according to your own made up set of personal values and morals, but unfortunately, the “mythical sky-daddy” as you call Him, will not use your personal values and morals as a standard when He judges us.
It’s funny. Many atheists think they are such moral people, but when you understand the standard for morality, no one can call themselves moral. It’s pure arrogance! So, according to your personal moral standards, you may be moral, but according to God’s moral standards, sir, you need to know that you, like every other human being on this planet, are very immoral.
If you are in a foreign country, you had better know the laws of that country or you might find yourself committing a crime. Same for us humans. We live in God’s world and our own personal standards as good as they may be, are different than His, or at least insufficient. Now you do not need to agree with this, but I’m just explaining things from God’s point of view.
If there is no god, who cares about morality anyway? Why bother to defend yourself or claim you can be moral without believing in God? It is a moot point. Why is being moral better than being immoral? Those terms are totally relative and meaningless as you can’t clearly define them apart from God. Your own personal moral standards are nothing more than rules you made up for yourself and there is no harm whatsoever if you don’t follow them, right? You should feel absolutely no shame whatsoever since they are arbitray meaningless standards.
Me? Yes, I freely admit that I am weak and morally challenged and need a Savior. No argument there. I should correct you on one point though. We Christians don’t attempt to act rightly simply because of perceived bribes or threats from God. We choose to act right because we love God and want to please Him. It has nothing to do with earning a place in heaven. We simply believe that since He made us and loves us, He knows what is best, whether I like it or not.
Now, to give just one example, if I didn’t think there was a God, I’m sure I would be more liberal with my sexual practices. However, because I do, I do not fool around or use pornography even though I may be tempted to do so.
Does the Bible talk about fearing God? Yes. The word for fear means “deep healthy respect”. Do you fear the police? Most people do and that is a good thing. It has a positive influence on our lives. Let me ask you this. If there were no laws at all in this land, would you still live your life exactly as you do? Probably not. That is why we need laws and police to enforce those laws.
Now, is there punishment for us to fear if we sin? Sure, just like there are consequences when we speed. We put ourselves at greater risk of an accident. The speed limit is to protect us and others from accidents. And we put ourselves at greater risk of being caught. Let me ask you again: “Does the presence of a police car have any bearing on how you drive?” I bet it does. In the same way, the presence of God has a bearing on how I live. I’m thankful for that or else I would surely do more harm to myself than good.
For instance, let’s consider one sexual standard of the Bible. No fooling around when you are married. This includes thoughts in your mind and porn as well as literal action. If it weren’t for the Bible, if I didn’t actually commit adultery, I certainly would freely look at other women and porn as well.
Well, what does this command protect us from?
Sexual diseases for me and my wife, unwanted pregnancies, killing an unwanted child, broken trust, immoral reputation, slavery to porn and other acts of sex, disrespect of women or viewing women as things rather than people, maybe divorce if the tryst becomes public, seriously hurting my family, shame, fear of being caught, etc.
What blessings does it provide for us?
Trust relationship with my wife, enhanced deeper relationship with my wife, a stronger family, deeper love for my wife, better environment in which to raise kids, good reputation, sex without fear of disease, freedom to have children, more meaningful sex because it takes place within the bounds of a covenant of love, etc.
Wisdom alone tells us that God’s laws are good for all. So love for God and common sense also are motivations for my obedience.
I don’t say this condescendingly, because I would probably do the same as you if I didn’t believe in God, but after reading your post, I would like to kindly suggest that a little fear of God might actually do you and a lot of other posters on this board some good. The rudeness, ridicule, anger, and even seeming hatred comes through loud and clear. IF your reaction to this is more anger and a desire to ridicule or belittle more, then that is further proof of my point.
Here is something else for you to think about. Would you rather be in a hospital in an atheistic country or in a Christian hospital? Where do you think you would get better care? Why? Could it possibly have anything to do with what our worldview tells us about people?
Given that Sweden is one of the most godless countries on earth (up to 85% are atheist) and they have one of the best health care systems, I’ll take Sweden.
Jim M,
I wish I had the time to spare to go through your post and point out just how wrong nearly everything in your wretched, woo-skewed screed of mind-numbing drivel is. But I don’t and so I can’t; instead, I’ll say this: you are an idiot, even by the standards of those lackwitted fools who believe the archaic nonsense you believe.
That this sort of rationale is the best you can come up with for defending the aforemention nonsense fills me with hope that, one day soon, the implementation of decent education standards will prevent those – like you – with the limited capacity and substandard critical thinking skills to accept this tripe from existing in the first place.
Fuck, I long for the ComicSans when reading such mindless garbage as Jim M. has just spewed forth.
I’ll just pluck this random sample and respond to it, and it alone:
“Wisdom alone tells us that God’s laws are good for all.”
Like this one?
“Thou shalt not wear a garment of divers sorts, as of woolen and linen together.” – Deut. 22:11
Well, guess what? I’m [queue Judas Priest] breakin’ the law, breakin’ the law!
And I’m doing just fine, thanks.
“Now, to give just one example, if I didn’t think there was a God, I’m sure I would be more liberal with my sexual practices. However, because I do, I do not fool around or use pornography even though I may be tempted to do so.”
What you consider “fooling around” may, in a different kind of relationship, be seen as simple sexual expression. Not everybody fits into the rigid monogamistic mold.
“For instance, let’s consider one sexual standard of the Bible. No fooling around when you are married. This includes thoughts in your mind and porn as well as literal action.”
What if you and your wife view porn together?
“If it weren’t for the Bible, if I didn’t actually commit adultery, I certainly would freely look at other women and porn as well. ”
Alternatively, you and your wife could realize that harboring sexual thoughts is a natural thing and that “looking at other women” doesn’t mean that you would betray your wife’s trust or love her any less.
“Why is being moral better than being immoral?”
Because it makes the world a better and safer place for those who live in it. My morals come from the innate altruistic instincts of social animals and the efforts of ethical philosophers and other thinkers over the years that have hashed these things out and done their best to come up with the rules that best maximize the happiness of the most people. And I’m willing to bet that most of your morals come from that too.
