what faith you

mephibosheth
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what faith you

 

You can't prove there isn't a God. You believe it - I believe you are sincere - but that's your faith. You can't prove it.

 

I believe there is a God. I believe He designed, made the world and everything in it. I believe the sun, moon, stars, and penguins show great design - just to name a couple.

I think you guys have more faith than I do when it comes to believing preposterous stuff. My hat's off to your great faith - it's just illogical faith to me.

Man could not even make one acorn or one bee - this is evident to you guys. You can't explain magnetism or gravity - yet you think there was no designer? Great faith I say.


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KSMB wrote: You accuse


KSMB wrote:
You accuse atheists of inflated ego?! You're the one so pathetic you have to invent a god who cares for you. Claiming to have a personal relationship with the creator of the universe should be used as the definition of inflated ego. The sheer arrogance in claiming such a thing is mindboggling. Then you have the audacity to accuse us of the very thing that characterizes your own claim? How utterly dishonest and arrogant can you get?

 

 

 

KSMB,

 

 

 

It's not arrogance on my part, it's the amazing humility of God the Father coming down that low.

Look at how the arrogance of the world is destroyed from the start: the King of Kings born in a barn. That should make the juices of rebel hippies flow with delight! He didn't even carry money. He didn't have a house. He didn't have a portfollio. He didn't have a retirement plan. He didn't have hardly any carbon footprint. All the things men trust in are turned upside down.

He would have washed your feet - the Creator of the Universe! Yet you are so rebellious you won't even look at the brass serpent lifted up so you won't die. Think of facing your own ignorance in that for all eternity - that worm won't die. Even now you could repent and God would totally forgive you. He has demonstrated how low His scoop has come for you. You just have to allow yourself to be scooped.

 

 

Mephibosheth (I've been scooped)

 

 

 

 

 


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Quote: He would have

Quote:

He would have washed your feet - the Creator of the Universe! 

Actually, KSMB is correct. Mathematically, we can demonstrate this is probabalistically impossible. Here, I shall show you:

Religion and False Anthropocentricism

If you need an incentive to open that link, it has some quite nice pictures. 

 

Quote:

Even now you could repent and God would totally forgive you. He has demonstrated how low His scoop has come for you. You just have to allow yourself to be scooped.

As I have stated before, I need only good evidence, and I shall accept the proposition you put forward. Without it...I shall reject it. This is how epistemic rights work. However, you are implicitly stating that we should reject this and instead have faith. The notion of "faith" is nonsense. It is a rejection of epistemology and is hence philosophically absurd and nonsensical. 

"Physical reality” isn’t some arbitrary demarcation. It is defined in terms of what we can systematically investigate, directly or not, by means of our senses. It is preposterous to assert that the process of systematic scientific reasoning arbitrarily excludes “non-physical explanations” because the very notion of “non-physical explanation” is contradictory.

-Me

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Venkatrajan
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Archeopteryx I thought this

Archeopteryx

I thought this thread is ending , but I guess we have to reply.

Quote - No one is necessarily trying to get rid of religion altogether, although we wouldn't be opposed to that. We're just fighting it because it gives itself privileges it doesn't deserve  

Mighty objective this.  Maybe you will have to leave the planet in frustration. Secondly , you are almost giving a personality to religion and that it accords itself something. It is like a criminal standing in court and saying the Judge doesnt deserve respect.  You know what happens to the criminals and those who have contempt for the court.

 Quote  Don't confuse our rejection of religions with our motives for being here. Do we believe in a god? No. Does that mean we went religion to go away completely? Not necessarily, but it would be all the same to us. You're just trying to apply the word "fundamentalist" so that you can say the we're just as irrational as you are.

 By saying all this, you appear confused and also your motives look confused.  Somewhere you say you dont believe in god, but write pages and pages about God or God's non existence , whereas none here really asked your opinion about God's existence or not.   Further this "rational" divide has become a big joke. The best LOL in this and other threads.  "Rational" or "rational person" etc seems  to be a euphemism for the atheist who is infact proving to be quite a egotist. 

 In our dictionary , therefore now Rational means egotist, faithful to the scientific cause, high school debaters. Meth was very poetic about it in one of his posts regarding a valley of flock under a starlit sky  etc.

Quote - Because we know you can't back up your claims, and we want you to realize that before you make them. But you don't do this. And that is frustrating.

 I am not in the least interested to backup 'claims' to closed minds. Minds which look into the world through the senses which offers little perception. Man I am sorry, you lack intuition totally.  Maybe god made you that way. 

And "frustrating". You are "frustrated, irritated, angry , antagonized" because you choose to get so . Try to be strong willed. "Steel yourself in a debate" as DG said once.

 

Quote - It is pretty fun crushing theists in debates. Primarily because it's so easy most of the time. But don't assume that that is our motivation for debating. It's very fun, yeah, but we've got better reasons than that. If you want to know, ask. =)

 

Again your confusion worries me further. Meth - What can remove this confusion ?

 Quote - We would love it if you gave it up, that much is true. But if you don't give it up, we won't care. Will we think it's a bad idea for you to persist in your belief

 Not quite subtle about your motives, are you. Well egotist, I am happy you are an atheist, I can live with it , love you also. I dare say the same is reciprocated. (Which is what I said to KSMB). So you also need to say thrice a day what I told you.

Quote -We are very happy people

 

 Yes Happy as in  crushing Theists in debate (as you admitted in the post), happy as in using scum language and happy as in high school debating.  Can we have positive reasons ?

 

Let me tell you.

You dont insult others, you insult yourself

You dont defeat others, crush others, you crush yourself

because we are all the same inside and outside. You see an objective world through your senses as yourself and myself as two separate objects. But the essence is absolutely same.  The two objects or rather multitude of objects that you see and therefore develop prejudice, hatred, relationship, just about everything, is nothing but a single entity, on a cosmic scale.  (In effect while I chastise you, I chastise myself also). However you are not lucky or ordained to realize this truth. So set aside the negatives and reach out lovingly for all around regardless of their god belief.

And I really feel , this thread has run its course. We made a statement you are faithful. Though you proved on umpteen times, you refute it as passion only, which also I accepted in one of the threads, so fairly end of story. No but it seems debate must go one as DG said "for hitherto unexplained reasons, I am replying".

 

 

 

 

 

I am looking for Atheists to increase my belief in God


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mephibosheth

mephibosheth wrote:
jcgadfly wrote:

Croc,

Meph may have something different on this but based on his posts he may just hold to the common christian thought that he is worthless without his Christ and took that name because the original character considered himself worthless until David adopted him into the royal family.

 

 

 

 

 

jcgadfly,

We have a winner on part A. I am worthless without my Christ. Thanks for your honest assessment of that. My goal would be all Christ esteem and rid of self esteem.

As for the other caller, never heard of the Meph group. I chose as a metaphor for being crippled by sin, restored by grace, allowed to eat at the King's table.

My peace is built on what Jesus allowed - the Perfect Lamb sacrificed on the tree. If He had just come and announced forgiveness we would have eventually questioned, "where is justice" but on the Cross we see God didn't treat sin lightly - yet He paid the price Himself. We connect to this with faith in Jesus, the only door to God.

Jesus took the sins of all that accept Him and annihilated them. He no longer has them (at the throne of God) nor do I. I can honestly say, "I have sinned" and just as honestly "I am forgiven" - based on the sacrifice I see there of the Perfect Lamb of God. There is no flaw in the sacrifice. He's perfect.

Without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sin, so the price will either be paid by Jesus if you accept it or if not then by you.

And I see God's love and mercy in Christ crucified. He wants us that bad.

We have some time to sort that out. If we pass this up because we are tricked or want the favor of man or want to be in contempt of God's court the regret of that will be a worm that will never die in eternity.

Because the biggest problem of life is solved in Christ I can live this moment without regret of past or fear of future. Since spiritual pain is worse than any other on earth, what is there to fear from man when I have real peace with God?

This peace is not the result of my own system of righteousness or a feeling or the chirping agreement of others, it is real peace with God settled in God's court. I pled totally guilty and was totally forgiven.

For more information on this see the inspired essay of Paul: Romans 1 - 2

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mephibosheth (peace in this world or the next)

 

Why does every Christian talk about how good Jesus is and then go to Paul for the details?

The Jesus of the Gospels and the Christ Paul describes are different enough (accoding to my reading) to be considered two different characters. Paul tried to connect God to his Christ-concept and the Gospel writers tried to personaliza Paul's Christ by adding some Jesus tales but neither does it well.

"I do this real moron thing, and it's called thinking. And apparently I'm not a very good American because I like to form my own opinions."
— George Carlin


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First of all,

First of all, Venkatrajan... why are you suddenly jumping on something I said further back in the thread?

Was there a reason you purposely went back looking specifically for something I said so that you could attack it?

Was it because you were annoyed that I defended KMSB?

Be honest now!

 


Quote:

 

Quote - No one is necessarily trying to get rid of religion altogether, although we wouldn't be opposed to that. We're just fighting it because it gives itself privileges it doesn't deserve  

Mighty objective this.  Maybe you will have to leave the planet in frustration. Secondly , you are almost giving a personality to religion and that it accords itself something.

Actually, it is very objective. Religions do give themselves privileges they don't deserve.

The two biggest problems I have with religion: 1) Censorship, 2) saturation of government with religious viewpoints when the government is supposed to be disestablishmentarian.

 I'm not giving a personality to religion, I'm just claiming that it does bad things. I concede that it's possible to practice a religion in an acceptable and non-dangerous/non-troublesome way. This would involve the ability to bend in the face of challenges from science, and the ability to admit uncertainty and subjectivity, though.

You and Meph have not demonstrated that you can do that.

Quote:

 It is like a criminal standing in court and saying the Judge doesnt deserve respect.

No, it's not like that at all. First of all, I wasn't saying religion doesn't deserve respect (even though it doesn't), I was saying that it doesn't deserve the priveleges it gives itself.

Secondly, why do you equate my position with "criminal" and your position with "judge"? That doesn't scream of bias or stereotyping at all! [/sarcasm]

Quote:

You know what happens to the criminals and those who have contempt for the court.

Blah blah blah.... believe in my religion or else... blah blah.... silly threats that don't prove anything.... blah.

Oh, you were done? Okay. Moving on.

 

Quote:

 By saying all this, you appear confused and also your motives look confused.  Somewhere you say you dont believe in god, but write pages and pages about God or God's non existence , whereas none here really asked your opinion about God's existence or not.   Further this "rational" divide has become a big joke. The best LOL in this and other threads.  "Rational" or "rational person" etc seems  to be a euphemism for the atheist who is infact proving to be quite a egotist.

If I sounded confused, it's probably just because it made you feel confused. I wasn't confused at all. I know exactly what I mean.

Very few atheists will claim total certainty about the nonexistence of God. However, we can make endless arguments showing how the existence of such a god is so incredibly unlikely that it may as well be accepted as a fact that he doesn't exist.

If I don't believe in a god, I reject religions. I don't deny others the right to religions, but I deny them the right to indoctrinate children, censor opposing views, and make political decisions based on those religions when there is no actual basis for the truth of those religions.

How is this not pertinent?

We don't claim rationality because we're egoists. Check this out:

I don't know everything, and I am very happy to admit it. 

Does that sound like the egoist you were thinking of? We claim rationality because we use rational arguments. Especially objective arguments from science. Arguments for religion tend to use subjective woo-woo and to completely misuse or lie about science. That is where the "rationality" comes in.

Are there rational theists? Sure! But if they're not being rational, we're going to tell them so. 

 

Quote:

 In our dictionary , therefore now Rational means egotist, faithful to the scientific cause, high school debaters. Meth was very poetic about it in one of his posts regarding a valley of flock under a starlit sky  etc.

Remember that thing I said about theists frequently saying things that aren't true? Here is the actual definition of "rational" : 

 

ra·tion·al      /ˈræʃənl, ˈræʃnl/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[rash-uh-nl, rash-nl] Pronunciation Key - Show IPA Pronunciation –adjective

1.agreeable to reason; reasonable; sensible: a rational plan for economic development.
2.having or exercising reason, sound judgment, or good sense: a calm and rational negotiator.
3.being in or characterized by full possession of one's reason; sane; lucid: The patient appeared perfectly rational.
4.endowed with the faculty of reason: rational beings.
5.of, pertaining to, or constituting reasoning powers: the rational faculty.
6.proceeding or derived from reason or based on reasoning: a rational explanation.
7.Mathematics.
a.capable of being expressed exactly by a ratio of two integers.
b.(of a function) capable of being expressed exactly by a ratio of two polynomials.
8.Classical Prosody. capable of measurement in terms of the metrical unit or mora.
–noun
9.Mathematics. rational number.

 

 Do you see anything in there about "egotists" or "high school debators" ?

Do you see anything in there about anyone following a leader or behaving like lemmings or like a flock?

Meph's "poetry" was not only terrible, but it demonstrated just as much ignorance and close-mindedness as you just did.

Of course, you won't understand how that is.

 

Quote:

 I am not in the least interested to backup 'claims' to closed minds. Minds which look into the world through the senses which offers little perception. Man I am sorry, you lack intuition totally.  Maybe god made you that way.

You're not interested in backing up your claims, and yet you insist on believing them? And you're calling ME closed-minded?

Please, you're making me laugh. It's ludicrous. Really.

Psychology calls this "projection".

 

Quote:

And "frustrating". You are "frustrated, irritated, angry , antagonized" because you choose to get so . Try to be strong willed. "Steel yourself in a debate" as DG said once.

I only get frustrated when I find myself arguing with a person who is unable to grasp or accept the simplest of concepts and who spouts ignorance in every other sentence they write.

I've had good discussions with theists. I've been having a very civil and enjoyable debate with one "Eloise" over the Adam & Eve story lately.

I only get frustrated with persistently ignorant theists. 

 

Quote:

Not quite subtle about your motives, are you. Well egotist, I am happy you are an atheist, I can live with it , love you also. I dare say the same is reciprocated. (Which is what I said to KSMB). So you also need to say thrice a day what I told you.

I have no problem saying I love theists just as much as I love atheists. I have two parents, a sister, and a brother in law who are theists. I have plenty of friends who are theists. I love them all. If I were to meet you in person, I would treat you with all the respect I would anyone else.

However, this forum is about ideas. I think theistic ideas are silly, unreasonable, and irrational. I would say the same thing to any of my theist friends who I also happen to love.

In short, it's not about hate.

 

Quote:

Yes Happy as in  crushing Theists in debate (as you admitted in the post), happy as in using scum language and happy as in high school debating.  Can we have positive reasons ?

Crushing theists in debates is fun! But again, it's not about hate.

Atheists are happy for all the reasons a person can be happy. They love their family and their friends, they are content with where they are in life, they are making goals and achieving goals, they are infusing their lives with purpose. They just don't need god for it, and passionate atheists (the ones you'll likely find here) are very happy to point that out.

 

Quote:

Let me tell you.

You dont insult others, you insult yourself

You dont defeat others, crush others, you crush yourself

because we are all the same inside and outside.

Uh, yeah. We are. Some of us hold some crazy beliefs that need a dose of reality though.

I passionately disagree with arguments that argue for god, but that does not mean I hate the arguer.

Shirtless bear hugs can be arranged for any who doubt.

 

Quote:

You see an objective world through your senses as yourself and myself as two separate objects. But the essence is absolutely same.

 What is this "essence"?

No two people are exactly alike in anything but the fact that they are both human. "Human" is an abstraction. It doesn't imply any "essence". 

 

Quote:

  The two objects or rather multitude of objects that you see and therefore develop prejudice, hatred, relationship,

No hatred for my fellow man.

Quote:
 

just about everything, is nothing but a single entity, on a cosmic scale.

Oh, okay, so you're pantheistic or some kind of transcendentalist then? Do we have any reason to believe this position is true, or are we just supposed to accept whatever you say without really thinking about it?

Quote:
 

(In effect while I chastise you, I chastise myself also).