“So, according to your personal moral standards, you may be moral, but according to God’s moral standards, sir, you need to know that you, like every other human being on this planet, are very immoral.”
You’d do well to read ‘Tis Himself’s comment #1192 to see how you’re barking up the wrong tree with these appeals to God’s morality. We reject the very premise that a god is necessary to explain our existence and the laws that govern it, so we’re not going to fear God or believe that fear of his punishment is necessary to live a moral life.
Jim M. @#1200:
It sounds more like you need the fear of God than you need God.
But fear is an emotion inside your own mind… which is almost a hairsbreadth away from saying that God is just an idea.
For all of your long screed about what this does for you, it’s very, very close to what an atheist might say:
God is something imagined, and then denied to be imaginary.
By the way, I note that you responded to Knockgoats’ irritation over a minor misspelling, and Knockgoats’ annoyed final sentence, which you took such exception to that you felt compelled to write a ~1100 word screed in defense of the alleged God’s alleged biblical alleged morality, and ignored the substantive point:
“ID” has no scientific theory, no scientific research, and is not science.
And to state otherwise is to bring false testimony.
Say, isn’t there something in the alleged God’s alleged biblical alleged morality about not bringing false testimony? I could have sworn there was…
Except of course the gays, and women too.
Amy (#1130)
If you were to go around life with a cardboard box on your head, everything might look awfully brown and cardboard-like to you, but that wouldn’t mean the world was actually made out of cardboard. The failure of your imagination poses no actual limitations on me.
Wow, that sounds awesome. Until you realize that the only reason we’d have to go to hell in the first place is because, yup, you guessed it, god set things up that way. And we’re supposed to not only find reason to believe in him for this fucked up little game, but also show gratitude for it? Umm, no.
Yes, when you are willing to buy into delusions, they do tend to seem quite real. Doesn’t make them true, just makes you delusional. Sorry.
(And yeah, Amy’s probably fluttered off to witness her idiocy to others by now, never to return, but I felt like saying all that anyways.)
Kel #1160
quality Star Wars reference.
Hello all,
I have been lurking here off and on for 3 days now, ploughing through all the references and comments. For the record, I am a Christian who does not buy the ID crap, or the YE crap. I have a science degree and am aware of science’s need for evidence to attempt to disprove a theory which supports our observations. I think evolution is a very good explanation for how we got to this point, and that it took billions of years to get us here. I am not alone. Not all Christians are unable to think or reason, and some are distinguished scientists who even use the theory of evolution to make measurable predictions. Denis Alexander springs to mind as an example, as does Francis Collins. These are real scientists, not IDiots who have no issues with evolution and Christianity. for that matter, Catholicism and most protestant denominations are OK with ToE too, mainly as it fits what we can observe in nature.
God is not a liar or a deceiver – Bill Hicks was very good on this when he said “pass me another brontosaurus bone, dad. They’re still wearing crosses. Less mess with their heads”. When the evidence points me in a direction I will go in that direction and see where it leads. I have an open mind, but not so open that my brains fall out (can’t remember who said that).
Christianity is based on faith, not scientific evidence. I freely admit that. I am a Christian because it rings true for me. This is not to say I don’t have doubts, and even reservations about the character of the God that I read about in the bible, as expressed by David Marjanović and others. Because I don’t like something doesn’t make it true or false. It is, however, not science. You can’t test for God empirically, for some reason, which is a bit of a bummer as you can test a lot of what I believe god created empirically very well.
I can explain Christianity to people, but I don’t pretend to have all the answers – I am neither an expert on Science nor christianity, but I am perturbed when Christians come across as stupid or vicious. The main point of my post was to explain that not all Christians are thick and there are some of us that are real scientists and have no problems with evolution. For the record, I don’t think ID is science and has no place in a science lesson. Gotelli was right not to debate with the ID crowd as it would have given ID a scientific credibility it doesn’t deserve. Also, a short debate is rigged on the side of the best orator, not the best science.
Ed.
You can has Comic Sans (and LOLcat spk!). You just need to use one of the locally permitted tags which can take the style attribute, eg p (for paragraph), and then use the proper magic spell (including the exact name of the font) within that.
Nice comment Ed
This reminded me of a piece from HHGTTG: (modified for IDers)
Now it is such a bizarrely improbably coincidence that anything so mindbogglingly useful [the
Babel fishbacterial flagellum] could have evolved by chance that some thinkers have chosen to see it as a final and clinching proof of the non-existence of God.The argument goes something like this: “I refuse to prove that I exist,” says God, “for proof denies faith, and without faith I am nothing.”
“But,” says Man, “the
Babel fishbacterial flagellum is a dead giveaway isn’t it? It could not have evolved by chance. It proves you exist, and so therefore, by your own arguments, you don’t. QED”“Oh dear,” says God, “I hadn’t thought of that,” and promptly vanishes in a puff of logic.
Hi Kel,
The bacterial flagellum evolved from something simpler. Most Christians I know would have no problem with this. I love Douglas Adams’s stuff, and particularly like the whole “god’s final message to creation” section of SLATFATF.
I believe people should think these things through.
Separate the church from the state, permanently. It should be a religious organisation, not a sociopolitical one.
To all religious people: Stop the knee jerk reactions to everything, and stop being offense athletes. Repeal blasphemy laws and stop trying to include Intelligent Design in Science classes. Stop asking for money from those who are not members of your church. Recognise that atheists can be morally superior to you and learn to separate truth from dogma.
Above all, think!
Ed.
P.S. I am the Ed who wrote on:
http://kelosophy.blogspot.com/2009/02/two-questions-for-intelligent-design.html
Nat Weeks (#1193):
“Gosh, I’ve never seen a facts part of a database as small as that! Why, you can barely see it. I’m amazed!”
Much the same could be said for the rest of your post. The fact-to-rhetoric ratio is so small as to be barely discernible.
I’m sure no-one would, if such a thing had actually happened. Unfortunately, contrary to the lies promulgated in Expelled, it hasn’t.
Now you do not need to agree with this, but I’m just explaining things from God’s point of view.
How can you possibly know what “God’s point of view” is? Since faith in God is not based on empirical evidence, how can we distinguish between true and false religious beliefs?
Does the Bible talk about fearing God? Yes. The word for fear means “deep healthy respect”. Do you fear the police? Most people do and that is a good thing. It has a positive influence on our lives. Let me ask you this. If there were no laws at all in this land, would you still live your life exactly as you do? Probably not. That is why we need laws and police to enforce those laws.
If there were no laws at all, I would not live my life exactly as I do – because there are some things which are not morally wrong, but which the law prohibits. In my country, I cannot own a gun, nor may I own a television without paying a “licence fee” to fund the BBC. In the United States, I cannot drink alcohol, since I’m under 21. I comply with all these laws because I fear that the State will use coercive force against me; yet I believe all these laws to be morally unjustified, and would disobey them if I could get away with it.
However, I would not do things which are morally wrong even if they were unlawful. Even if rape were legal, I would not engage in it, because I believe it to be morally wrong. Likewise, there are things which are not unlawful but which I personally believe to be morally wrong, such as the viewing of degrading hard-core pornography; thus I don’t engage in such activities.
You asked how, without a belief in God, one can know the difference between what is morally right and morally wrong, and whether these terms have any meaning. My answer would be that there is an objective, rational morality – independent of any supernatural belief – based on the concept of treating your neighbour in the same way that you expect him to treat you. And how do I expect my neighbour – in the generic sense, the average man on the street – to treat me? I expect him to respect my personal space and privacy, respect my property rights, and refrain from interfering with my autonomy and my choice of lifestyle, provided it doesn’t impact adversely on him. Thus, I must extend him the same courtesies: and so I am morally obliged to refrain from murder, theft, assault, invasion of privacy, or any other form of illegitimate coercion. I am also morally obliged, in the political sphere, to fight against any law which unduly coerces my neighbour and interferes with his right to autonomy and to choice of lifestyle, or which takes money from him in order to support me.
Do I expect more than this of my neighbour? Yes. I expect him to keep his word, and to treat me as well as I treat him. So if I make a contract with my neighbour, I am morally obliged to keep it. And if I become friends with my neighbour, he can hold me to a higher standard of conduct towards him than he would a stranger, and the reverse is also true.
This, then, explains all morality. Anything which lies outside this paradigm is, ipso facto, not a true moral precept. Engaging in private homosexual behaviour cannot be immoral, therefore, for example. I do not wish or expect my neighbour to tell me how to conduct my private life; neither, therefore, do I have the right to tell him how to conduct his.
Humm. Interesting. What is the standard for morality?
Good point, but if I published something that wouldn’t be peer-reviewed, it’d be ignored these days…
Besides, Fermat didn’t upset an orthodoxy here, AFAIK.
It’s a trichotomy between Genesis 1, Genesis 2, and evolution :-)
What do you mean “would”? That dispute was settled in the 1860s and maybe 1870s. It’s over. It’s pushing up the daisies. It’s an ex-dispute.
And everyone in the First World — except for most Americans, most Turks, and most of Jehovah’s Witlesses — has noticed.
How do you blow a liar out of the water in a public debate? How do you blow someone out of the water who is not ashamed to use dishonest, bad-faith, unscientific tactics like the Gish Gallop? Being a scientist, Gotelli is shackled to the evidence, to physical reality, while Klinghoffer the cdesign proponentsist is free to argue whatever delusion he wants!
Such debates are never won by the better scientist, unless the better scientist happens to also be the better lawyer.
Klinghoffer’s dishonesty, it is important to mention (I’m repeating this for the maybe fourth time in this thread! Fucking read the whole thread before you add to it!), is already established: check out the top of Gotelli’s letter.
Half of them grave misunderstandings, the other half deliberate distortions (for example quote-mining).
Show us.
WTF? Where did you get that from???
When Gotelli wrote “you”, he mean the Disinformation Institute as a whole, not Klinghoffer personally, whose letter was explicitly written in his function as a DI spokesperson.
But which god?
And if there is no god at all, what do you do then?
I know it’s what American fundamentalists do all the time, but that still doesn’t make it logically valid. You simply can’t make an untested assertion and then base something on it. You have to test that assertion first.
How is my innate empathy, my innate altruism, “my own made-up set of personal values and morals“?
Here you go again with that unsubstantiated assertion! Show us He exists in the first place, and then we can talk.
1) Because it furthers my own long-term self-interest. It’s better to be everyone’s friend than to be considered (and treated as) an asshole.
2) Unsurprisingly, therefore, there’s natural selection against being an asshole. That’s where innate empathy comes from. “When I do good, I feel good. When I do bad, I feel bad. That’s my religion.” — Abraham Lincoln
That you have never tried doesn’t mean it’s impossible.
What consenting adults do in their bedrooms is not my business unless I’m one of them (…erm… not the bedrooms, I mean). Just don’t force me to watch. :-)
Just for the record, that may be true of many people, perhaps most even, but not all. I don’t think speeding proves something about my manhood or anything, so I don’t do it. I can’t see any fun in it; if anything, it’s scary. I might do it on a computer, but not in real life!
To be honest, I’ve done almost no driving so far, though. Never needed it. I also haven’t played a relevant computer game (ancient version of Need for Speed) for easily 5 years, probably more.
You mean you’d actually do that!?!
It’s possible to get addicted to anything. Why isn’t there a prohibition against addictions in general in the Bible? (In the Qur’ān there’s at least a prohibition against wine, which at least goes in that general direction…)
You act as if love wouldn’t exist without fear of God. That’s silly beyond belief. Is there no love among Hindus, Chinese, Japanese?
Define “atheistic country”. And then explain why your definition makes sense. :-)
If I get to define “atheistic country”, I’m with comment 1201, but you probably don’t want that :-)
Very good way to put it.
Carl Sagan said it, but I’m not sure if he invented it.
Great comment, Walton.
And besides… would you find it fun in the first place? I wouldn’t. I think rapists are sick and need treatment (assuming treatment is possible, which probably nobody has ever tried to find out…).