So... you're technically also an atheist. Cool. Welcome aboard.

Quote:
 

However you are not lucky or ordained to realize this truth. So set aside the negatives and reach out lovingly for all around regardless of their god belief.

Venk, I have no reason to believe that you are not a very cool and respectable person.

But your belief in god is what I see no reason to respect, just as I see no reason to respect a belief in Santa Claus. Do I still love and respect people who do? Of course! I'm an uncle! I'm surrounded by children who think Santa is the man. I think this is silly. I don't tell them because they are children. But when they grow older, I will be happy to do so.

It's the belief that is under attack around here. Not so much the people themselves.

If someone calls you and idiot for your belief or your persistence in that belief, that is probably the only sense in which they mean it.

 To sum up:

To people deserve love? Always.

Do people deserve respect? Only so long as they continue to prove they deserve it. 

Do religious beliefs deserve love and respect?

No one says it better than Pat Condell:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WPAC_cGVnUg

 

Respect to you, but not to god. Cheers.

A place common to all will be maintained by none. A religion common to all is perhaps not much different.


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Quote:

Quote:

I am not in the least interested to backup 'claims' to closed minds.

You do realize what an ass you reveal yourself to be by doing this. It reveals your education in epistemology is nil.

1) The idea that a claim should requiring "backing up" is close minded is a stolence concept fallacy

2) The phrases "faith in science" and "faith in reason" refute themselves.

3) "Intuition" is not a valid epistemilogical model

4) "Faith" which you wear on your sleeve, is a rejection of epistemology, and hence the holding of your position means you are outside your epistemic rights. From a position of knowledge claims about the universe, you have no right to hold your positions unless you can fulfill the requirements

5) Why do you continue to make a personality claim about me which I have already refuted in a post you ignored? This is the same tactic as Meph...to the letter. You two would be great fuck buddies.

6) Why do you continue to make a linguistic and emotional/loaded fallacy against materialism whnich I have already refuted?

7) Please acknowledge the rules, you charlatan: Proposition, rebuttal, refutation, counterrefutation.

If you cannot grasp these principles then you are simply not ain a position where you have the right to have such discussion. So leave. I want to have a discussion with you, but not when your posts are so utterly ridiculous and so utterly lacking in argument and substance that they are in essence merely whining.

"Physical reality” isn’t some arbitrary demarcation. It is defined in terms of what we can systematically investigate, directly or not, by means of our senses. It is preposterous to assert that the process of systematic scientific reasoning arbitrarily excludes “non-physical explanations” because the very notion of “non-physical explanation” is contradictory.

-Me

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Venkatrajan
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  Archeopteryx and DG  

 

Archeopteryx and DG

 

Archeopteryx

 

Glad to note that an atheist admitting following (First  statement still reflects a wavering mind though ):-

 

1. “I wasn’t saying religion doesn’t deserve respect (even though it doesn’t)”

2.  “Very few atheists will claim total certainty about the nonexistence of God”  (Are you part of the very few ?)

3. “I have no problem saying I love theists just as much as I love atheists”

4. “I concede that it's possible to practice a religion in an acceptable and non-dangerous/non-troublesome way.” ( Why do you concede , did you believe this from start or is just a recent realization)

  

Archeopteryx - Agree you are not a criminal (the criminal/judge analogy).

 

Archeopteryx - I further gather you state quite clearly that you have no reason to disrespect me , since I am a theist. Fine.  You also say in your post that it is the belief that is under attack and not the person.  But the usage of words , adjectives  employed by you , DG and others for me and Meth  are  not exactly lending credibility to this assertion.   Magilum called me a reptile , used four letter words with reference to my mother also.  You may see the rest of the thread from other postors, there are some more instances.  So I gather you mean that all the adjectives are only aimed at the belief , whereas you guys love me dearly as you would your closest friend.

 

But again usage of  words gets me to think, what happens to an Atheist whose views don’t get accepted.   It seems to follow that there are a collection of Atheists who throw Science , evidence , debate rules etc. When those don’t get accepted , they throw Psychology .  They also resort to usage of  insults , taunts , verbal violence.  Seems a bit  primitive though all this.  So leads me to conclude that you guys are egotists,  faithful or can I say deeeeeeeply passionate but completely rational and therefore having absolute rights to use any level of language,  strongly influenced by a negative emotion which leads you to the rightful desire to crush theists in debates as you say.  Ok Fine Guess you are perfectly normal , rational, honest , straight if you have these in your club.  I Guess I am not suitably qualified to understand the sense of normalcy , sense of communion and mental justifications and satisfactions behind such gestures and behaviours.  

  

Quote – I think theistic ideas as silly , unreasonable and irrational.

 

I think exactly otherwise and feel your atheistic ideas are a justifications arising of a mind and body steeped only in Science and logic.  Why ? Because feel these two tools are   ineffective to explain final truths about ourselves or for that matter a lot more.

  

Also I  note that you seem to have gone a bit out of the way to proclaim that you have friends and relatives whom you love and that you don’t really mind religion being around (though you don’t mind it being kicked out also), that you really love theists , though you feel they are dishonest and that they are idiots.  Guess so you love these idiots dearly as you love your intelligent club members.

  

DG Quote “Great fuck buddies”

 

DG -  No amount of irritation should result into bad language.  Use  of bad language indicates only hatred  (a product of a damaged and wounded ego) .   Cant you converse and “debate” without getting upset or using bad language ?  Guess your debate rules allow usage of bad language as a type of attempt to gain temporary domination and intimidation. A prolific technique indeed here.  I see many people raising the passion in the interaction using bad words, insults and taunts to try to gain some kind of  moral and psychological advantage. Usually these arise when one or some very basic principle of theirs gets invalidated inside them (mostly subconsciously ) , the ego rushes out in an attack mode with vicious words, in face to face debates, this could take finally shape of physical violence also.   I am inclined to believe that If I were to debate you face to face, you could  resort to crass violence .  I guess you need to evolve and mature.

 DG Quote  - It reveals your education in epistemology is nil. 

This statement of yours could possibly lead to the complete invalidation of the entire knowledge and research that you claim to have or inherently believe to know.  It is better for your ego according to me if you don’t proceed on this course. Your ego, your personality , everything you bitterly and dearly believe in could come to nought if you try to talk about epistemology .   But since you have raised it in complete awe of yourself and your ‘cutting edge knowledge’ , I guess I need to make a small beginning. What is epistemology ? We can take a basic Yahoo dictionary definition  which says it is “ The branch of philosophy that studies the nature of knowledge, its presuppositions and foundations, and its extent and validity.”  Meaning how does one get knowledge , how does one validate it inside.

 

DG – Your knowledge is based on human senses as a source, since you trashed intuition sometime back.  What we see, what we touch , what we smell, what we taste , what we hear. To this sensory experience we add , thoughts from our intellect and construct theories, which are further proved by observations by senses and induction/deduction etc.

But therein lies an issue overlooked by most of us.   Every thought  from our intellect has to first pass a basic test and justify to our mind our own body objectivity which we take for granted .  Is this assumption true ? We assume this to be true and from this follows all our so called knowledge which we hold to be the truth and happening in front of us.

 

By objectivity, I mean the seeming separation of us the subject or the knower to the observable object of knowledge or the knowable.  This is not there for a new born child, which doesn’t see objects when it is born, but soon the conditioning of environment around and the ego traps us into a standard life form which can only perceive all objects as separate from us . By the time we are few years old, we are very well unable to shake off this illusion, due to which we end up assuming that all knowledge there is is about certain objects that lie outside us and the truth about this comes to us as due from our  senses/ observations only.

 

However fortunately there are few profound philosophers who had to crush their ego and  their objective  mindset  to think deeply at these very aspects which are so dearly ingrained into human beings. They further questioned the validity and realized the invalidity of the presumptions.   

 

The first thing that struck them was what is the link between a subject and an object which gets converted to perception and therefore knowledge.  Why cant a rock recognize and know another rock when it sees one nearby ? Why cant the keyboard underneath my finger move away so as to avoid the tap of the finger ?  The link is consciousness or conscious.  Rocks and the keyboard dont have a conscious seemingly. We have a conscious which enables us to perceive things around us.   The rays of light play a role in this process. Further to perceive the way we perceive , we have to spot differences from us. Eg if you were to perceive an object , if it has no differences with you and the intermediate ether or air, you cannot perceive the same.  Thus the object that you perceive has to have differences and there has to be an element or entity which has to know both the subject and the object , so that it knows the differences and thus result into perception. The common element or entity is conscious.  

 

In a dark room with no illumination , you cant see very objectively. But when a bulb lights up, you start seeing the difference and therefore perceive and gather knowledge. The Self conscious plays the role of the bulb in the universe.

 

The first argument is that human conscious is a property of the brain/ mind. How can it be the all knower of all there is ? Wrong  assumption and argument . Why ? For this, you have one of the answers in evolution which you seem to understand very well.  There were first beings without brain and therefore mind . Subsequently there were beings with brain/mind. So if conscious is a property of the brain/mind , does this mean that the primitive beings were without conscious . Impossible, since they had survival instinct and due to which they evolved to get favourable traits which got propogated also.  Without a consciousness at the most primitive level, the organism wouldn’t have been aware of itself and thus wouldn’t have known that it had to survive and therefore propagate its existence.  Therefore the minutest being has a conscious and reacts to the environment, gathers knowledge about the surroundings. This knowledge it uses to survive.

 

So conscious is not a property of brain/mind.  Where did this conscious come from ? How did it get introduced to inanimate matter ? or is it the reverse , did inanimate matter first arise from conscious ?

 

The people who have contemplated on this and realized that the Self conscious is the all pervading supreme universal cosmic self and is the cause of everything , it is in everything (it is in the rock also, which only doesn’t react by the way) only.  This realization comes to those who are willing to do following :-

 
  1. Crush the human ego
  2. Cut down all thoughts and desires , since desire is the result of an objective world. We see something , we become judgemental . The mere seeing the way we see establishes a relationship which gets translated into basic desires (Desire to see it , judge it , assign property and attribute to it , create theories about it , it goes on and on)
  3. Contemplate profoundly on this aspect in isolation (Meditation is a way)
  

There are tons and tons of further theory behind this (What I give to you as explanation is a very very miniscule portion, probably a small para among a million  pages ) , which you need to seek out and study after shaking off what you hold to be true. What you hold to be true knowledge is an illusion dear. The objective illusion.  So go for true knowledge ie the final truth about ourselves. . Where do you get this true knowledge ? Are there any practitioners ?  Is there any literature backing this (Since you don’t believe anything which I say and will want proof) . Search it out , this is extremely well researched , proven by intuition  , experience and self realization. I leave those efforts to you as of now. You may trash this or go for it, choice is always yours. I leave you with the following.  “Tat Tvam Asi”

I am looking for Atheists to increase my belief in God


deludedgod
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Finally, dawn has come...for Venk has (poorly) (attempted) to make an argument. True, the argument was for a fallacious philosophical position refuted 150 years ago if I am chronologically correct...but it is definitely a start (rolls eyes). Please understand this reply will be very angry in no unsubtle way. Why? Because I actually offered you refutations to this position (which you have not acknowledged) half a dozen goddamn times! I was desperately trying to get you to read and discuss the matter. And now you are wasting my time since I have to respond to something I already took the time to take apart but that you refused to look at. What is the root of your astounding dishonesty? Is it a taught thing, or is it just natural for you to be so incredibly asinine and dishonest?

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This statement of yours could possibly lead to the complete invalidation of the entire knowledge and research that you claim to have or inherently believe to know.

How could you possibly know this. You have not read anything I have written. This is where yourarrogance is projected onto me. You cannot possibly make claims about that which you know nothing. You never read anything I wrote. Not once. In fact, I would call into serious question your capacity to read at all.

Get out. I am sick of your lies and your dishonesty (and your incoherency)

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Your knowledge is based on human senses as a source, since you trashed intuition sometime back.

Lie. I did not "trash" intuition in the Descartesian fashion. I merely pointed out that "I feel" is not a valid epistemological model.

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What we see, what we touch , what we smell, what we taste , what we hear. To this sensory experience we add , thoughts from our intellect and construct theories, which are further proved by observations by senses and induction/deduction etc.

Claps hands. Neuroscience 101 basics: A thought is a combination of sensation and memory.

Also, if you are going to use induction and deduction in such contexts...perhaps you should check what they mean.

Also, your language is almost impossible to understand in a coherent fashion.

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Every thought from our intellect has to first pass a basic test and justify to our mind our own body objectivity which we take for granted

Could you write that in the Queen's English, sir? This sentence appears to missing its Object. It is just a half sentence.

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Is this assumption true ?

What assumption? You left out the object in the last sentence.?

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By objectivity, I mean the seeming separation of us the subject or the knower to the observable object of knowledge or the knowable.

Please, really, stop. There is no need to tell me what I learned so many years ago. This is not Phil/Pysch 101. I already know this.

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his is not there for a new born child, which doesn’t see objects when it is born, but soon the conditioning of environment around and the ego traps us into a standard life form which can only perceive all objects as separate from us

This is so basic and dreary. Lets see...basic subject/object principles. Basics of entity discretion...check. Zzzzzz

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By the time we are few years old, we are very well unable to shake off this illusion, due to which we end up assuming that all knowledge there is is about certain objects that lie outside us and the truth about this comes to us as due from our senses/ observations only.

The "knowledge" is from the outside-in, not vice-versa. Come on, that is really, really basic stuff. All knowledge (everyone should know this), is underlied by the two most basic brain functions

-Sensory processing

-Memory

Which culminate in thought in animals with third-tier brain structures.

Empericism/rationality dichotomy. Wow! This totally wasn't worked out...400 years ago.

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However fortunately there are few profound philosophers who had to crush their ego and their objective mindset to think deeply at these very aspects which are so dearly ingrained into human beings. They further questioned the validity and realized the invalidity of the presumptions.

It is obvious to any and all who study it, not merely a handful of men, of the illusion of subject/object. Indeed, it is a basic tenet of contemporary phil that the suibject/object dichotomy is false.

But this is irrelevant to our current point. You are making a red herring fallacy by refusing to answer my arguments and going off in an irrelevant tangent.

By the way...this is no longer epistemology. I thought you should know. This is now Ontology.

Please, stop, really. I don't need Phil 101...again....again...again. I've already done it.

Come on, now you are just showing your imbecility. You have not refuted a single thing I said. I pointed out the following:

1) The idea that a knowledge claim about the empirical universe should require proof is inherent. Without this, we have no knowledge claims. Theism is hence irrational

2)

You responded with

1) THe human sub/ob dichotomy is false

Care to share the relevance of this fascinating and incredibly obvious point from first year phil?

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The first thing that struck them was what is the link between a subject and an object which gets converted to perception and therefore knowledge.

The answer to that is at the bottom of this:

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Why cant a rock recognize and know another rock when it sees one nearby ?

Please, PLEASE tell me this is not going to lead to a fallacy of composition, an idiotic, egregious and irrational attack against naturalism. Please...

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The link is consciousness or conscious.

Ugh. Yep. Fallacy of composition.

Now you have definitely demonstrated your knowledge is nonexistent. Nil. Nject. Allow me to call you the poorest debator in history. The worst. Your understanding of metaphyiscs is none.

Here, perhaps I shall prime you, with my own writing on the matter:

 The crux of all this is that the dualist who asserts that materialism cannot account for X abstraction is that they are making a fallacy of conflation between reductionism and materialism. Reductionism is merely one arm of the materialist school of thought. We also have to take into account, for this exercise, emergentism, which materialism does indeed encompass. Emergentism is the doctrine that properties emerge from systems that are not necessarily reducible to their constituents. They exist only when the system is in place, and are hence not reducible to the sum of their parts. This is the schism in materialism between reductionism (whole=sum of parts) and emergentism (whole>sum of parts). The point is, these are both materialist positions. Neither invocates dualism or magic. So when the dualist is asserting that the materialist is denying the existence of X because it can be reduced to smaller constituents, they are making the greedy reductionist fallacy. Regardless of whether the system in question is emergentist or reductionist, the fallacy holds. It is analogous to saying:

1. The clicking on hyperlinks can be reduced to electrons being fired across LCD electron guns and photons through ethernet and fiberoptic cables. Therefore hyperlinks do not actually exist, only electrons and photons.