Most or all of it is probably disgusting anyway.
Jim M. (#1200):
Actually, I’d turn this right around – if morality cannot be defined apart from God, then morality is totally relative and meaningless. Basically, if morality is defined in terms of what God commands, then God could just as well have commanded something else – e.g., that murder, rape and theft were morally right. On this view, morality becomes entirely relative to the arbitrary whims of an unaccountable authority. And you can’t just claim that because God is good, he wouldn’t command anything of the sort, because in doing so you acknowledge morality as an independent standard for judging God – i.e., as something that can be defined independently of God’s commands.
And why is being moral better than being immoral? If that’s meant to be a moral question (i.e., why is it morally better?), then it is a meaningless request – you’re asking for a justification of a set of standards in terms of the very standards that you’re questioning. Any answer is guaranteed to be circular or question-begging. If instead that’s meant to be a pragmatic question, then the answer is obvious – a society governed by shared principles of behaviour that encourage co-operative action, the delayed satisfaction of desires and the minimising of harm is advantageous for all members of that society.
And by the same standard, God’s rules would be just as arbitrary and meaningless, something he made up for himself. In fact, because God is not a social being (i.e., one whose well-being depends on his interactions with a complex society of other beings like him), it would not be totally unexpected if his rules were even more arbitrary than those we invent for ourselves, because he is neither influenced nor constrained by the reality of social living.
Which is exactly the same basis on which public policy was formulated in Nazi Germany – by functionaries doing their best to please Hitler. I’m really not trying to Godwin the conversation – I’m just pointing out that as a basis for morality, this is every bit as flawed as doing good in the hope of reward or the fear of punishment.
The question is a loaded one, or at least badly framed – a hospital in an atheist country vs a Christian hospital? That’s not really comparing like with like. If the difference was solely in terms of the religious or non-religious views of the people staffing and managing the hospital, then in most cases there probably wouldn’t be any appreciable difference in the standards of care. However, on balance I’d probably choose the hospital run by atheists – that way I wouldn’t have to suffer being proselytised by chaplains, or having staff refusing perfectly legal procedures because they conflicted with their personal views.
I actually find it absurd that people hold the flagellum up as a sign of God’s involvement in mankind. It’s part of a bacteria, I can’t imagine anything more theologically irrelevant. The champion of God’s design in the world is a microscopic construction that helps certain bacteria in certain environments? ID advocates really are shooting themselves in the foot, you’d think the blood clotting would be something they championed more (it would be just as wrong but more relevant to humans)
I figured. For the record, I do distinguish between ID advocates and Christians in the sense that one is almost exclusively the other but not the other way around. ([almost] all ID advocates are Christian, but not all Christians are ID advocates) and even then there are still some very intelligent ID advocates. Though I find almost all of them either intellectually dishonest or ignorant in that all claims of ID were either scientifically invalid to begin with or have since been refuted. So no, I don’t think all Christians are morons. Given they are a majority population, it’s statistically impossible ;)
@ SEF [#1209],
Ah, yes, familiar with teh HTMLz, am I. I meant that I’d love to see the posts of known creobots automatically printed in ComicSans. So far, I think I’m a lone voice in the wilderness; but if PZ could edit the CSS code for this part of the Sb site (*hint, hint*), that dream would likely be possible.
Oh, and concerning the “Keep an open mind…” quote, I’ve always thought of James Randi as the originator, but it’s quite possible that I’m wrong on that. A comment on the JREF forum sheds a little more light on it:
http://forums.randi.org/showpost.php?p=3678007&postcount=12
It’s already possible to display blockquotes in Comic Sans…David Marjanović, the troll “Global Warming Is A Scam,” and, I want to say, Owlmirror do it all the time. (My talents lie, uh, elsewhere.)
IGNORE PREVIOUS MESSAGE
kthx
Nah, not when _I_ post a comment. What I mean is when a known _creobot_ (or any dungeon member) posts a comment, it shows up with ComicSans applied (and maybe a little wackaloon icon out to the side) — ideally, that is. Analogous to the desired result are the old disemvoweled comments (or maybe they were done manually?).
A simple example of such automatic formatting is when blog owners comment on Sb and get the dark gray bg. It seems like it would just be some simple CSS code edits — though I could be wrong about the simplicity of this, as I’ve not run a blog on Sb.
If successful, lulz would ensue, for sure.
too late.
Potholer54 [prominent atheist and scientist on youtube] admitting that intelligent design is real!!!
Dear Sastra,
Thanks for your feedback. You are correct – we do not have to win the hearts and minds of the American public. Even after years of brainwashing and presenting but one side of the issue, all polls confirm that the great majority of the American public still believe in creation and that the science (and only the science) of both sides should be presented to students so that they, rather than being brainwashed, can make up their own minds on creation v evolution. However, years ago when the evolutionists realized that the scientific facts were so against them and that they would lose if students like you were presented with the scientific facts, they turned to the courts and resorted to censoring the truth so as to keep students in the dark. You also suggest that we be willing to meet the internal objections of the skeptics. I’m more than willing to do so, but they have no scientific objections, they just call me names. The ‘usual channels’ aren’t open to us regardless of how good or cutting edge the science is. Remember that all the Fathers of the different disciplines of science (Newton, Farraday, Maxwell, Kepler, Agassi, Pasteur, etc). were all creationists when evolution was being promoted. As for a testable theory of some sort. A creationist, recognizing the superiority of a scientific law over a scientific theory, might propose that something could not come from nothing (the 1st LAW of Thermodynamics) or that things naturally, left to their own, would rust, rot, wear out, and fall apart (the 2nd LAW of Thermodynamics). They certainly won’t, all by themselves, get better – in either an open or a closed system. Evolutionists, on the other hand, propose just the opposite. This is a testable theory and you know enough science to know which side is vindicated, without exception.
Dear Zarquon,
I was impressed with your response calling me a “faud,” and “not a fit person.” What do you base that on? Is name calling the extent of your ability? You consider me “intellectually incompetent”? Do you not know what a prep school is, or an Ivy League college? I’m “full of lies” am I? Name one lie which I made and your justification. You claim that there is a “mountain of evidence in favor of evolution”? Name one bit of scientific evidence. You might find that harder than you think. Someday you will learn the condemnation without investigation is the height of stupidity.