2. An atomic nuclei can be reduced to individual protons and electrons, which in turn can be reduced to quarks, which in turn can be reduced to bosons and fermions. Therefore, atoms do not actuallly exist, only bosons and fermions.

You will find that many materialist systems are indeed emergentist. That means that they cannot be reduced to their constituents, they only emerge when the complexity of the system reaches a certain point, but, the crux: They are still materialist. Emergentism is an arm of materialist philosophy. Many naturalists regard consciousness and the mind as an emergent property of the brain. Some others hold that the mind can be divided and is hence, with respect to the whole brain, reductionist, not emergent. I am sympathetic to a middle ground position . Obviously when we reduce the system to a certain degree, we find the property which we were examining in the first place disappears. Hence to some degree the two positions of emergentism and reductionism are valid and mutually reconcilable in much the same way that empiricism and rationalism are reconcilable. In fact, I do not think there has been a “pure” empiricist or rationalist since the days of Immanuel Kant. Likewise, the materialist philosophy does not usually find one taking a pure stance on emergentism or reductionism.

So, when the dualist makes the greedy reductionist fallacy by whining that the materialist is denying the existence of X by invoking reducibility, they are invalidated by both schools of materialism. Reductionism does not say that X does not exist, merely that it is a lower ontological category than its constituents Y and Z. Emergentism says that X exists of its own accord due to a synergistic effect between Y and Z. The latter can be invoked to explain many phenomenon from a materialistic perspective, especially consciousness and the mind. Regardless, any dualist asking for a materialist to explain abstract X is revealing their own unsurprising ignorance of materialist philosophy. Abstractions in this context are merely what a reductionist would call lower ontological categories that result from increasingly complex systems, or what an emergentist would call the result of synergistic effect in the system. Emergentist materialism is extremely important in my work, since one of the things I study is enzyme kinetics, drugs and medicine, where synergistic interplay is extremely important. The same logic which causes a Calcium Channel blocker and a Beta Blocker to work better together to lower blood pressure than the mathematics of their individual workings would have us believe is the same logic that may give rise to abstractions from material systems. In other words, this may cover thoughts, emotions, rationality etc. To a reductionist however, we can explain these in terms of direct reducibility to their electrophysiological activity in corresponding neurons. Regardless of which position you take, the abstract, the thought, is still generated. And hence for the dualist to accuse the materialist of denying said abstractions is just, well, stupid. And can only be described as immensely foolish. We shall soon see how easy it is to flip this on its head.

The rest of your post is a continuation of this fallacy which you seem to have the inability to understand.

also, linguistically, your posts are well-nigh impossible to read.

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How can it be the all knower of all there is ? Wrong assumption and argument .

Linguistic incoherency. Indecipherable. For irony I shall say Does Not Compute

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. Impossible, since they had survival instinct and due to which they evolved to get favourable traits which got propogated also. Without a consciousness at the most primitive level, the organism wouldn’t have been aware of itself and thus wouldn’t have known that it had to survive and therefore propagate its existence.

You have never studied this subject, have you? Have you? Don't you know anything about evolution. It is not "consciousness" that drives the survival instinct. It is a sub-primal function, which extends down to the molecular level. The problem was solved 30 years ago by Richard Dawkins. Haven't you ever read The Selfish Gene? Do you not understand anything at all about evolution and its inherent nature? The instinct of survival is present in everything from bacteria up, who are clearly not conscious. Any and every biologist who has ever, ever studied the subject will tell you exactly where the inherency comes from: The genes.

Allow me to cure you, sire, of your ignorance:

 

Before delving into to inheritable trait and chemical encoding, we must understand this principle of the struggle for resources. Essentially, organisms struggle to survive. They fight. It is intrinsic to the nature of organisms that, being that they are the vehicle for a code whose sole purpose is self-proliferation, that they survive, which requires they gain the resources they need for survival and reproduction- food, water, shelter etc. Organisms are in competition with other organisms for resources and the variability inherent in the passing of inheritable DNA from parent to progeny means that some organisms may be better at the exploiting the environment for the gaining of resources than others, hence allowing more reproduction and the proliferation of this trait. Without this there can be no evolution. The precise molecular mechanisms by which this variability may generate the structures of complex life which allow the organisms to better exploit the environment are the subject of another essay, and unfortunately, that explanation does require some tertiary education in molecular biology to understand.

It is not merely that a functional trait becomes more pronounced in its concentration in the pool of organisms due to the survival benefit it offers, and hence the increased reproduction, (which in turn leads to a greater increase in concentration of the trait with every generation. So, between F-1, F-2, F-4 etc, there is a calculable rate at which the trait will proliferate in the population. However, ecology is not my field, so I cannot discourse on that). But the other factor which we must look at is that the new phenotype becomes much more pronounced as a trait with the move from F-1 to F-2 and so on, until the accumulation develops into a fully fledged and distinct physiological and morphological change in the organism via speciative mechanisms we will be examining later. A wing does not spring forth overnight. Its development is gradual, perhaps the exaptation recombination from pre-existing functions (Again, zoology, not being my field, I cannot comment on this. However, I will comment on the evolution of the wing as a genetic process in the next essay). There are also physiological and natural checks on the refinement of a single morphological trait, the physiological being simply that after enough refinement, increase in size etc, the continuation of growth is no longer advantageous, and the natural being, as we shall soon see, that should the refinement of trait provide the organism sample in question with such a massive advantage that it begins to overpopulate, then crashes and burns. We shall explore this later.

We must remember that this process is not occurring with one but hundreds of trillions of organisms over tens of millions of years. There will be hundreds of thousands of animals who are all refining the same trait. But mutation is random. How is this possible? The answer is that mutation is random, but the process which forces it in one direction, ie natural selection, is not. All variable traits begin in the most humble fashion: From a single progeny. This single organism holds the key to the continuation of trait. If the advantageous mutation (as it must be) is contained within the DNA of a gamete, then the mutation in question will be copied into every cell of the progeny in utero (there are mechanisms to stop deleterious mutations from entering the equation, and we shall study these in the next essay). As generations accumulate, from F-1 to F-100 to F-100,000, we shall see that presuming the trait in question is advantageous enough to warrant survival advantage to the organisms carrying it such that they will have a reproductive advantage, then this trait will accumulate, and then we will have vast numbers of organisms carrying it. But I return to the original question: How does it progress from there? For how can mutations act in synchronicity when they are random? The answer is that they do not. The environment, the factors which put pressure on the population, simply force the continued development of trait in one direction, since the whole population is experiencing the same natural pressures. When the population is not experiencing the same pressure, that is when, as we shall see soon, a phylogenic break-off may occur.

We must remember that this is occurring over vast eons with incalculable numbers of organisms, and it is not a clean-cut process as I may have construed, with one mutation being proliferated and developed by natural selection, and then another....etc. Think of it more like this: Genetic mutations are occurring in vast numbers all the time, are being passed on to progeny. The deleterious ones are weeded out by ribosomal mechanisms and then by natural selection. The good ones are being propagated. Now, this may be (or usually is) occurring for many different traits simultaneously over many different organisms in the same population, but the whole process simply converges in the eventual refinement of phenotypes into better symbiosis with the environment the organism is inhabiting . Evolution is a vast process with a huge amount of information to work with because they are so many organisms. This is why it works. It simply is the struggle for existence of biology which forces the random replications of non-random replicators in a direction where the random replications which may occasionally produce a beneficial trait will be propagated, and as a result, beneficial traits in the random replicators such that the organisms whose phenotype they express may become better adapted to the environment. The result? The genome is improving in continuum such that the codes held within form increasingly more diverse and complex and ingenious methods of exploiting the environment. As a result, as time passes, the diversity of the overall genome (by which I mean the genomes of all organisms in the biosphere) increases too (since it is expanding in size), and since the phylogenic tree depends on branching off, the variations and diversity of biological structures such that more and new ways of exploiting the environment in the struggle for resources amplifies exponentially.

There is no “magic” or “unseen force” which guides evolution. We are not talking about Smith’s invisible hand. Rather, the fittest organisms will survive. Nature is not “selecting” anything. It is simply that if a trait is favourable, the organism will survive, replicate and the trait will be propagated, and vice-versa for deleterious mutations. It is truly that simple.

This is the crux of evolution. The process by which the favourable traits are selected and the deleterious ones removed. As such, it is forced in one and only one direction: towards the organisms being in better symbiosis with the environment. And there must be selective pressure all the way. Evolution is best described as raw, brute force which sieves favourable traits. However, there is no one doing the selecting. What “pushes” evolution is simply that organisms must survive by any means necessary, and the genetic code provides the traits by which they may better survive and reproduce. It is a struggle between biology and the environment, where biology is struggling for survival and nature is forcing an improvement in biological structure.

We must understand (and we will) that all life is based on the same chemical code of replication, and that the random variation in this code is forced to develop and accumulate into more advantageous sequences for the survival of the organism whose phenotype it expresses. This is called gene level selection. All life is based on just one code, which we are about to explore. This code is the interface which expresses the phenotype of the organism, as such it is the master key for any evolutionary change. From a single-celled foundation 3.8 billion years ago, the process of evolution has been the expansion of this code via homology, and the constant refinement in as many ways as possible . In this way, it is possible to look at the entire of biological life as a single, massive, set of genetic information struggling towards refinement and improvement such that the information expresses better ways for the organisms for which it is expressing to better survive in the environment. This raw force of the struggle for existence is what allows the generation of all the complex life we see around us, as a mutating continumm being expressed in the form of an ever-changing set of replicators buried within which is a drive for replication and hence the survival of the carriers (this was unknown until it was discovered by Richard Dawkins in 1976). Indeed, the refinement of the genetic code by means of the prorogation of the variation which the code exudes is surely a vastly more powerful technique for creating complex biological structure than is a loving creator assembling pieces of a flagella motor as though it were a jigsaw puzzle. The real reason that evolution, then is so appealing as a theory for the explanation of these structures (in addition to the ridiculously massive amount of evidence available for it a tiny chink of which was presented in my other essay) is that it is simply so powerful because there is simply such a vast number of organisms and such a vast amount of replication and hence such a vast and hyperbolically multiplying amount of variation, all being forced in the same direction by the struggle for existence. As Darwin realized, the process requires this vastness. The drive is so fundamental and instinctive, so utterly ingrained even down the the biomolecules which we are about to examine...

This is not a simple process, it occurs over perhaps 100,000 generations. Charles Darwin was the first to understand this. He understood that complex biological structures like wings, eyes, etc, must develop incrementally by means of slight variation which causes an accumulated pronunciation of trait. He also understood that massive amounts of death cycles are required for this to occur, say 100,000 generations, for many structures and functions.

Now, new evolutionary-developmental biology has mounted challenges to the traditional incremental view of biological structures in multicellular Eukaryota developing this way, and this will certainly be taken into account in the essay about Hox genes, but no one could deny, still, that incremental phenotype change is a fundamental and underlying mechanism of evolutionary biology.

So, you see? It is intrisic, not to consciousness, but to DNA that life struigles for existence. Sheesh. This is not new information, you know. DNA is a self-replicating code whoe sole purpose is replication and survival.

Your fallacy seems to be equivalent linguistically to those who fallaciously interpret "natural selection" as some sort of "invisible hand". There is no magic here, only the intrisic nature of the molecules on which all life is based.

And then, your argument can be demonstrated neurologically false, too:

This brings me full circle back to the interaction problem. All of the processes of the brain are fluid continuum processes which change appropriately based on precise arrangements of neurons and concentrations of chemicals and neurotransmitters. They can be altered directly using drugs, chemicals, or injury. They can be switched on or off by the body and by chemical pathways have a direct effect on physical health. By cutting the physical connections in the brain, one can induce an effect whereby the mind is divided. Yet the soul is acausal and indivisible, and also fixed and unchanging. The functioning of the processes of cognition, emotion, consciousness and the mind is antithetical to the dogma which surrounds the “soul”. We know have incomplete biological understanding of many of these things, but like I said, we do know enough about the neural networks and chemical pathways to rule out immaterialism.

The continuum nature of these processes raises interesting questions. Firstly, we don’t have a test for consciousness, which is problematic and raises ethical questions. For instance, until recently it was believed that those in a permanent vegetative state had no consciousness at all, until neuroangiograms confirmed that they actually respond to music, language etc (a neuroangiogram is where a radioactive isotope is injected into the brain which allows the neuroscientists to track blood flow to specific areas of the brain which in turn will show the amount of brain activity in those corresponding parts).

Since we don’t have a test for consciousness and it appears that we are the only animals which have developed language, there is no way to know as of yet whether any of our cohorts in the animal kingdom are conscious. The two best candidates are gorillas and dolphins since they have all passed the self-awareness test and have reasonable (although extremely primitive compared to our own) methods of communication. If consciousness is a process which exists in degrees, whereby there is no clear-cut line for conscious and not conscious unless neurologists draw an arbitrary line based on electrical activity, then at what point in the evolutionary continuum did consciousness develop? Is it with one of our deceased Homo genus ancestors? And, on that same token, at what point in human embryonic development does the conscious process switch on so to speak? These are the questions which the next generation of embryologists, neurologists and neuroscientist can look forward to. I believe the case has been closed on this silly nonsense of the “soul”.

nd humor and logic and rationality...if only Descartes had known, he would weep in shame.

On the “problem” of “free will” and “volition”

The dualist assertion, as supported by the religious dogma it complements, is that the soul is the domain of all things mental, that mental states are a seperate reality from the glands and gristle of the brain (but then...what does the brain do? Surely then it would be vestigial, which is absurd). However, neuroscientists have been shooting those off like flies on a windshield. Even the most ardent or ignorant dualist will be forced to admit that there is physical and causal grounding for mental states. We now have convincing neurological explanations for emotion, reason, cognition, pain, perception etc, and those phenomenon which we cannot (as of yet) explain, we can at least to deduce the physical nature of such phenomenon (consciousness, self-awareness and thoughts). The deductions of physicality are obvious, you tweak a physical thing in the brain, and you get a corresponding change in mental state. An electrode at X produces a physiological effect at Y and a corresponding mental state, chemical X in neuron group Y produces mental state Z and so on. We have a slew of cerebrovascular, genetic, neurodevelopmental, congenital neurophysiological, neurotoxic and neurobiological diseases to attest. Depression (serotonin VGIC channel malfunction and limbic-cortic dysregulation), which causes, well, depression. Alzheimers (amyeloid fatty plaque accumulation), which causes dementia, senile dementia, which does the same, Wilson’s disease (accumulation of copper in the brain causing dementia and Kayser-Fleischer rings), OCD (subcortical circuitry malfunction) causing obsessive-compulsive behaivor, Lesch-Nyhan’s (autocannibalism and insanity, caused by a missing copy of the functioning hypoxanthanine-guanine ribulotransferanse), autism (miswiring of mirror neurons) causing, in extreme cases, total antisocial behaivor, inability to speak, general inability to interact with others, eating disorders are caused by frontotemporal synaptogenesis malfunction, hallucination by cytokine storms in the retinogeniculocalcarine tract, the list goes on and on.

So, in the face of 200 crushing years of neurological evidence, many turn to the icky and hopelessly unscientific notion of “free will”. This is appealling because the brain is a physical machine and hence causal, but “free will” as the name denotes, is indeterminate. Many neuroscientists hence reject the notion of “free will”. I am not here to argue for or against such a notion, except to say this:

The question of free will is merely the other side of the coin of consciousness, the existence of a being which is aware of its existence (subject/object) in relation to the world, and has a concept of “I” and hence is able to make decisions about the the world pertaining to the accomplishment of some goal. Neurologists call this executive function. There is a part of the brain responsible, the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), although we are not absolutely sure of the precise mechanism involved. Regardless, we can be quite sure of the organic biophysical nature of the decision making process. As I explained before, this is merely the other side of consciousness, which through a series of very easy deductions, we can, as I have shown, prove to have organo-physical grounding. The “free will” and control you excercise over your actions can be altered, controlled, lost, and switched on and off by physical actions in the brain, as evidenced by the poor Lesch-Nyhan sufferer.