Dear DaveL,
If you re-read more carefully my comments at #1193, you’ll see that I’m not an IDer. I’m a creationist. I can’t speak for ID research.
Hi again, Zarquon,
More name calling? Is that the extent of your ability? Is that how you fight truth? Now you are calling me “dishonest”? Why so? (Try to be specific)
Dear Patricia,
You must be a friend of Zarquon. Calling a person you don’t know a “dumbass”, “troll”, “idiot”, “fool”, and “moron” isn’t going to win you any arguments. Don’t worry about me getting fired. I’m on the college’s Board of Trustees. We’re the ones that do the firing.
Dear Anthony,
Win a lot of arguments by responding with “You’re wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong”?
The professor is not “pissed off having to address a long settled question” because he would never been able to and is fearful of trying. As for your supposition that my religious affiliations forced me to think that evolution can not be true, you’ve really got that wrong. By the time I had graduated from Dartmouth, I had learned more about evolution than most students are ever taught And when I actually checked the facts, I became a creationist. Only then did I wonder about who or what the Creator might be and that got me out of science and into theology. I finally figured out how to identify absolute Truth and ended up becoming a Christian. The scientific evidence impacted my faith, not visa-versa.
Dear Iain,
You must not be looking at the data base I recommended if you think it is small. It is the largest on creation science in the world. Why don’t you really take a look at AnswersInGenesis.org, ICR.org, or Evolution-Facts.com. It needn’t scare you. Apparently, you didn’t look at http://www.evolutionnews.org/2009/02/expelled_exposed_exposed_your.html
either. There is no harm in being open-minded and checking the facts.
To you all,
I shan’t respond to name calling any more but if you’d like to deal with real scientific facts, send a question my way and I’ll do my best
…Because Truth matters,
Nat
Are you high? Newton 1643 – 1727. Faraday 1791 – 1867. Maxwell 1831 – 1879. Kepler 1571 – 1630. Pasteur 1822 – 1895. Nevermind it wasn’t until the latter part of the 19th century when the theory of evolution first came to be (first presented 1858, Origin of Species published 1859) and most older scientists rejected the idea, nevermind that most the evidence for evolution has been found in the latter half of the 20th century, even if Albert Einstein rejected evolution it wouldn’t still make it any less valid. It’s valid because it’s the only theory that fits the evidence.
If you want ID to be considered a science, then answer the two questions I asked earlier. Just what did the designer do and how do we test for that? Without answering those, just how is ID a science?
Gee,the zombies are out in force today.
Jindal-imitating jeebus zombie @ 1226,
your thin veneer of civility and politeness can not hide the fact that under the cover is a lying distorting unscientific brainwashed creationist who wants to lie to children and promote bronze age mtyh over science.
You,Sir,are a danger to humanity.
The two questions I asked: http://kelosophy.blogspot.com/2009/02/two-questions-for-intelligent-design.html
Nat @1226:
1. That you claim there’s not a mountain of evidence shows you either lie or are wilfully obtuse.
2. You may believe that, I don’t.
You can, however, demonstrate your claimed erudition. I refer you to Sastra’s post @298. Which of the 14 points do you consider erroneous, and for what reason?
Kel said: “Nice comment Ed” in response to this next quote:
Ed said: “Christianity is based on faith, not scientific evidence.”
Then Kel said: “This reminded me of a piece from HHGTTG: (modified for IDers)
Now it is such a bizarrely improbably coincidence that anything so mindbogglingly useful [the Babel fish bacterial flagellum] could have evolved by chance that some thinkers have chosen to see it as a final and clinching proof of the non-existence of God.
The argument goes something like this: “I refuse to prove that I exist,” says God, “for proof denies faith, and without faith I am nothing.”
“But,” says Man, “the Babel fish bacterial flagellum is a dead giveaway isn’t it? It could not have evolved by chance. It proves you exist, and so therefore, by your own arguments, you don’t. QED”
“Oh dear,” says God, “I hadn’t thought of that,” and promptly vanishes in a puff of logic.”
My comments: Kel, Come on. Did you ever hear of the difference between PROOF and EVIDENCE?
Yes, it takes faith to believe in God, but there is a difference between blind faith and faith based on evidence. God doesn’t normally require blind faith.
Listen, you are a man of faith too. For instance, we all exercise faith every time we get in an airplane. We believe the plane to be kept in good condition. Usually it is, but we don’t check it out ourselves. We take the airline’s pledge that it is by faith. This is not blind faith. We have evidence of their past flying record and the experiences of other people who have flown to base our faith on.
Same thing with Christianity. A Christian does not have to close their eyes to all of the evidence and take a leap of faith to become a Christian. You will disagree, but in my mind, there is a lot of evidence to support the existence of God and Christianity in particular. That is one reason I still believe.
And come on y’all, even with evolution, there is no PROOF. You have facts that you interpret as evidence for your faith. We all look at the same facts and interpret them differently. Our respective worldviews color how we look at and interpret the evidence.
The evolutionist science writer Gordy Slack wrote this in What neo-creationists get right: An evolutionist shares lessons he s learned from the Intelligent Design camp [The Scientist, June 2008]
“Which leads me to a final concession to my ID foes: When they say that some proponents of evolution are blind followers, they’re right. A few years ago I covered a conference of the American Atheists in Las Vegas. I met dozens of people there who were dead sure that evolutionary theory was correct though they didn’t know a thing about adaptive radiation, genetic drift, or even plain old natural selection. They came to their Darwinism via a commitment to naturalism and atheism not through the study of science. They’re still correct when they say evolution happens. But I’m afraid they’re wrong to call themselves skeptics unencumbered by ideology. Many of them are best described as zealots. Ideological zeal isn’t incompatible with good science; its coincidence with a theory proves nothing about that theory’s explanatory power.”