But the term “free will” implies your ability to make decisions is...free. It is surely not. There are a host of factors, both acknowledged and programmed, which influence decision making. It is a highly causal and determinate process, depending on the tempermant of the subject in question (which is partially genetic and partially environmental), the electrical signals which knit together to form your cohesive worldview, this is the science of perception, which I shall cover now, memory, the pattern-recognition engines of the brain, the precise neuroelectrochemical concentration at time of the decision being made, and so on. There is no such thing as “free will”, because the processes by which decisions are made are as causal and hence physical as any biological process we care to name. The dichotomy we must entertain is this: Is there a “you” commanding and controlling your thoughts, or are “you” the sum total of your thoughts? Most of neuroscience, as do I, lean towards the latter. There is no mental control room, and it is most certainly not external of the brain. You cannot control your thoughts. Try it. You are your thoughts, and these thoughts are caused by....a guess, anyone? I would suspect, along with the bulk of evolutionary cognitive neuroscientists, that the subject/object self-perception of higher organisms which generates the illusion of “free will” is a by product of the evolutionary expansion of the neocortex along the Pan/Homo genus. After all, humans are not the only animals to possess this capability, although ours is certainly most fine-tuned. At present, great apes, chimps, macques and dolphins are also among this small set of organisms which acknowledge their existence as a defined being from the world they inhabit, and hence they do not behave like mere automata, as Descartes would have us believe.

In preperation for the next section of discussion, we must turn the science of perception. In scientific terms, this is the mechanism by which the electrical signals from the external and internal world are arrayed and read to assemble a picture of reality for the brain to interpret. That’s what the brain does, it runs a first-class simulation of reality.

This simulation is based on thousands and thousands of data hard points inside and outside the body. First, there are the five exoperceptive senses, which we all know, sight, smell, taste, touch, and hearing, which depend, respectively, on the eyes and optic, trochlear, abducent and oculomotor nerves, the olfactory and glassopharyngeal nerves, the tongue and hypoglossal nerve, the thousands of recepter neurons across the body and the auditory and vestibulocochlear nerves.

Then, there are the lesser known, but equally important introperceptive senses, which regulate balance and spatiotemporal relative position and geometric orientation in the world (inner ear and cochlear tubes) called proprioception, the tracking of movement and muscle memory called mechanoperception (this one is quite remarkable, it is controlled by grid neurons which array a lattice-like projection of external reality, dividing it into grid squares, such that grid neurons corresponding to said squares fire when movement is detected in said squares. Obviously, your brain does not project this onto your vision, as that would be extremely annoying. As a matter of fact, your brain, while efficiently organizing reality, tweaks a lot of things so as not to appear unsettling. For example, the eyes never stop moving, they, even when fixed on a point, are making a jerky motion called sacchares. However, this is extremely unsettling in appearance so the brain eliminates it from the visual projection. It can be detected only by watching someone else’s eyes in the mirror.

There are many introperceptive senses, but they keep inventing new ones as they are discovered, so I shall not mention them all here. The point is that the simulation which the brain runs based on this data is the fundamental requisite of existence for a conscious mind. The mind cannot exist without it. For some hitherto unexplained reason, perhaps psuedo-therepautical, the wealthy sometimes pay to be placed for short periods of time in a total sensory deprivation tank. This is dangerous. Overexposure to total sensory deprivation will cause insanity then death. The sensory processing units of the brain will begin to unravel, as experiments have shown. Imagine a person born more unfortunate than Helen Keller. Not only are they congenitally blind and deaf, but they have CIPA (Congenital insensity to pain with anhidrosis) and ageusia. If I presented this case to a neuroscientist, they would say the baby would die soon after exiting the womb, assuming it has not been born stillborn. The mind cannot exist without the senses.

In addition to the senses and the genetic factors of temperament and chemical concentration across the VGIC arrays, the mind cannot exist without the brain’s pattern recognition engines, without which we would be somewhat like Dory the fish in Finding Nemo, except that in addition to constantly forgetting our own name, we would be unable to walk, talk, or think at all.

Born without a brain

Of the most ludicrous attempts to prove the existence of the “soul”, surely, the so-called “born without a brain” is one of them.

Of course, it is possible to be born without a brain. The precursor to the neural clusters of the brain are called neural tubes, which open and develop around 25 weeks into embryonic development, and partition along the brain’s major longitudinal axis into the four major partitions (prosencephalon, mesencephalon, rhombencephalon and the cerebrospinal fluid duct. The first three then split again into the brain’s sub-partitioning, the prosencephalon develops along the optic ducts and into the precursor of the cerebrum, which contains all of the higer-level functions and partitions (temporal lobe, occipatal lobe, prefrontal cortex and parietal lobe), and the rest develops into the sub-structures of the primary and secondary tiers of the brain, the midbrain, the fluid ducts that run between the lobes, the pons medullas and hypothalamus, the cerebellum and the brain stem.

To be born without a brain is a classed neural tube defect, which occurs around 26 weeks of human embryonic development, with the failed closure of the neural tubes. The most serious of these is called anencephaly. An anencephalactic baby has no isocortex or cerebral hemisphere, in short, they are missing 85% of their brain, the part necessary for higher-level brain function.

Very few anencephelactic babies are born, since it can be detected in utero, and nearly all mothers who learn of the baby’s condition choose to abort it, many of those who are born are stillborn. A very tiny portion remain alive. It is possible to be alive in an anencephelactic state since the brain stem is present, and hence the cardioregulatory center, so the heart will beat. Eventually, however, with no brain, the body will die very quickly (Morpheus, in the Matrix, my favorite film, was correct when he said “the body cannot live without the mind”) the record, I believe, for an anencephelatic baby is one week outside of the womb.

Unsurprisingly, an anencephaltic baby is in a permanent vegetative state, unable to feel pain, unconscious, blind, deaf and dumb. In short, there is no higher level function to speak of. No consciousness develops, no mind etc. They just...exist, although there is no “I” to speak of in an anencephelactic baby.

Anencephaly is not to be confused with a much, much rarer condition called Acephaly, which is the absence of the entire head of a parasitic twin fetus, which appallingly, can survive for a few hours by leeching blood from the heart of its twin.

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Therefore the minutest being has a conscious and reacts to the environment, gathers knowledge about the surroundings. This knowledge it uses to survive.

BASIC neuroscience. An entity can only have thoughts in the neurological sense once it has ganglion clusters and neurons. Basic cell bio 101: A cell is an information processing microprocessor:

Think of a cell. Just one cell. It is tiny, barely 50 microns across. It is a enclosed by a tough cell wall made of glycolipids. This wall gives the cell defined boundaries and separates it from the outside world, defining it against the background. Inside the cell is a watery gel which fills up the whole inside of the cell. This watery gel is called the cytosol, and it is the main stage on which cellular events take place.

This cell’s wall will be studded with transmembrane proteins which control things coming in and out of the cell (organic molecules in, waste gas out). Meanwhile, inside the cell, enzymes will be running the day-to-day operations of the cell. Structures inside the cell (usually made of proteins) needed to maintain it will be being broken down, assembled, and repaired in a series of complex pathways all controlled by enzymes. Meanwhile, the cell needs energy and raw materials, so it imports organic molecules (aka “food) and breaks it down into simple subunits (this process is controlled by enzymes) which are then used for energy (a process which is also controlled by enzymes) or used to construct large cellular structures (this is also controlled by enzymes). For all this to happen requires a lot of chemical messages to fly between lots of different parts of the cell so that the cooperative process keeps going, and all different cellular projects are in communication and taking cues from the environment for what to do (these processes are controlled by signal integrating proteins, signal amplifying proteins and signal transducing proteins).

Controlling all this is the genetic code. The genetic code holds the “master key” to all the proteins. The rate at which proteins are assembled from genes is controlled by other genes, which in turn usually end up being controlled by other genes. Since proteins work in teams, the concentration of each different protein, as controlled by the genetic code, affects the cell as a whole. Most of the time, the demand for various products operates on a feedback loop. If a product is needed, it triggers a stimulus which sends a message to the genetic template. This can result in a particular gene being switched on or off or increasing rate of production or decreasing or a host of other things.

In other words, the genetic code of a cell functions like a microprocessor. It takes input from the environment, processes it, and delivers an output. In this way, the whole balance of the cell can be controlled by the genes. However, this analogy is not entirely accurate since the relation between proteins and genes are reciprocal ie proteins can control genes (these are called DNA binding proteins).

 

A single cell cannot"think", it has no "knowledge" I have just demonstrated this false. It is an absurdly ignorant view of cell bio and basic biokinetics mechanisms. Life is defined as an autonomous agent. It struggles blindly to survive because of the nature of the code upon which it is based (these principles are so basic I am stunned you are ignorant of them). Not because it is "conscious" in any way.

This vitalist argument was refuted 150 years before you were born. There is no "conscious force" which pushes transcription, translation etc. There is nothing about biological machines that disobeys chemical laws. Life is because its code by definition QED is inherently struggling to survive. It does not "think" about it because it as an entity does not have the capacity to "think". The genes may generate beings which do have this capability, but for you to ascribe this to any biological and autonomous agent makes you a cretin of high order.

Your argument is so pathetic I am bent double with laughter, now shall we continue? Please stop with your fallacy of composition. Your argument is so bad I can barely speak. Only a being with a powerful neurological engine can develop consciousness.

And just in case you do not know the fallacy to which I refer:

Brains think

Brains are made of atoms

Atoms do not think

Therefore, brains are not made of atoms

Quote:

So conscious is not a property of brain/mind. Where did this conscious come from ? How did it get introduced to inanimate matter ? or is it the reverse , did inanimate matter first arise from conscious ?

Your argument for this was....so awful. You fail to understand what exactly biological life is. You obviously know nothing about the inherent nature of biological life. Your argument refers to a ridiculous philosophy called vitalism which was destroyed by scientific mechanism 150 years ago.

-Survival mechanisms in all biological life from prokaryota to animalia is due to the fact that it is based on a code whose sole existence is struggling for self-replication. Indeed, under your absurd argument (fallacy of conflation), I could make the following statements:

-Electron orbitals in atoms are always attempting to obtain full valency. Therefore, electrons consciously "want" full valency.

The second law of thermodynamics dictates that all things fall towards lower energy states. Therefore, there must be some conscious "want" of atoms to do this.

Please do not resurrect this nonsense. I will laugh myself into seizure.

Here is a really basic summary, so you don't explode:

Consciousness is a second-order characteristic of the persistance of existence in general, NOT vice-versa. To state the former is a FALLACY OF COMPOSITION, which shows NO understanding of neuroscience, since the direct implication is that inanimate entities can think, which is IMPOSSIBLE because a thought requires a neurological engine capable of sensation and memory

To claim that such a process must be immaterial is to show awful ignorance of functionalism, it commits a fallacy of composition which I am stunned you cannot understand.

This is basic etiology: The principle of something not occuring without prerequisities. Consciousness is such a process which requires very specific requisites as I already demonstrated. Hence, your argument for its universality fails because it is a stolen concept fallacy. Furthermore, it begs the question...

I actually proved this formally, in these two articles. Since you will not click the links, I shall place the necessary content here:

 

These arguments all fall under one category. They accuse the existence of “God” of committing the stolen concept fallacy. Namely, a specific kind of stolen concept, positing an entity whose attributes require the existence of system which is subsequent to its existence. An example of this (albeit a very silly example) would be:

1. The Earth appears to be designed by intelligent entities
2. Humans are intelligent entities
3. Therefore, it is logical to conclude that humans built the Earth

When we observe the universe’s history, it clearly goes from simple to complex, driven by free energy. Let us look at it in reverse order:

1. Consciousness
2. Eukaryotic life
3. Prokaryotic life
4. Terrestrial planets
5. Galactic clusters
6. Stellar formation
7. Plasma gas cooling
8. Hydrogenous ionization
9. Atomic organization
10. Universal expansion
11. Singularity collapse
12. Singularity state (literally ex nihilo)

Now, why not look at the same list, except with God inserted into it, in reverse order again?

1. Consciousness
2. Eukaryotic life
3. Prokaryotic life
4. Terrestrial planets
5. Galactic clusters
6. Stellar formation
7. Plasma gas cooling
8. Hydrogenous ionization
9. Atomic organization
10. Universal expansion
11. Singularity collapse
12. Singularity state (literally ex nihilo)
13. Consciousness

It’s absurd. Utterly absurd. Far from being an explanation of the universe, it merely creates superfluous epistemic baggage, unnecessary questions on the existence of the entity against the grain of natural law. So it should come as no surprise that it gets swiftly eliminated via Occam’s Razor.

From this we can also conclude that the cosmological argument commits the Pot/Kettle fallacy as well (fixing cause with an uncaused cause).

Any a posteriori argument for God will and always will commit the stolen concept fallacy. It is reflection of a discredited philosophical school called "trickle-down creation", the notion that a constructed object has to be created by a constructer more complex than the constructed object. And yet, counterintuitevely, scientific philosophy goes in totally the opposite direction. The necessary creative intelligence to create objects and put the trickle-down theory into practice can only arise from evolution from simpler origins.

So to conclude this point, God as described would break this by committing the stolen concept fallacy, as it too would require design thusly leading to an infinite regress of designers. The more obvious solution is to reverse the equation, from long-since outdated top-down creation to the new, more sensible philosophy of bottom-up evolution, which is firmly established scientific fact from all fields of scientific discipline, I can confirm the solidity of this philosophy.

[A short digression]

A common criticism is that this is hypocritical. Clearly complex machines like jet engines and nuclear reactors are “designed”, so why is it that much more complex biological machines (myosin-driven molecular motors, rotating ion-gradient flagella, serine cascades, neurogenesis, transcription, to name a very small sample) do not need design? This is the basis of Ray Comfort’s, er, ahem, “arguments”, as well as many assertions by Intelligent Design proponents starting from William Paley and continuing today.

So what makes biological systems special? Why is it they, while very complex, do not need design, while jet engines do. The answer is evolution, of course. Biological systems are special because the very definition of a biological system is a chemical self-replicating system. The very notions of biology and blind-guided evolution are inherently linked, intertwined, forever joined. Systems of information which self-replicate with random errors non-randomly selected for accumulation of adaptive functions is the very basis of the whole of biology. Biological systems do not need design because the very concept of biology is fixed to that of the non-random selection of randomly varying replicators. Biology and evolution are lockstep concepts. Biology cannot exist without evolution. It needs no design, it cannot have design. The very notion of a designer is antithetical to the whole field of biology.

See this for a better explanation:

http://www.rationalresponders.com/forum/sapient/atheist_vs_theist/7918

[End of Digression]

Biological systems, arising from the “bottom-up” system of complexity, give rise to entities, like us, which can put into practice the trickle-down philosophy. This is why evolution is so seemingly counterintuitive, because we are very used to trickle-down creation. Yet this, as I have shown, is riddled with logical fallacies.

Likewise, the Cosmological argument also commits a prior requisite fallacy because to account for natural laws, it has to posit an entity which is not bound by natural laws, but any attempts to explain the existence of such an entity are ultimately incoherent (given especially that human epistemology is limited, obviously, to the natural world).

To take another example, the Kalam Cosmological argument, instead of appealing to infinite regress, appeals to universal cause. The universe could just as easily have not existed as opposed to existed (a statement which every physicist on the planet would decry as utter falsehood), the existence of the universe demands an explanation, according to Kalam theology(and Craig).