Before that, he also said this:
“I think it is disingenuous to argue that the origin of life is irrelevant to evolution. It is no less relevant than the Big Bang is to physics or cosmology. Evolution should be able to explain, in theory at least, all the way back to the very first organism that could replicate itself through biological or chemical processes. And to understand that organism fully, we would simply have to know what came before it. AND RIGHT NOW WE ARE NOWHERE CLOSE. I BELIEVE a material explanation will be found, but that confidence comes from my FAITH that science is up to the task of explaining, in purely material or naturalistic terms, the whole history of life. My FAITH is well founded, but it is still FAITH.”
Wow, an honest evolutionist!
Please forgive me guys if I don’t have enough faith to believe that impersonal brainless atoms wrote their own software, blindly organized themselves into thousands of finely-tuned irreducibly complex micro machines that dwarf the best intelligent humans can conjure up, created a conscience and a sense of morality, created a self-consciousness, and trillions and trillions of time over the eons came up with enough timely lucky mutations to overcome the effects of harmful mutations.
Please forgive all us intellectually challenged lowlifes around the world who actually have the audacity to think that the exquisite intricate mind-blowing design we see in nature didn’t just happen by accident.
Please forgive us if we cannot muster up the strength to believe against astronomical odds in the miraculous creative powers of chance and luck.
Please forgive me if I don’t have enough faith to believe that the many finely-tuned laws of nature just happened, that all the necessary requirements for life just happened to come together on this planet, that matter is eternal, that everything we see just exploded out of nothing, or that there is dark energy and dark matter in this universe that we just can’t see yet. (It may be there or it might not. The only reason people believe it is there is to prop up their pet theories of the origin of the universe. I’ll become a believer in dark energy and dark matter when we find it. )
Again, the facts are the same. I’m sure you interpret these facts different than I do, but we both have faith.
I think intelligence best supports the evidence as do many many people from all walks of life in this world.
Is it really all that irrational?
If you had proof, that would be one thing, but as yet, that is still missing. You have faith that one day you will get that proof? Great! More power to you, but PROOF is one thing you do not have. You simply have evidence which you filter through your worldview and then base your faith on. You and I are the same.
But I guess I would fit into the moron category in your eyes simply because I happen to think outside the box of materialism. (When you can prove your ideas of materialism, come back and talk with me.)
Simply because I believe that intelligence is necessary to explain life and the world we live in, I’m classified as a moron. Fine, I happily wear that label! Not only do I honestly believe the evidence points that way, on top of that, it makes life so much more meaningful!
I’m sorry, the 1st Law of Thermodynamics is completely irrelevant to evolution, and of course, creationism contradicts it anyway. That won’t wash.
That is not what the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics says.
The 2nd Law of Thermodynamics says that heat will not spontaneously flow from a colder body to a warmer one or, equivalently, that total entropy (a measure of useful energy) in a closed system will not decrease. This does not prevent increasing order
Which is obvious to anyone who bothers to actually do the research.
Since you have no idea what the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics is, what you say about it doesn’t matter at all.
Yes. Evolution is indeed vindicated every time without exception.
Graduated with a degree in which field? Apologetics? Using psychoactive substances? Apologetics while under the influence of psychoactive substances?
Really! So since you know so much about evolution, please explain the human chromosome 2 synteny?
And which “facts” exactly led you to become a creationist?
Be clear, precise, and specific.
Really! Do tell.
So, since you know how to identify absolute Truth, maybe you could explain whether it is absolutely True that animals were created before man and woman, or if it is absolutely True that animals were created after man (but before woman).
Show all work.
What a coincidence! I happen to have an enormous database of imaginary facts, too! (Or am I imagining it?)
1231 wins the thread,for most logical fallacies in a single comment,and for worst-affected brain by religious indoctrination today.
Do you honestly think the faith we have in an airplane is the same as the faith we have in God? If needed, I can show how an airplane works. I can show the history of flight, and talk about the physical laws behind flight. And if nothing else I can show that time again time again a plane lifting off and landing at it’s specified destination. I’ve got damn good reason to believe that planes work. Whereas…
If you have evidence for god that is equivalent to the ability for a plane to fly, then go ahead and show it. I can show you a plane flying, hell you can go to an airport and see for yourself. Show me the evidence for God.
No, it obviously happened so God could spy on our sexual habits… it didn’t happen by accident, it happen by specified processes. Pick up a hammer then let go with it and see what happens. Does it do nothing? No. Does it stay where you were holding it? No. It falls to towards the earth. Why is that? Because of gravity. It’s a fundamental force, not an accident nor is it design. The hammer did not fall because you or anyone else willed it to, it fell because of the attractive nature of matter. The accident inference is a red herring. It didn’t happen by accident, it happened by set processes.
And you say you understand evolution… Evolution is a non-random process.
What finely-tuned laws? They are just laws and can be no other way. If they were some other way then we wouldn’t exist to talk about how the laws could be no other way. Fine-tuning is one of the most tautological statements for god out there, it boils down to “We exist, therefore God exists” which explains to us absolutely nothing.
More stars than grains of sand on our beaches, yet one planet exhibits the characteristics that give birth to life… you are anthropomorphising the universe. There are 400,000,000,000 stars in this galaxy alone, and from what we’ve observed planets seem to be a common occurrence. Do you honestly think that the entire universe was created all for one lifeform of about 6 million currently living (and billions extinct) on one planet which orbits one star of 400,000,000,000 in one of 100,000,000,000 galaxies? Now that’s being absurd.
JIm M:
So you’re pitiful, but happy. Fair enough.
Way I see it, the evidence shows that intelligence, so far as we know, comes from life – and how you figure the claim “there was intelligence before life” is supported by the evidence escapes me.
Anyway, good luck with your wishful thinking, and may the dissonance with reality be not too angsty to you.
Hang on to your fantasies while you can, the gaps your Creator lingers within are closing fast.
Of course, proof is a mathematical construct while evidence is the backbone of science. If you have evidence not only to support any god’s existence, but the current god you believe in, please present it.
OK guys, I’m on a roll here:
My original post: “Now, to give just one example, if I didn’t think there was a God, I’m sure I would be more liberal with my sexual practices. However, because I do, I do not fool around or use pornography even though I may be tempted to do so.”
Rey Fox: “What you consider “fooling around” may, in a different kind of relationship, be seen as simple sexual expression. Not everybody fits into the rigid monogamistic mold.”
My response: My point was that what Knockgoats calls moral may not really be moral in God’s eyes. When we have no way of determining what is moral or immoral, then this is exactly the disagreements that come up. The term moral and immoral become totally relative and meaningless.
My post: “For instance, let’s consider one sexual standard of the Bible. No fooling around when you are married. This includes thoughts in your mind and porn as well as literal action.”
Rey: What if you and your wife view porn together?
My answer: According to the Bible, all porn fits into the immoral category. God is holy and that is what He expects of us. None of us is holy and I sin in the sexual area just like the next guy because my mind and eyes wonder at times. But my goal is to be moral in this area because I love God and believe His ways are best.
My original post: “If it weren’t for the Bible, if I didn’t actually commit adultery, I certainly would freely look at other women and porn as well. ”
Rey: Alternatively, you and your wife could realize that harboring sexual thoughts is a natural thing and that “looking at other women” doesn’t mean that you would betray your wife’s trust or love her any less.
Response: We can rationalize anything if we want to. My wife realizes that men struggle with this more than women. We realize it is “natural” for humans to struggle with sin, but that doesn’t make it right.
My post: “Why is being moral better than being immoral?”
Rey: Because it makes the world a better and safer place for those who live in it. My morals come from the innate altruistic instincts of social animals and the efforts of ethical philosophers and other thinkers over the years that have hashed these things out and done their best to come up with the rules that best maximize the happiness of the most people. And I’m willing to bet that most of your morals come from that too.
My response: Rey, that sounds really great!! I’d like you to write that up and send it to me. I’d be interested to see the list. Why don’t we publish it for everyone to learn? That sounds like a good idea doesn’t it?
But seriously, tell me, why is it “moral” to maximize the happiness of the most people? Why is that a good thing? The Mafia don’t seem to think so.
By the way, is “maximizing the happiness of as many people as possible” an absolute standard by which we should evaluate our actions? You aren’t really advocating an absolute standard of morality are you now?
But, although it sounds wonderful, aren’t you being a bit dishonest here? Are you really trying to say that you actually are able to and actually do live up to even your own standard of morality?
That brings some questions to mind:
1) What is your definition of morality?
2) How do you know your definition is right? (Actually there can be no “right” definition of the word “moral” because morality is not absolute in your worldview, so again, we see that your use of the word moral is meaningless since it cannot be clearly defined.)
3) What percentage of the time do you have to follow your own standards to be able to honestly claim that you live a moral life even by your own standards? Over 50%? Over 60%? Over 90%? 100%?
4) What does it matter if you don’t live up to your arbitrary standards? What difference does it make if you live according to your own self determined moral standards 45% or the time as opposed to 55% or even 85% of the time? In the end, what does it really matter?
5) When you are dead and gone, what difference will it have made if you lived a “moral” life according to your own standards or an “immoral” life? In other words, why in the world does it actually matter how you live your life? For you, that is what you choose, but why is the mafia’s way of life any better or worse than yours, really? Is it simply that more people believe that than don’t? But really, what does it matter if you break them if they are nothing more than arbitrary man-made standards?
6) To put the same question another way, I will borrow a question from Pastor Tim Keller in New York. Let’s say you are on the Titanic and it is going down. You know you are going to drown. What difference does it make if you go down hugging someone or mugging someone? In 5 minutes you are going to be dead anyway. Our life is much less than 5 minutes when we compare it to eternity. What difference does it make in the grand scheme of things if we go down hugging or mugging?
Jim M, I’ve asked repeatedly for answers to two questions regarding intelligent design: what did the designer do and how can we test for that? These seem perfectly reasonable for any idea that is trying to enter the field of science. If you don’t have anything to support your idea, why should it be considered science?
It seems you are under the illusion that if evolution is not true then your god is a legitimate answer to the problem. It doesn’t work that way. Consider the hypothesis that all cars are red. Now if we find a car that is not red, it doesn’t make the hypothesis that all cars are blue any more true. You need to show evidence that demonstrates your god’s existence and involvement in life, not merely assert that evolution is impossible and think that your position is the default. Show evidence of your god!!! or at the very least show evidence that ID should be considered a science by answering the two questions above.
Okay, here’s a question. If you believed God didn’t exist, would you murder someone? Would you rape someone? If not, why not? i.e. is the only thing stopping you from raping / murdering another the threat of hell / the reward of heaven?
@ Jim on a roll,
to your questions 5 and 6 in the post above:
What an immoral nutjob do you have to be without your bronze age morality giving you direction,if you can actually ask BS questions like that.
Noone I know would have to think twice about answering those,in short,because every sane person with a conscience,atheist or not,will prefer hugging over mugging,as you put it.
Its a result of evolution.
Unless youre a sociopath.
B Brigade said: “****, I long for the ComicSans when reading such mindless garbage as Jim M. has just spewed forth. I’ll just pluck this random sample and respond to it, and it alone:
“Wisdom alone tells us that God’s laws are good for all.”
Like this one?
“Thou shalt not wear a garment of divers sorts, as of woolen and linen together.” – Deut. 22:11
Well, guess what? I’m [queue Judas Priest] breakin’ the law, breakin’ the law!
And I’m doing just fine, thanks.
MY REPLY: B Brigade, thanks for interacting with my post, I think. Perhaps I can clear up a misunderstanding you seem to have.
I think you misunderstand the reason for certain laws, namely the ceremonial laws, that were given to the Jews in the OT. They are not meant for you and me to follow. There were some laws that were not necessarily moral issues, but were given for the purpose of setting them apart from the surrounding nations so it would be clear that they were set apart by God.
Relax! You are NOT breaking the law by not wearing that stuff! Glad you are fine, too, but is it really necessary to mock?