Yet to fix this intractable, they posit a solution which fixes no more problems than it creates further problems, all of which are defended as being inherently unknowable. Why should such an entity terminate the regress? The universe demands an explanation, thusly there is an entity of maximal intelligence and power not bound by the universe? Presumably this entity demands an explanation for its existence as well? Perhaps a better explanation considering that such a being is highly improbable? God runs in direct opposition to natural laws, which state that simplicity begets complexity. The complexity of the universe could only have sprung from simplicity, and complexity increases in accordance with natural laws that provide systems with free energy, better known as evolution. A creative intelligence, not bound by these laws, but being the solution which does not demand an explanation, not having started from simplicity, and working up, but always existing in maximally perfect form, is more improbable than the quantum tunneling prisoner experiment.

A common criticism (repeatedly made by Swinburne and Plantinga) is that God is "simple". I have read and reread their treatises and cannot make head or tail of such a notion. I think it does not do well at all for a theist to call God simple. First of all, this is absurd (I showed thatin the M/I conjecture). Secondly, the very notions of simple and complex steal from naturalism, as they depend on physical attributes. To call God simple is a statement without a referent (it's contradictory to the notion that God is supernatural). Clearly, a maximal sentient intelligence must be complex. It is an abominable sleight of hand to insist God is simple (actually, it is an abominable sleight of hand to call God complex, as both of these notions imply naturalism). After all, the mysterious realm of the spirit is indivisible, which means it has no material composition and does not obey the laws of reductionism. But surely that is precisely how we measure simplicity and complexity? Hence, to say God is "simple" or "complex" is incoherent. I merely assumed God complex as part of the exercise of showing supernatural a meaningless concept. It is merely a thought exercise which I am positing to show how absurd the notion is. To assume God is "simple" is to be reduced to the absurd (unless you mean, of course, as a friend at the Max Planck Institute wryly pointed out, that the simplest possible concept is "nothing", and therefore, by extension, to keep within the logic of laws, we must assume that God is nothing). But all jokes aside, again I reiterate that to assume God is a "simple entity" is to be reduced to the absurd. in fact, to assume God has a nature at all is, as per this thought exercise, to be reduced to the absurd.

 

Honestly...this is not a debate. This is me teaching you philosophical tenets we worked out years ago that you could just read in a library.

Quote:

The people who have contemplated on this and realized that the Self conscious is the all pervading supreme universal cosmic self and is the cause of everything , it is in everything (it is in the rock also, which only doesn’t react by the way) only.

Do you have any evidence for this apart from the linguistic fallacies of conflation and factual error you have made henceforth?

This position of yours, the idea that persistence occurs because it is being pushed by consciousness. However, philosophers and scientists have known for decades that this relationship is contra, it actually goes in reverse. The persistence of beings is necessary for consciousness (hence, your argument is a stolen concept fallacy, analogous to "property is theft&quotEye-wink. Life persists in the struggle for existence because it is based on a molecular code whose composition makes it intrisic that it will struggle to survive because the chemistry of it dictates that it will replicate and it struggles solely to continue replication of its code. That is how and why evolution works. There is no "conscious" reason behind this, as that would beg the question...

THat is why biological life is defined as any autonomous agent. This can be expressed mathematically, as I showed here:

So, this is why a bacteria will swim upwards in a glucose gradient, why osmeotic fluids always move from a high to low concentration of water, why electrons always arrange quantum orbitals in mutual repulsion, why things always fall towards their lowest energy state. THere is no "consciousness" pushing any of these things. That is etiologically absurd. Once we developed mechanism, we understood this. It is simply inherent to the nature and property of the object in question. This is true for electrons, for DNA, for cells, for life.

So any "Example" you give which does not focus on a neurologically complex being capable of holding the concept of "I" will simply make the same causal fallacy I pointed out over and over and over and over again (PLEASE do not make this fallacy again, or I shall know you did not bother to read this, and then I shall be extremely angry).

Oh, and by the way, just to ensure that you are actually reading this part and doing me the identical courtesy I do you (reading your entire post and responding line by line), I have left you a message to ensure you are still focused:

HAHAHA I BET YOU ARE NOT READING THIS

If you have read the message, please acknowledge in some way.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

"Physical reality” isn’t some arbitrary demarcation. It is defined in terms of what we can systematically investigate, directly or not, by means of our senses. It is preposterous to assert that the process of systematic scientific reasoning arbitrarily excludes “non-physical explanations” because the very notion of “non-physical explanation” is contradictory.

-Me

Books about atheism


Archeopteryx
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Glad to note that an atheist admitting following (First statement still reflects a wavering mind though ):-

 

No it doesn't. Good try though. You just need reading comprehension. Think about it just a liiiiittle bit harder.

 

1. “I wasn’t saying religion doesn’t deserve respect (even though it doesn’t)”

 

I wasn't saying religion doesn't deserve respect (in the post to which I was referring). But even though I wasn't saying it in that post, I still don't think that it does.

No wavering mindset here. Just you misunderstanding.

 

2. “Very few atheists will claim total certainty about the nonexistence of God” (Are you part of the very few ?)

Nope. I don't claim total certainty that god doesn't exist. I just claim that the odds are so stacked against him, I can be close enough to total certainty to allow me to reject him. If I had to put it into numbers, it would look like this:

Chances God exists: 0.1%

Chances God doesn't exist: 99.9%

 

There is no total certainty, but there is a hell of a lot of confidence. Eye-wink

 

3. “I have no problem saying I love theists just as much as I love atheists”

I don't. What was this supposed to prove?

 

4. “I concede that it's possible to practice a religion in an acceptable and non-dangerous/non-troublesome way.” ( Why do you concede , did you believe this from start or is just a recent realization)

I believed this from the start. Buddhism is a religion I don't consider to be dangerous or troublesome. I don't believe that it's right, but I don't see any reason to attack it.

But fundie religions like Christianity and Islam need to be attacked and put in their place. People who practice religions need to curb their beliefs to coincide with science, NOT THE OTHER WAY AROUND.

My ideas as to how Christianity could be practiced reasonably and non-dangerously would pretty much make it a hobby rather than a religion, so you probably wouldn't like it.

Archeopteryx - Agree you are not a criminal (the criminal/judge analogy).

Thanks. Smiling

Archeopteryx - I further gather you state quite clearly that you have no reason to disrespect me , since I am a theist. Fine. You also say in your post that it is the belief that is under attack and not the person. But the usage of words , adjectives employed by you , DG and others for me and Meth are not exactly lending credibility to this assertion. Magilum called me a reptile , used four letter words with reference to my mother also. You may see the rest of the thread from other postors, there are some more instances. So I gather you mean that all the adjectives are only aimed at the belief , whereas you guys love me dearly as you would your closest friend.

I have no reason to disrespect you as a person, that much is true. But I have every right to disrespect your beliefs.

The way people use such insulting language like that is just a common internet phenomenon whenever there is a disagreement on the internet.

Normal Guy + Anonymity = Total F**kwad.

It's just what the internet does to people. People have a tendency to behave on the internet in ways they would never behave in person. So for all the people that called you a reptile and made offensive jokes about your mother, I think they would probably behave at least somewhat more civilly in person. I haven't seen the actual conversation, but I'm guessing you probably also said something ignorant or insulting (realizing it or not) which made them feel like they had the right to retaliate however they wished.

Like I've said before (though I can't remember which topic), once the first insult flies, things tend only to escalate from there. It's hard to stop once you start.

You also have to consider that language that is considered outrageous and insulting to one may not be as outrageous or as insulting to another.

For example, if I called you an "asshat", I would consider that a very loose and mild insult. Not a passionate insult with some kind of intense desire to insult behind it. It's simply a way of saying, "You just said something I think is stupid." But if I called you a "piece of s*** f***ing c***sucker". Then you could correctly say that I was genuinely angry with you and was trying to insult you.

I'm not trying to defend anyone other than myself, I'm just saying that I don't think it's safe to assume that some insulting langauge on an internet forum makes someone a hate-monger.

But again usage of words gets me to think, what happens to an Atheist whose views don’t get accepted

That doesn't happen. As long as there are two atheists, someone is accepting their ideas. Do you mean what happens to an atheist when a christian doesn't accept their ideas?

They call them an idiot and get on with their lives. Unless the christian tries to stick around to proselytize without giving legitimate arguments (you and meph), then the atheist will grow increasingly more annoyed and probably even start using increasingly offensive language.

It seems to follow that there are a collection of Atheists who throw Science , evidence , debate rules etc.

We do use science and evidence to back up our position. What's wrong with that? I wish I could say that you do the same, but alas.

Debate rules? We use the rules accepted by academia, which are based on logic. Common sense.

We're not constructing our own set of arbitrary rules in order to ensure that we win every argument. We're just refusing to accept arguments that do not logically work. And we don't consider proselytizing or whining a form of argument.

When those don’t get accepted , they throw Psychology .

What's wrong with psychology?

 

They also resort to usage of insults , taunts , verbal violence.

Only after they've become increasingly annoyed by ignorance and/or proselytizing and/or illogical arguments.

Taunts? Where? What do you consider a taunt?

Verbal violence? Do you mean threats? Where? I personally don't condone the use of threats, but I don't think I've seen anyone making any.

Seems a bit primitive though all this.

Yeah, but ya know what's more primitive? Religious belief.

 

So leads me to conclude that you guys are egotists, faithful or can I say deeeeeeeply passionate

We're not all egotists. I'm actually very far from it. No man has ever been more critical of himself than me. But science is facts, Venk. Logic is common sense. And when logic and facts are placed together and indicate that the chances of god existing in any of the ways he's been described are virtually nil, I'm going to reject him until some better evidence is provided.

I'm serious. If some good evidence for god actually existed, I would admit I was wrong. If God suddenly appeared to me, waved, and told me I should believe in him, I would do it in a heartbeat.

But if God wants me to believe in him, he's going to give me some damn evidence or he's going to get off his ass and tell me himself. He's not going to have me rely on hearsay or ancient mythical documents that contradict themselves. He's not going to make a cloud turn into a cross; he's not going to make the virgin mary's face appear on a piece of toast; he's not going to make a ray of sunshine break through the window and fall on a lonely bible; he's not going to instill a feeling of euphoria and expect me to figure it out. If God wants me to know he exists, he's going to stop jerking around and do it. No scripture. No bullshit. He's just going to do it.

Until that day comes, I'm going to rely on the thing in which there IS no bullshit: science. And what science says is there is no god.

If I turn out to be wrong (highly doubtful), I won't care. I'll be more than happy to tell God I thought his way of doing things was shitty.

I AM a passionate atheist, and everyone on this forum probably is. The least passionate aren't going to be here. Why would they? There is nothing wrong with being passionate about a cause.

Faith? This is one of the things you and Meph keep saying that are pissing people off. Why? Because we keep explaining how there is no faith, but you guys don't fucking listen! Hear the annoyance in my words? That's how these things happen!

By the way, if you want to debate us in a place where such words can't be used, then try the "kill 'em with kindness" board, where that kind of thing is prohibited.

But since this isn't that board, we get to say what we want.

 

but completely rational and therefore having absolute rights to use any level of language, strongly influenced by a negative emotion

negative emotions strongly influenced by ignorant and/or stupid claims such as "atheists just have faith". Especially when such claims are repeated endlessly and all arguments against such claims are completely ignored.

You think we're being assholes because we're assholes.

We think we're being assholes because you're being ignorant.

 

which leads you to the rightful desire to crush theists

It is a rightful desire. Thanks for conceding that much.

in debates as you say. Ok Fine Guess you are perfectly normal , rational, honest , straight if you have these in your club.

Thanks for the compliments.

I Guess I am not suitably qualified to understand the sense of normalcy , sense of communion and mental justifications and satisfactions behind such gestures and behaviours.

I guess not. *shrug*

Quote – I think theistic ideas as silly , unreasonable and irrational.

That's a good quote. Whoever said it was totally right.

I think exactly otherwise and feel your atheistic ideas are a justifications arising of a mind and body steeped only in Science and logic.

Yeah, but that's because science and logic are true. They have facts and common sense. Religion only justifies itself with woo-woo and mushy feelings.

You have every right to think otherwise, but I have every right to laugh at you for doing so.

You have every right to laugh at me for disagreeing with you, but that would just make me laugh at you even more.

Not because I'm an egotist, but because religion is genuinely silly when taken too seriously.

Why ? Because feel these two tools are ineffective to explain final truths about ourselves or for that matter a lot more.

On the contrary, science explains a lot, whereas religion explains nothing.

Science is much more fascinating and awe-inspiring than the "magic" of religion.

I'll take facts over woo-woo any day.

Also I note that you seem to have gone a bit out of the way to proclaim that you have friends and relatives whom you love and that you don’t really mind religion being around

I love them, and I have no problem saying that. I only went out of my way to say it because you seemed to be indicating that you don't believe atheists can have the same amount of respect for theists as they can for other atheists (hence your silly chant).

I never said I don't have a problem with their religion though. I just said I don't have a problem with them. I really wish they would think about it critically and realize there is no truth in it. I think it is a hindrance, and I'd love it if they didn't have it. But just because they do, doesn't mean I can't love them as friends, family, and people.

(though you don’t mind it being kicked out also),

I'd love it if it was kicked out. Both of my brothers reject religion as well, but they're not quite as passionate about it as I am.

that you really love theists , though you feel they are dishonest and that they are idiots.

Dishonest as in they are dishonest with themselves---not that they are dishonest people.

*edit: well, some of them are dishonest people. See Kent Hovind.* 

Idiots only if they don't accept science and logic.

 

Guess so you love these idiots dearly as you love your intelligent club members.

If I wanted to, I could say that this line sounded sarcastic and even... *gasp*... egotistical!

But I'm not going to do that because I realize that in a debate about the veracity of a claim, the most important thing is the arguments involved, not the emotions of the arguers.

Even if I was the hugest dick in the world and treated every theist who came here as if they were dirt, it wouldn't say anything about the truth of my position. It would simply mean that I was an asshole. It also wouldn't mean that all atheists are assholes. It would only mean that I was.

Until next time.

A place common to all will be maintained by none. A religion common to all is perhaps not much different.


magilum
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Quote: Magilum called me a

Quote:
Magilum called me a reptile ,

Yep, and even that's a generous appraisal of your mindset. You seriously remind me of people I've met who have had their brains eaten by drug abuse. The only reason I can imagine anyone is still responding to you at any length is sub-threshold OCD on their parts (no offense, ya'll). You are one of the dullest, most repetitive, least interactive, least interesting, most tedious creatures ever to steal minutes from my day with your insipid drivel.

Quote:
used four letter words with reference to my mother also.

Oh yeah? Where?


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magilum wrote:

Quote:
Magilum called me a reptile ,

Yep, and even that's a generous appraisal of your mindset. You seriously remind me of people I've met who have had their brains eaten by drug abuse. The only reason I can imagine anyone is still responding to you at any length is sub-threshold OCD on their parts (no offense, ya'll). You are one of the dullest, most repetitive, least interactive, least interesting, most tedious creatures ever to steal minutes from my day with your insipid drivel.

Quote:
used four letter words with reference to my mother also.

Oh yeah? Where?

  Are you making fun of reptiles, Magilum?  

Sounds made up...
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mephibosheth
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  DG, Thanks for your

 

DG,

Thanks for your reminder of why I hated biology class and a few other classes and also going to the doctor (not to be re-wired by a committee).

Let me ask you to turn your attention to a couple other subjects (I am honest in wanting to hear how you address these - not being manipulative).

How do you answer the question of justice? You have all this stuff in your head, and it all relates to everything and you try to get it out all at once.

What if some ignoramous drinks a dozen beers, is able to start down the road and hit you paralyzed such that you can't even tap a keyboard, looking up, motors disconnected not able to work because of this injustice. (I don't hope this at all don't think that because I don't, and don't bring up about stem cells) - what I want to know is how do you address the injustice of that? Is there any eventual payday?

There is a payday in my faith BTW.

Here'a another: Your best friends' little boy is shot by a stray bullet from a gang fight. How do you comfort them? What would you say at the funeral?

I believe the little boy will be with God.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mephibosheth (waiting at the foot of the hill for wisdom)

 


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You're sick. I mean,

You're sick. I mean, disgusting. I mean, you're fucked in the head. This is about where I draw the line.

I expect this is how you imagine your friends reaction, 'Oh, yes, it's best that he is with god now. I can at least be happy of that.'

I have yet to find a grieving person who believes it's better for their loved one to be with god than to still be alive. It seems entirely unhealthy for a grieving person to, rather than accept the finality of death, grasp onto the notion that perhaps (or certainly, as it may be) their loved one still exists somewhere and that they may (or certainly will) one day be able to see them if they are also good enough to get to heaven.

Seeking to comfort a grieving person by outright lying to them (at worst) or (at best) by saying something meaningless in regards to the fact that their child is dead (I'm sure you understand the Earthly implications of death, after life or no) is just sick. You could offer some actually condolences and remind you friend to revel in memories and to respect the only life his son had by being happy for his life and encouraging him to grieve in a healthy way.

You don't just stop with his child being with god though, you may further offer him a reminder that the man who shot his son is going to suffer eternally for what he did and you might expect your friend to find that decent 'payback' for the loss of his son. You're sick.

The first instance is just repulsive, but that you would actively derive some pleasure from the knowledge that someone may have an eternity suffering for something they did to you (not to god, especially in the case of the drunk driver) and thinking that you are somehow special enough to warrant their everlasting torment is... it's difficult for me to articulate how sick that is. (Why would god think you're so special in the first place? Is it an unforgivable sin to drive drunk and paralyse someone?)  I doubt you'll find that deludedgod would seek vengeance or hope for payback and I know certainly that he would never suggest that his friend's son is with a sky daddy.  This might not interest you, since you sky daddy apparently doles out justice on your behalf, but there are Earthly institutions upon which society's function depends and they're called courts. They deal mainly in matters of justice. How well they do that is another debate, but until I see evidence of your god intervening here on Earth and smiting someone for their sins or for their actions - until I see evidence of god dealing in matters of justice on Earth, then I have a hard time buying it from you that some greater justice in the matter of the drunk driver will ever be visited upon him than his rightful prison sentence. You're fucked in the head.

BigUniverse wrote,

"Well the things that happen less often are more likely to be the result of the supper natural. A thing like loosing my keys in the morning is not likely supper natural, but finding a thousand dollars or meeting a celebrity might be."


magilum
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Magus wrote: magilum

Magus wrote:
magilum wrote:

Quote:
Magilum called me a reptile ,

Yep, and even that's a generous appraisal of your mindset. You seriously remind me of people I've met who have had their brains eaten by drug abuse. The only reason I can imagine anyone is still responding to you at any length is sub-threshold OCD on their parts (no offense, ya'll). You are one of the dullest, most repetitive, least interactive, least interesting, most tedious creatures ever to steal minutes from my day with your insipid drivel.

Quote:
used four letter words with reference to my mother also.

Oh yeah? Where?

  Are you making fun of reptiles, Magilum?  

What have they done for me lately?


Venkatrajan
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Magus - Guess you have

Magus - Guess you have contemplated and decided to join Magilum's society.

 

Meth - Why does your poetic description about DG leading the flock under a starlit sky keep coming back to me. DG the leader , a bit sophisticated and learned one. Supported now and then by  Prime minister Archie. Rest mostly seem to be an army of hoodlums, whose undisputed leader is Magilum.

Coming to DG's post

 

DG

 

I note the hysterics and dramatics that accompany your posts.   You are good at this and may consider this as an alternate career.

 

I also note a lot of assumptions , have been noting since first post and conclude you to be an ass egostist therefore (trapped in his assumptions ,  theories and essays)

 
  1. Nowhere is Dualism or Vitalism  being asserted and you have misunderstood. It is Monism .
  2. Blah blah , there are lot of scientific explanations for what they are able to explain that is all.  The reality that I talk about is not within current scientific realm at all. So don’t try again please. And I have gone through the full post , a lot of it is repeated earlier by you also, infact picked up just verbatim from this and other posts.
  3.  Your lectures on cell biology , evolution are noted and these are not  denied, I have not denied these to be blatantly wrong. Though evolution is hazy since there are just too many assumptions. Further there are unanswered questions to the tune of  thousands.
 

è    Really a lack of lot of fossils to prove human  origins from the erect apes

è    Why is there no being even nearest to man (in terms of faculties) ?. Why are we the only fortunate ones ? Eg there are hundreds of species of birds, with fairly similar abilities, radical difference in sizes, but come to humans , they are a class apart. Hard to believe.

è    If evolution is true, there should be beings on other planets who should have adapted to temperature extremes and ‘inhospitable conditions’.  

è    Is it possible that there were many human civilizations which arose and died completely ? Few among them could have achieved phenomenal abilities and design capabilities that they tried to design beings like them , but ended up creating apes and chimpanzees.

è    Why there are no big Birds which are carnivorous like a lion or a tiger? It would have been the ultimate survival benefit, Just scoop down and pick up humans and other animals

 
  1. I am able to understand your consternation when epistemology turned to Ontology. I expected you to be smarter to grasp what I was saying , but you have not.  Conscious is essentially self illuminating intelligence (thus in nature of a ‘being’) which is pervading everywhere. We gain knowledge because it illuminates what we sensory info receive,
  2. It is only expected that a man like you who is trapped in the Science Room , shall not be able to even grasp the basics of this.  
  3. Prey how have you assumed that conscious beings should think always. Thought is a brain product. Bacteria cannot think , fine , but it is conscious. You have therefore misunderstood the conscious as being aware of thoughts also. I make a distinction here, By conscious , I mean “Intuitively aware of being”. It is a self assurance to the organism of it being alive, no more , but not a thought of being aware.
  4. Somewhere you mention magic etc , and fall pray to a common atheist argument about magic and woo-woo (as Archie says)  . I have nowhere mentioned talked of any magic and woo-woo. It is your imagination.
  5. Please prove the singularity and its collapse. Just theory. Loads and loads of very basic assumptions result into Science , but you guys call it theories. Further you look for very selective evidence to prove it , since you have a stake in the theory.
 

Have a read through the Vedas and other scriptures dear , might give you some insights and release you from the trap that you are in.

 

 

 

 

 

I am looking for Atheists to increase my belief in God


Magus
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magilum wrote:

magilum wrote:

What have they done for me lately?

It's not what the reptiles have done, its what they are not doing.

 

Venkatrajan wrote:

Magus - Guess you have contemplated and decided to join Magilum's society.

Um... What??

You never addressed my posts.

[Edit : Added (below)] 

Please look up what theory means in the scientific sense, it is very different than the lay man's terms. 

Sounds made up...
Agnostic Atheist
No, I am not angry at your imaginary friends or enemies.


magilum
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ROFL.

ROFL.


deludedgod
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The lack of quality,

The lack of quality, coherency, or sanity in your posts leaves me no choice. If you do not start offering exactly the same courtesy to me as I to you, by which I mean:

1. Ensuring all posts have syntactical, linguistic and grammatical coherency, and are able to be understood

2. Quoting your opponent line by line and responding in the appropriate fashion.

3. Offering counterrefutations before assertions and reassertions

4. Researching posts

5. Lastly, you always, in any post I write, acknowledge (not even talking about refutation), about 10% of the material I write. Often everything you ignore is the actual content of the refutation of your post, by me. I have called you out on this dishonesty ten times now. Unless this practice stops, I will tell you to leave the room. In a formal debate, you would be banned five or six times over by now.

I will leave. Unless you do this. A debate must have a certain amount of caliber and quality before engaging in it is a meaningful exercise.

For now, it is really your “objections” (LOL) to evolution of yours I wish to focus on, since your pathetic hypothesis regarding consciousness was already refuted by me, numerous times, you just ignored it, and decided only to focus on the neuroscience section (which you did not understand anyway). I would also like to take the opportunity to point out that generally you are a condescending dullard, whose posts are poorly researched and incredibly sloppily written and put together. Half the challenge is deciphering your statements, most of which are half-sentences.

Firstly, you assert there being no evidence for evolution. This is refuted here.

· Proteomics and It's Applications For Evolutionary Mechanisms- Indisputable Proof of Evolution and Common Descent

· Reading the Common Descent- Endogenous Retrovirals and Mitochondrial DNA, A Very Short Page


I know you wont bother to read them, I just wanted to point it out.

The rest of what you wrote was so astonishingly, inane, ignorant of science, I was astonished anyone could be so willfully uncaring of biology. You must understand that your questions were of such a high order of absurdity that they were a personal insult to me as a research scientist. Truly, do you drink bleach?

 

Quote:

Though evolution is hazy since there are just too many assumptions. Further there are unanswered questions to the tune of thousands.

 

Do you know that or are you guessing? Have you ever studied evolutionary biology? If I asked you what a Hox gene was, could you answer? If I asked you about Helix-Turn-Helix, or what cladogenesis is, could you answer? No, so why comment on it?

 

Quote:

Really a lack of lot of fossils to prove human origins from the erect apes

 

Why don’t you leave? Seriously, it is adorable when people who have no study in a subject thing they have the right to comment on it, but you go too far in your proud display of ignorance on your sleeve. Your argument is even worse and more idiotic than those I have seen from young Earth creationists (yes, I do mean the idiots who believe the Universe to be 6000 years old when in fact it is demonstratably 13.7 billion years old)

On the Incompleteness of the Fossil Record

It is surely one of the most popular absurdities to criticize the fossil record, not that animals are found in the wrong strata but rather that the record is woefully incomplete, and indeed, for the justification of this, they have invented a hitherto nonexistent term: “transitional fossils”.

One may ask, well, what is a transitional fossil. The response you will undoubtedly get from these simpletons is that it is a transitional morphology between two species during a speciative split. I have no idea whatsoever what this means. There is no such thing as a “transition” between species, because there is no fixed anatomical description of what a species actually is. In terms of physiology and anatomy, a species is a broad, encompassing taxanomical term which encompasses a range of slightly differing anatomy and physiology between a group of organisms whose only unifying definition is their ability to exchange genetic material and procreate to form progeny (at least in the case of organisms whose reproductive transfer is genetically vertical). Hence, the word species is a continuum term, the boundaries of which are marked only by the points at which the genetic differences underlying organisms X and Y are just too great to allow vertical transfer. So, presumably, by transitional fossil, they would mean an organism whose genetic material is at such a precise equilibrium between two species that it is very difficult to class it. Needless to say, the probabilities of finding such an organism are ridiculous, even without the incompleteness in the fossil record.

On the incompleteness of the fossil record, this is merely a state the obvious claim. The fossil record is not a videotape of evolution. The utterly vast majority of animals and indeed physiologically distinct species are lost forever to human knowledge for reasons that fossils are such a rarity anyway. It is pure happenstance than an organism may be trapped in an anoxic environment such that they will be fossilized. The utterly and truly vast majority of all organisms are being siphoned out of the ground and burned to power our machines including the one on which I am typing- they become oil (and coal). It is utterly unreasonable to expect that fossils will provide us with a complete account of evolution anyway, that is impossible. Fossils help us greatly by providing a general account of the phyla, anatomy and physiology of organisms in particular strata, they are not a book which utterly accounts for the steps of incremental change in biological life. That is why more research is being put into my field (this may be my bias as a molecular biologist, but...), of proteomics and molecular genetics, which is helping to provide a very accurate account of macroevolution.

Your next point was, if anything, worse. Firstly, the entire Homo genus is a deceased line except for us. Everyone knows that. Even children know that! This makes our closest relative unusually distant, but even so, in terms of faculties, we are extremely similar to Simians. The only genuine neurological difference is

a) Hox gene mutations in HBOX1 which causes increased neocortex size and power

b) Language, much more increased sophistication of frontal, temporal, parietal and occipital lobes.

If you knew anything about genetics, you would know that the neurogenesis mutations which cause the increase in faculty (since the Hominid line was one of incrementally increasing brain size and power) . Most neuroscientists believe that while the simians are self-aware, they are not conscious. In Epiphenomenalism, consciousness is simply a by-product of expanding brain size as is subject/object dichotomy. Only a handful of neurologically complex animalia may possess this.

Obviously, you know nothing about convergent evolution, or you would not be asking about this. The closest relative to humans is 99.6% identical if we eliminate junk DNA.

Convergent and divergent evolution are a distinct result in general anatomy and physiology of animals due to common descent. The principle of convergent evolution is simple: Animals which are not directly related have underlying common functions due to the fact that they can be traced to a common ancestor and that these functions have universal use. Hence, the closer relationship between the animals in question on the phylogenic tree will determine their anatomical relationship. Zoology is not my field, but evolutionary developmental biology, the study of Hox genes and the evolution of anatomy via the change in the mechanisms governing embryonic development- is, and in the next essay I will be giving a complete explanation of convergent evolution from the standpoint of the Hox genes. The simplest example I can think of is that all animals, with virtually no exception, share the structure of the “tube”, which is the tract from the mouth to anus, whether lateral or longitudinal, and hence all retain the Hox genes in question. Convergent evolution can extend right down the molecular level.

Phylogeny trees or sig sequence marks (like above) can be drawn up for virtually any protein, and the homology indicates the duplication and divergence was responsible for the entire spectrum, indeed the noise mutation on the divergence as tracked by a technique called molecular clock simply should not exist in the case of design. Being that the proteins are the direct interface between the genotype and phenotype, the duplications and homologous relationship between the entire protein spectrum is expressed by duplications in the exons in question. Duplicative mutations leave extremely distinct signs on the organism and as they become incorporated by cumulative mutation mechanisms, they provide a mark by which we can track macroevolutionary processes as easily as we can read a book. We do not need to observe macroevolution to know about it. We can read it.

Convergent evolution speaks to the principle of common descent. The simplicity of the principle is that the more diverged in terms of time and environment the organisms are, the more dissimilar they are, and the closer relationship between them on the tree, the more anatomically, physiologically and biochemically similar they are per the time relationship of their being. But all of them have fundamentals in common:

Gene Family Function

Number of Universal Homologies

Translation. Ribosomal structure, transcription

66

Repair, Replication an Recombination

13

Mitosis, Meiosis and Chromosomal Partitioning and Polymorphism

1

Molecular Chaperones

9

Cell membrane and cell wall, secretion

7

Inorganic Ion transport ducts

9

Signal Transduction

1

Energy Production and Conversion

18

Carbohydrate Metabolism and Transport

14

Amino Acid Metabolism and Transport

40

Nucleotide Metabolism and Transport

15

Coenzyme Metabolism and Transport

23

Lipid Metabolism and Transport

8

Unknown Function

1

General function predicted

33

Now, these homologous mutations and recombination of the homologous copies are important for the generation of new proteins for phenotypic alteration, but the genome does much more than hold protein codes. A cell is much more than a protein factory. A cell must also decide when to manufacture proteins based on external and internal stimulus, and the rate of transcription and translation to determine how much protein is produced. In the case of multicellular organisms, it is exponentially more complex, since the genes must also decide where the proteins are manufactured. The latter is utterly critical to Eukaryotic evolution and is the key mechanism for the generation of complex biological structures such as the heart, the eye etc, since it is the basis of embryonic cell differentiation and positioning. This means that we cannot merely examine the effects of mutations which create and alter proteins, we must examine those of the regulatory DNA. Regulatory DNA is just that, it regulates. It codes for no proteins, rather it flanks the exons and controls their rate of transcription ,as well as where they are expressed in multicellular organisms, and when they are expressed based on internal and external stimuli. The result is a very complex Gene regulatory Node Pathway (GRNP), the alteration of which may produce new and innovative biological structures in multicellular Eukaryota, the precise mechanisms of which will be detailed later.