Now, I do admit that there were some moral laws too that were in effect for the Israelites back then that seem hard to understand. Many of these are applications of moral principles to specific situations and it is hard for us to fully understand them since we were not living back then.
But, be that as it may, Jesus fulfilled the law and today we are free from all those laws. The two greatest commandments are to love God with all our heart, mind, soul and strength. And to love our neighbor as ourself.
Imagine how wonderful the world would be if we only were able to love each other!!!
From Dawkins:
I’m fully in agreement with Dawkins on this. You may call it faith, but quite simply flight works according to a set of physical principles as derived by the scientific method. Just like the computer you are posting this on, just as the theory of evolution has been derived. I fully admit that I don’t know everything about the computer, yet I make my living off it (I’m a programmer by trade) and I know that it needs absolute precision to perform the billions of calculations it does a second. Yet it relies on the counter-intuitive science of quantum mechanics in order to work. This precision, this complexity, only possible by our understanding of the laws of science. You want to call it faith? fine. I call it what works, and I can demonstrate that these laws of nature continue to work through evidential and logical means. What do you have Godboy?
And what does that have to do with us being related to the chimpanzee?
Jim M:
Yeah, John Lennon urged us to.
Then someone murdered him.
Not only someone, but a fundamentalist Christian!
So, according to this logic, homosexuality is not a sin. I am so relieved.
Or, god needed Jews to dress different then others in order to stand out. Following a different religion was not enough?
Methinks you are playing the pick and choose game with your holy book.
Because if you are not perfect, you are doomed.
KG: Right. Because God is cruel.
JIM M: No you misunderstand God. Because God is holy and hates sin. And because God is just, He must judge sin in order not to violate His own character.
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But that is why Jesus came. Cause he paid our debt. And he paid it for ALL of us!
KG: If it’s truly “paid for ALL”, then I don’t have to do anything.
Jim M: Yes and No. He tells us that Jesus’ righteousness is given to us only when we believe. Here is an illustration. Let’s say you are eating at a restaurant and have eaten some really expensive stuff. You ate the food so of course, you are responsible to pay for it. But the manager makes an announcement that there are coupons for a free meal provided by someone. He has offered to pay the bill. The money is already in an account ready to be accessed if it is needed. You have a choice. Will you believe the manager, take the coupon, and use it to pay your bill or will you struggle to pay your own bill? Jesus has the money to pay for your bill in an account ready to be accessed. If you believe and turn in the coupon, that money will take care of your bill. If not, you will be responsible for that bill yourself. Fair enough, wouldn’t you say? You don’t deserve to have your bill paid to begin with. It is simply a gift of God’s grace.
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And if we just believe this, that GOD (yep – that mean old guy), that GOD died on a cross so we would not have to go to hell! Wow! He loves us that much that he DOES NOT want us to go to hell.
KG: If God doesn’t want us to go to hell, God won’t send us to hell.
JIM M. No, again you misunderstand. God is just and MUST punish sin. Not to do so would be wrong and God cannot sin. He is bound by His own nature to punish sin. He can’t simply ignore our sin. And like the previous poster said, it is BECAUSE He doesn’t want us to be separated from Him for eternity, because He loves you, that He made it possible to have YOUR bill paid.
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KG: And God could not possibly have “died” for real. Jesus had a bad weekend, then was alive again.
JIM M: Jesus was literally man and God and He experienced physical death like you and I. Why does the fact that He came back to life 3 days later invalidate His death? He conquered death and because He did, we too have that same hope.
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KG: Calvinists would say that God regenerated you. Well, until God regenerates us, we are doomed to unbelief — and thus, doomed to hell. Because God damns and saves according to his whim.
Jim M: If Calvinism is true, then yes, God decides. But you don’t know if you are chosen or not. He still says “Whosever will call on the name of the Lord will be saved.” Regeneration is not just something that happens all of a sudden. If you do not seek to know the truth and respond to the light He has given you so far, that will never happen.
And I could add that God is not responsible to save anybody when it comes down to it. If we sinned, we all deserve whatever punishment is required. Rebellion against the Lord of the Universe is a serious sin. Like it or not, God says that the penalty for sin is death. God could rightly just send us all to hell. The fact that any of us are saved is simply due to His grace and goodness. Calvinism is not the only theology in Christendom, but if it is true, I would have trouble accepting it as an unbeliever, so I hear what you are saying. We finite humans will never be able to fully understand an infinite and holy God and His ways.
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If this is something you secretly want – you can pray for it.
KG: Right. Because I secretly want to believe that God will torture me forever and ever unless I pray to him.
JIM M: No, because you want to know the truth. The truth is not always what we want it to be. I would assume that if you were convinced that this is true, you would believe rather than consciously choose eternal separation from God. Look, we are finite and cannot completely understand God, but He promises to reveal Himself to those who seek Him.
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Even if you think it is silly to pray, just try.
KG: “Dear God, please bring your fan club to their senses. Thanks, an atheist.”
JIM M: Now that was silly!
The two greatest commandments are to love God with all our heart, mind, soul and strength. And to love our neighbor as ourself.
Last I checked, the second verse is an OT teaching. Don’t you mean “Love one another as I have loved you”?
As for this line:
“In 5 minutes you are going to be dead anyway. Our life is much less than 5 minutes when we compare it to eternity. What difference does it make in the grand scheme of things if we go down hugging or mugging?”
If I lived my life making a positive difference to the people around me, what is there to regret. Either that, or I’d be busy finding a way to fight off the hypothermia and sharks.
Isn’t it pitiful that the people who urge love and condemn violence (e.g, Lennon, Martin Luther King, Ghandi) frequently get murdered?
Please stop preaching Jim M, no-one here gives a shit whether you can reconcile cruelty in this world with a loving god. Rather the topic on hand is intelligent design, so demonstrate that ID should be considered a science or please go away.
@Feynmaniac
Ironically, Ghandi’s willingness to be beaten/arrested by the police has proven to me he’s got a bigger set of balls than the likes that Robertson, Falwell, Limbaugh, or any other right wingnut will ever have in their lifetime.
So I see Jim M has switched from professing creationism to apologising goddism.
…
Nat [#1226],