The genome is complex and intricate, but in Eukaryota, the way it is organized is just awful. It is in an alarming state of disarray. Exon chunks are strewn all over the place sandwiched between enormous and mostly useless strings of introns. What is the reason for this alarming lack of genetic housekeeping in Eukaryota? Simple, the common descent means that Eukaryota have not shed their excess baggage. They simply retain useless genetic information like a mass of old papers since it would take more energy to shed it than it would to simply retain it. Hence, Eukaryota simply retain much of their evolutionary "junk DNA" as dormant, nonexpressed strings of nucleotides which don't actually do anything, except, of course, help molecular biologists sort through evolutionary relationships. As evolution goes on, of course, this extra DNA just piles up, for there is no need for Eukaryota to shed it. This is clear indication of common descent of Eukaryota. Indeed, in humans, only 9% of our genome appears to have any function whatsoever, and thus far it has been confirmed that at least half of it is "safe for recombinative excision", which simply means that the deletion of it makes no change in the organism.

This contrasts prokaryota, which are small and energy efficient organisms for which small genomes are clearly advantageous. The result is that they have a much higher exon concentration and much less regulatory DNA (little regulatory DNA is required for a functional organism). The result is that they are much more genetically distinct and diverse than are Eukaryota.

Multicellular Eukaryota, being much bigger and much more complex than Prokaryota, are actually much less diverse. There are vastly more fundamental constraints and requisites on physiology, cell dynamics and anatomy in a multicellular organism than in a single-celled one. As a result, Prokaryota are vastly more diverse than multicellular Eukaryota, and are also much more diverse than Single-celled eukaryote (since Eukaryota are much more complex than prokaryota, and single-celled Eukaryota, in turn, are much more diverse than multicellular Eukaryota). This is evident if we examine the base-pair span relationship in different domains of life:

Range of Genome Size in Nucleotide Pairs

Bacteria

5x10^5 to 1x10^7

Fungi

1x10^7 to 1x10^9

Protists

3x10^7 to 9x10^11

Plants

1x10^8 to 5x10^11

Insects

1x10^8 to 5x10^8

Mollusks

5x10^8 to 5x10^11

Cartiligenous fish

2x10^9 to 1x10^10

Bony Fish

5x10^8 to 3x10^9

Amphibians

7x10^8 to 9x10^10

Reptiles

1.5x10^9 to 5x10^9

Birds

7x10^8 to 1.5x10^9

Mammals

1.5x10^9 to 5x10^9

The majority of changes between multicellular organisms are quantitative for this reason. So, when cyou get starry eyed over the apparent phenotypic diversity over humans on grounds that we are "so different", it shows pure idiocy. Indeed, morphologically, phenotypically, phylogenically, in terms of everything the Homo Sapiens is much, much more similar to, say, the Fugu Rupribes (puffer fish) than two average soil bacteria, you are displaying ignorance since multicellular organisms are vastly more rigidly similar in biochemistry than are any prokaryota. I share a higher percentage of DNA with the potted plant on my desk than do two prokaryotic species picked at random. It is for this reason that bacteria account for 99% of all species on Earth, and will always be the dominant arm of the biosphere as long as sustainable life exists on the planet. This is also why for the bulk of geological time, our ancestry were single celled organisms. So, again, I iterate that when the creationist despairs over the apparent vast differences between animals, but then dismissed observed bacterial speciative events, their ignorance rises to surface in the most amusing way. In terms of the biochemical spectrum, all multicellular Eukaryota are extremely closely related and that the generation of new species is so incremental and in terms of time slower than bacterial change is merely because bacteria reproduce exponentially faster.

For this reason, the utterly vast majority of mechanisms common to life were in place by the time the transition to multicellular Eukaryota was made after the rise of the Eukaryotes during the Oxygen Catastrophe. And it is for this reason that scrutinizing multicellular evolution so heavily while dismissing the evidence from the more easily observable bacterial evolution, is deeply dishonest for creationists. Granted, we can observe animal evolution very well, and our molecular techniques allow us to read it just as well as we would bacterial evolution, however, we must remember that we share far more in common with say, tucans, than the average soil bacteria shares with the average bog bacteria, and when examining the phenotype diversity of animals, we tend to forget this.

In other words, your “argument” is refuted by a basic principle which everyone who studies bio understands: There is an inverse relationship between morphological, phylogenic, anatomical and physiological diversity versus anatomical and physiological complexity (hence divergent evolution). Hence, any question regarding the difference between the most complex known being (the Homo Sapiens) and the Simians is ignorance. The neurological changes in the frontal, temporal and medial lobes and the quantitiave increase in brain material between the Homo and Simian genii are nothing compared to the vast exon/rate change differences between prokaryota.

 

Quote:

è If evolution is true, there should be beings on other planets who should have adapted to temperature extremes and ‘inhospitable conditions’.

 

This shows ignorance of cosmology. First of all, biological life can only arise in a specific band of conditions for which we have discovered only a handful and one forming. Organic molecules for the creation of biological life require a permanent dipole and some for of natural Electrophosphoresis to form. Don’t you know anything at all about thermodynamics and biomolecular kinetics? About the sensititivy of low-entropy systems and the inverse relationship between temperature and Free energy after a certain point? Really, please stop talking about evolution and chemistry. You know nothing about it. Truly nothing. Biopolymerization requires specificity of temperature and stability in range. Please do not assert, ever again, about a subject regarding which your education is nothing. How dare you call me arrogant when you make this phenomenally stupid and ignorant comment flagrantly uncaring about the fact that you have never studied cosmology (I bet you could not even tell me what the phrase Goldilocks Zone means, anyway). Aren’t you aware in any way of the entropy-sensitivity of biomolecules?

Really, you don’t know any of this, do you?

This may be the most idiotic comment I have ever encountered. This is worse than anything any creationist ever said. You know nothing of science and basic biology. Please get out. Before it was different. Now I am just angry someone could possibly know so little, and be proud of it.

 

Quote:

Is it possible that there were many human civilizations which arose and died completely ? Few among them could have achieved phenomenal abilities and design capabilities that they tried to design beings like them , but ended up creating apes and chimpanzees.

 

 

That is utterly ridiculous. There is no evidence for this, and hence it is ad ignoratium

 

Quote:

 

Why there are no big Birds which are carnivorous like a lion or a tiger? It would have been the ultimate survival benefit, Just scoop down and pick up humans and other animals

Sir, truly this may be the worst and most ignorant thing you have ever said. Let us examine population cycles. The struggle for resources is intrinsically linked to population and environmental factors. Biotic and abiotic factors all come together to determine selective pressure on organisms, which determines how their morphology will change. There is no “invisible force” guiding evolution, as “natural selection” is sometimes wrongly misinterpreted as, but merely that the organisms which can best adapt to the environment will survive and propagate, hence, all the stops are pulled out to see how can survive in the struggle for resources.

The gleaning of resources by organisms is determined by traits. Some organisms may be faster, stronger, better sighted, better camouflaged, smarter, etc. The refinement of these traits and hence the biological structures underlying them is done only because they are advantageous ie they help the organism in question survive and therefore reproduce and therefore the trait proliferates. Along with Richard Dawkins, I take (in opposition to Stephan Jay Gould) a school of thought of evolution called gene level selection. Since all the actions of organisms in the struggle for survival may be reduced to the genes fighting for proliferation, the intrinsic nature of the self-replicating chemical system to reproduce as much as possible is borne out by the organism which houses it.

The debate between group selection and gene selection is irrelevant for this discussion. Neither side, obviously, is denying that evolution occurs, merely how it occurs at a macro level. Anyway, the struggle for resources often leads to the accelerating refinement of advantegous traits. For example, Sabertooth tigers of the Primordial human era were in competition with each other for the catching of prey, as a result, those with the sharpest teeth and greatest speed ate, survived, and proliferated. Of course, this led to sabertooth tigers being faster and deadlier, which invariably led to an accelerating arms race of evolution. The sabertooth tigers were in competition and continued to compete and compete until they were so fast and deadly that they killed all the prey, starved to death, and hence returned to being less lethal and less speedy so that they population of prey may return to normal.

Evolution is all about the natural control of population dynamics, which keeps the organisms in question in symbiosis with the environment. A species which is too successful will destroy itself, by hitting the “Malthusian limit” or what ecologists called the K-limit. In nature there are many “limiting factors” which keeps rapid evolution of a single trait in check, hence encouraging morphological diversity, as we shall see below. These limiting factors are often food limits, viruses, etc.

As a result, “arms races” for the increasing refinement of single traits are often accompanied by divergences, whereby populations of organisms often develop other successful traits by which they may stay in the struggle for resources. The result of this is a divergence whereby the development of a new successful trait obviously leads to a morphological change between the diverging group and the pre-existing set of organisms.

In the language of evolutionary biology, this accumulates into a speciative event. A new species arises from an old one by means of incrementally changing morphology, through which organism may better exploit the environment by developing new traits, instead of getting into an arms race over refining a pre-existing trait, which leads to crash-and-burn cycles.

The technical definition of speciation is a break-off where the break-off population may no longer exchange genetic material with its predecessor population. This almost always occurs when two populations of organisms become geographically separate, and therefore are subject to different evolutionary pressures and different gradients of morphological change. After all, animals in a pole environment have very different needs to those in a desert environment. The slightest and most subtle change in pressures can have far reaching consequences which is what makes evolutionary trajectories so complex. An interplay of factors will determine the shaping of the morphology of organisms, which include abiotic factors (food supply, weather patterns, geography) and biotic factors(predators in the area, disease vectors and predator/prey cycles).

This has led to some uncomfortable discussion of whether it was purely luck that the evolutionary trajectory came upon a self-aware being of consciousness. This has led to a debate on whether the huge advantage of sentience makes it mathematically inevitable that it will arise, and I tend to side with this position.

As I said before, but tha you lack the cranial capacity to understand, there are physiological constraints on evolutionary mechanisms. This is why the large mammals that dominated after the cataclysm 65 million years ago are gone. There are physiological and anatomical constraits, which are also checked by the K-Limit and Malthusian cycles, hence, large birds of prey are physiologically impossible and ecologically unsustainable. I am not your goddamn 5th grade science teacher. GO to a library, read a real book, and then come back. But don’t make incredibly idiotic arguments to me, when all I will do is laugh so hard I will almost seize.

Please stop this NOW. You show huge ignorance of physiology, anatomy, population cycles, speciation and divergence of phyla and trait. Do not ever speak to me about evolution again, because not even from creationists have I ever been forced to deal with such idiocy.

 

Quote:

Prey how have you assumed that conscious beings should think always. Thought is a brain product. Bacteria cannot think , fine , but it is conscious. You have therefore misunderstood the conscious as being aware of thoughts also. I make a distinction here, By conscious , I mean “Intuitively aware of being”. It is a self assurance to the organism of it being alive, no more , but not a thought of being aware.

 

You fool, scientists have already demonstrated this false. And please do not accuse me of failing to grasp anything (and providing one sentence en passent as evidence of that), because I actually refuted that, but you really were to lazy to read it. Only a select few entities have subject/object dichotomous distinction, self-awareness. However, this is not necessarily consciousness. You clearly show ignorance of neurophenomenology. What is consciousness? An odd question, and disarmingly difficult to answer. It is not necessarily tied to self-awareness. You can be conscious but not self-aware (this relationship is not reciprocal, however, you cannot be self-aware and not conscious), nor is it tied to language (this is difficult to imagine since higher cognition seems to revolve around language, and when we think to ourselves, we are thinking in language, nonetheless, a baby is still conscious, and language is not the only mode of transmitting higher cognition within the brain). Again, this relationship is not reciprocal. An animal which can construct a language will have to be conscious.

Since we don’t have a test for consciousness and it appears that we are the only animals which have developed language, there is no way to know as of yet whether any of our cohorts in the animal kingdom are conscious. The two best candidates are gorillas and dolphins since they have all passed the self-awareness test and have reasonable (although extremely primitive compared to our own) methods of communication. If consciousness is a process which exists in degrees, whereby there is no clear-cut line for conscious and not conscious unless neurologists draw an arbitrary line based on electrical activity, then at what point in the evolutionary continuum did consciousness develop? Is it with one of our deceased Homo genus ancestors? And, on that same token, at what point in human embryonic development does the conscious process switch on so to speak? These are the questions which the next generation of embryologists, neurologists and neuroscientist can look forward to.

If you do not know this, you have no right to be here and discuss this. So just get out.

Consciousness is intriscally tied to self-awareness and thought, and only a few beings have this. I already pointed this out, and you ignored it. Why, why, why do you to this? Shall I repost it so maybe this time you will be bothered to read it? I already pointed out the following:

“Pan-Consciousness” is ontologically absurd and begs the question: It was crushed by functionalism and epiphenomenalism. It has no ontological status. It is process, not entity, and hence the view of it being the underlying highest ontological status is absurdity of the highest degree. Having established the consciousness is a lower ontological status than the material, your point is destroyed by reductio ad absurdum.Pan-consciousness begs the question of existence since it does not answer the question of what it means to be conscious. Your assertion over this definition has already been crushed by me, and yet you did not breathe a word about it. How dare you even show your face here engaging in such dishonesty. Regarding consciousness being a higher ontological status, I have already established that the alternative is inherently absurd, which is why your assertion that an entity could be conscious without thought is equally absurd. While consciousness is not necessary for thought, thought is necessary for consciousness, and I have already established scientific evidence for this. You fail to understand such an astoundingly simple part regarding reciprocal relationship and causality, that I am stunned you are still showing your face. The notion of consciousness underlying the material instead of vice-versa was something which I spent 60,000 words refuting. You ignored all of this material and continued to assert. At any rate, I should not even need to refute your idiocy since you can provide no evidence of it. The evidence you offered I already refuted. Being that you offered no counterrefutation, your point is as of now reduced to absurd conjecture. The ball is in your court to establish how this process could possibly be a higher ontological status than the material despite that all the evidence points in the opposing direction. You are facing a vast leviathan of contemporary Western Philosophy of Mind and Neurophenomenology. This position is old and outdated and, ironically, two opposing schools crush it (functionalism and epiphenomenalism). Consciousness is a property which can only be held by neurologically complex beings. This is why only a handful of organisms have the property of being self-aware (please do not make another Affirming the Consequent Fallacy by misconsterueing this relationship as reciprocal again). If consciousness were a higher ontological status, such a view would inherently beg the question. If consciousness is C, then talk of ~C is absurd under this proposition, yet ~C clearly exists. There are entities whose existence is such that it cannot be conceived as to what it would be to perceive through this entity because this entity has no capacity to perceive itself as being. That function requires neurological complexity. I demonstrated this. You ignored it. I also pointed out that such an entity would require the ability to neurologically make the distinction between that which is perceiving and that which is being perceived. And I explained such perceptive mechanisms in molecular detail hence establishing that only certain neurologically complex beings could posess them. You ignored it for a third time. How dare you, you dishonest charlatan. AS I explained before, your argument can be destroyed by reduction ad absurdum since definining C requires a dichotomous distinction between that which is being perceived and that which is doing the perceiving. In this regard, your point about subject/object bias is a Red Herring since it fails to account for the absurd point you made. If there is no ~C, then the existence of C as ontologically discrete process begs the question. Hence, the idea of consciousness as a the highest ontological category is absurd since it denies, effectively, the existence of consciousness. (it begs the question as to what consciousness is, if it cannot be defined as C, since by that definition ~C=Ø, which means that the idea of consciousness being coherent at all is inherently absurd. We can conclude that consciousness requires the requistes of existence which you postulated as requiring consciousness, which I refuted, and you did not acknowledge, hence making your entire argument a stolen-concept fallacy. The idea of Pan-consciousness is easily reduced to the absurd because by it, C is not anything meaningful QED, It refers to nothing to say it is the highest ontological status. It is philosophically absurd, and indeed, refutes itself. Most functionalists and emergentists regard it as a lower ontological status than the material without which the process cannot be. The problem with ~C= Ø is the nature of the causal relationship of If ~A, then ~B, therefore if necessarily B, then necessarily A. For consciousness, the relationship has been established as reversed: It requires thought, self-awareness, and a powerful neurological engine. Furthermore, it is a process existing in degrees in entities or not at all. We do not know how it works but we do know that it is neurologically discrete, which is to say that obviously ~C= Ø is ridiculous. Allow me to remind you of the emergentist position:

One of the things I covered in the other essay (albeit not with this specific terminology) is the concept of ontological orders. We have higher ontological status and lower ontological status. The lower ontological status arises from the higher ontological status. A finger is a higher ontological status than a working hand. A fermion is a higher ontological status than a quark, and a quark higher than a proton, and a proton higher than an atom. In other words, the concept of an ontological status requisites materialism. Not necessarily reductionism because it can also encompass emergentism but it does necessitate that beings exist due to the existence of higher ontological status. Eventually, according to the grand unifying theory of physics, we keep going back and we eventually hit the highest possible ontological status, the absolute substance (or perhaps lack thereof) from which all is composed.

Emergentism is an arm of materialist philosophy. Many naturalists regard consciousness and the mind as an emergent property of the brain. Some others hold that the mind can be divided and is hence, with respect to the whole brain, reductionist, not emergent. I am sympathetic to a middle ground position . Obviously when we reduce the system to a certain degree, we find the property which we were examining in the first place disappears. Hence to some degree the two positions of emergentism and reductionism are valid and mutually reconcilable in much the same way that empiricism and rationalism are reconcilable. In fact, I do not think there has been a “pure” empiricist or rationalist since the days of Immanuel Kant. Likewise, the materialist philosophy does not usually find one taking a pure stance on emergentism or reductionism.

Reductionism does not say that X does not exist, merely that it is a lower ontological category than its constituents Y and Z. Emergentism says that X exists of its own accord due to a synergistic effect between Y and Z. The latter can be invoked to explain many phenomenon from a materialistic perspective, especially consciousness and the mind. Regardless, any dualist asking for a materialist to explain abstract X is revealing their own unsurprising ignorance of materialist philosophy. Abstractions in this context are merely what a reductionist would call lower ontological categories that result from increasingly complex systems, or what an emergentist would call the result of synergistic effect in the system. Emergentist materialism is extremely important in my work, since one of the things I study is enzyme kinetics, drugs and medicine, where synergistic interplay is extremely important. The same logic which causes a Calcium Channel blocker and a Beta Blocker to work better together to lower blood pressure than the mathematics of their individual workings would have us believe is the same logic that may give rise to abstractions from material systems. In other words, this may cover thoughts, emotions, rationality etc. To a reductionist however, we can explain these in terms of direct reducibility to their electrophysiological activity in corresponding neurons. Regardless of which position you take, the abstract, the thought, is still generated.

There are clearly entities for whom we can imagine have no concept of being. You also commit a fallacy of non sequitor by misconstruing neurological relationships as reciprocal (ie A then B therefore B then A), which is to say that while a being need necessarily not be conscious to have thoughts, it does require that it can have thoughts before it can be conscious, the same with the perception of subject/object. This is not a reciprocal relationship. A being requires preexisting neurological complexity before consciousness may arise, not vice-versa.

as Paul Drayper put it:

"Consciousness and personality are highly dependent on the brain. Nothing mental happens without something physical happening." Now Michael Tooley, a philosopher at the University of Colorado at Boulder, has stated five lines of evidence in support of this claim. Let me summarize just briefly that evidence. First, when an individuals brain is directly stimulated and put into a certain physical state, this causes the person to have a corresponding experience. Second, certain injuries to the brain make it impossible for a person to have any mental states at all. Third, other injuries to the brain destroy various mental capacities. Which capacity is destroyed is tied directly to the particular region of the brain that was damaged. Fourth, when we examine the mental capacities of animals, they become more complex as their brains become more complex. And fifth, within any given species, the development of mental capacities is correlated with the development of neurons in the brain. Thus, the conclusion that, "Nothing mental happens without something physical happening," seems inescapable.

Your “arguments” for Pan-consciousness were already refuted by me. You essentially ignored 2000 words of text. I already pointed out that these functions that you attributed to consciousness were not really consciousness at all. Why did you ignore this? Why the bloody hell do you keep debating if you are to ignore half your opponents goddamn post? Here, I shall show you:

This position of yours, the idea that persistence occurs because it is being pushed by consciousness. However, philosophers and scientists have known for decades that this relationship is contra, it actually goes in reverse. The persistence of beings is necessary for consciousness (hence, your argument is a stolen concept fallacy, analogous to "property is theft"Eye-wink. Life persists in the struggle for existence because it is based on a molecular code whose composition makes it intrisic that it will struggle to survive because the chemistry of it dictates that it will replicate and it struggles solely to continue replication of its code. That is how and why evolution works. There is no "conscious" reason behind this, as that would beg the question...

THat is why biological life is defined as any autonomous agent. This can be expressed mathematically, as I showed here:

So, this is why a bacteria will swim upwards in a glucose gradient, why osmeotic fluids always move from a high to low concentration of water, why electrons always arrange quantum orbitals in mutual repulsion, why things always fall towards their lowest energy state. THere is no "consciousness" pushing any of these things. That is etiologically absurd. Once we developed mechanism, we understood this. It is simply inherent to the nature and property of the object in question. This is true for electrons, for DNA, for cells, for life.

So any "Example" you give which does not focus on a neurologically complex being capable of holding the concept of "I" will simply make the same causal fallacy I pointed out over and over and over and over again (PLEASE do not make this fallacy again, or I shall know you did not bother to read this, and then I shall be extremely angry).

 

 

If you do this again, ever again, simply ignore a refutation the way Meph does and continue to assert a proposition without offering a suitable counterrefutation, I will leave. I will walk out the debate. I refuse to debate anyone who acts in such a ghastly and flagrantly idiotic manner.

Honestly, I really don’t know why I am still here…

"Physical reality” isn’t some arbitrary demarcation. It is defined in terms of what we can systematically investigate, directly or not, by means of our senses. It is preposterous to assert that the process of systematic scientific reasoning arbitrarily excludes “non-physical explanations” because the very notion of “non-physical explanation” is contradictory.

-Me

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Meph, I'm glad you think

Meph,

I'm glad you think there's a payday with your belief. If it works for you, cool. I still don't really understand why you're giving God credit for the stuff you're going out and getting but OK. You want to sell yourself short, I can't stop you.

Venk,

You're a funny guy. You come here and provoke a conflict and then accuse those who hit back of hooliganism.

"I do this real moron thing, and it's called thinking. And apparently I'm not a very good American because I like to form my own opinions."
— George Carlin


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a small tangent, DG is like

a small tangent, DG is like a damn biology textbook that can speak, just had to say it.


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zntneo wrote: a small

zntneo wrote:
a small tangent, DG is like a damn biology textbook that can speak, just had to say it.

Let's just say DG's not a person you accuse of not knowing what he's talking about in the Life Sciences area.  

"I do this real moron thing, and it's called thinking. And apparently I'm not a very good American because I like to form my own opinions."
— George Carlin


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Thomathy wrote: You're

Thomathy wrote:

You're sick. I mean, disgusting. I mean, you're fucked in the head. This is about where I draw the line.

I expect this is how you imagine your friends reaction, 'Oh, yes, it's best that he is with god now. I can at least be happy of that.'

I have yet to find a grieving person who believes it's better for their loved one to be with god than to still be alive. It seems entirely unhealthy for a grieving person to, rather than accept the finality of death, grasp onto the notion that perhaps (or certainly, as it may be) their loved one still exists somewhere and that they may (or certainly will) one day be able to see them if they are also good enough to get to heaven.

Seeking to comfort a grieving person by outright lying to them (at worst) or (at best) by saying something meaningless in regards to the fact that their child is dead (I'm sure you understand the Earthly implications of death, after life or no) is just sick. You could offer some actually condolences and remind you friend to revel in memories and to respect the only life his son had by being happy for his life and encouraging him to grieve in a healthy way.

You don't just stop with his child being with god though, you may further offer him a reminder that the man who shot his son is going to suffer eternally for what he did and you might expect your friend to find that decent 'payback' for the loss of his son. You're sick.

The first instance is just repulsive, but that you would actively derive some pleasure from the knowledge that someone may have an eternity suffering for something they did to you (not to god, especially in the case of the drunk driver) and thinking that you are somehow special enough to warrant their everlasting torment is... it's difficult for me to articulate how sick that is. (Why would god think you're so special in the first place? Is it an unforgivable sin to drive drunk and paralyse someone?) I doubt you'll find that deludedgod would seek vengeance or hope for payback and I know certainly that he would never suggest that his friend's son is with a sky daddy. This might not interest you, since you sky daddy apparently doles out justice on your behalf, but there are Earthly institutions upon which society's function depends and they're called courts. They deal mainly in matters of justice. How well they do that is another debate, but until I see evidence of your god intervening here on Earth and smiting someone for their sins or for their actions - until I see evidence of god dealing in matters of justice on Earth, then I have a hard time buying it from you that some greater justice in the matter of the drunk driver will ever be visited upon him than his rightful prison sentence. You're fucked in the head.

 

Thomathy,

This section of the forum comes under the heading of "introductions, conversation and humor" and with a conversation I can appreciate frankness such as you expressing to me to the limits of your ability what I am, what you think I am thinking, and what you think I would say though I haven't said, and framing what I meant though I didn't mean from your mental framework.

Another thing that is nice in conversation with guests is respect - even though the person might be from another faith or just another person - I think that is a good way to make the world a brighter place. You have given what you have in that as well.

You will notice as you go along in life that if you aren't certain things and don't do certain things it isolates you from pain in those areas. For example, if you don't slander people, others may slander you but it won't touch you. The same is true with disrespect (BTW, I know God respects you as well).

I'm not the paymaster and I don't know what payday will be, but you're right - I urge everybody to accept the grace of debt paid in Jesus. It might be a lie to you but it isn't to me. I said in the OP I accepted the sincerity of those on this site as well.

As for comfort in bad situations, I suppose we all would do the best we could and still fall short. I was just curious what an atheist would say in those situations, so, not knowing I ask.

Sanity is a hard thing to assess. Everybody might have a different perspective on that. You know, I heard from an old doctor here in town they ended up putting the first guy who said there was such a thing as bacteria/germs in an asylm after they kicked him out of the medical club. He looks pretty good now, huh. Time can sort.

 

Mephibosheth (not locked up at the moment)


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mephibosheth

mephibosheth wrote:

 

Another thing that is nice in conversation with guests is respect - even though the person might be from another faith or just another person - I think that is a good way to make the world a brighter place. You have given what you have in that as well.

This is an atheist forum. Most of us here think the religious faith is ludicrous, harmful, a mind disorder, etc. It's not surprising that one atheist wouldn't be afraid to say so.

The "kill 'em with kindness" board was created as a place for theists to come and have conversations where the forum mods would actually enforce respectful/polite conversation (no swearing, calling people idiots, etc).

We are not on the board. No atheist is required to respect your position.

Quote:
 

You will notice as you go along in life that if you aren't certain things and don't do certain things it isolates you from pain in those areas. For example, if you don't slander people, others may slander you but it won't touch you. The same is true with disrespect

Another thing that pisses people off is when you talk down to them like they're children. Don't do that. It makes you sound like an asshole.

Quote:
 

(BTW, I know God respects you as well).

I love it when theists claim to know the unknowable.

Quote:
 

I'm not the paymaster and I don't know what payday will be, but you're right - I urge everybody to accept the grace of debt paid in Jesus. It might be a lie to you but it isn't to me.

It doesn't matter if it isn't a lie to you! A lie is a lie is a lie!

"Santa Claus might be a lie to you, but it isn't to me." Your own opinion has nothing to do with it. Wanting to believe something is no foundation for its truth.

Quote:
 

I said in the OP I accepted the sincerity of those on this site as well.

Yes. We're very sincere. But you also implied that what you meant by this was some kind of sincere "faith", which was bullshit. So if that's what you mean by this, you need to stop saying it.

Quote:
 

As for comfort in bad situations, I suppose we all would do the best we could and still fall short.

There is nothing anyone can do to completely reverse the emotional impact of terrible situations.

Quote:
 

I was just curious what an atheist would say in those situations, so, not knowing I ask.

We provide comfort, but we don't do it with fairy tales.

When I want to be comforted, I want to be comforted by a human being who is there with me in that moment. It's the person whose compassion brings me comfort. The magic man in the sky doesn't do anything for anyone. It's a bullshit reaction anyway. Believers throw out God's name automatically in certain situations like it's some kind of prescription.

Quote:
 

Sanity is a hard thing to assess. Everybody might have a different perspective on that. You know, I heard from an old doctor here in town they ended up putting the first guy who said there was such a thing as bacteria/germs in an asylm after they kicked him out of the medical club. He looks pretty good now, huh. Time can sort.

Are you suggesting that time will prove your beliefs right?

Are you aware of how much time God has had so far? He has literally had thousands and thousands of years. If an all-powerful and omniscient being can't prove that he's right in that amount of time, then he's got a problem.

A very poor suggestion to make. Nice try though.

 

Have fun in the nuthouse!

--Arch 

 

A place common to all will be maintained by none. A religion common to all is perhaps not much different.


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I'm interested in the

I'm interested in the conversation in this blog, at least for the moment.  For me a debate, is something I often avoid when possible, but this could be some benefit to me. 

I can barely handle the text editor in this blog, having to pick heading, paragraph, etc is already discouraging me.  Can someone fix that? 

The reason I post is that I have a question for both the theists and the athiests in relation to this discussion. 

What do you care about?  What is something that you really care a large amount about?  If this someone or something was gone, you'd  be very pissed, upset, cry, laugh(instead of crying).  

A lot of what I read in this discussion is debates of which side is indeed correct.  Most of it is written in an intelligent manner, free from gramatical error, and hard to see flaw in some of the thoughts.  

From my point of view, the statement I have formed is hard to argue, the statement is “nothing is really anything. “ As I have examined and lived out that perspective, there are still a few things I care about.  At times I either advance towards having more things I care about or I advance toward having more things I care less about.  This is a personal perspective and life existence I am merely sharing.  Something I really care about is my family, I could post more details unless my post is blown way out of the water. 

The relationship between what I have shared and this topic is this:  The discussion in this topic seems to direct my thinking more towards apathy, caring about less things.  I have been down both paths, both feel pretty good at different times.  Apathy I enjoy, though unhealthy at times.  I think the type of thinking displayed here promotes apathy?  Who gives? 

I'm not on this earth for athiests into believers or believers into atheists (also featured in a recent Kanye West song).  I'm not really sure of my purpose, but life should be good/fulfilling.  I like looking on the Upside, hence the screen name. 

So what do you care about?  What do you really care deeply about?  I'd like to hear that from both sides.  I could care less who can type more punctual and error free.  No debates will ever really be won on this site, unless someone gives up.  Don’t break up my paragraphs and tear apart each one, please.  Rational thinking is applauded, then allow me to be real with all these words.

U

Upside


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  Well, Upside, Saul went

 

Well, Upside,

Saul went out looking for his father's asses and Samuel met him and anointed him king. After that he didn't worry about the asses anymore.

I'm not worried about asses anymore.

 

Mephibosheth (no ass worries)


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mephibosheth

mephibosheth wrote:

 

Well, Upside,

Saul went out looking for his father's asses and Samuel met him and anointed him king. After that he didn't worry about the asses anymore.

I'm not worried about asses anymore.

 

Mephibosheth (no ass worries)

Too heavenly minded to be of any earthly good? 

"I do this real moron thing, and it's called thinking. And apparently I'm not a very good American because I like to form my own opinions."
— George Carlin


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mephibosheth

mephibosheth wrote:

 

Well, Upside,

Saul went out looking for his father's asses and Samuel met him and anointed him king. After that he didn't worry about the asses anymore.

I'm not worried about asses anymore.

 

Mephibosheth (no ass worries)

jcgadfly wrote:
Too heavenly minded to be of any earthly good?

 

jcgadfly,

 

 

I understand you hate God, Jesus, and some of you even do your impression of what you think is "denying the Holy Spirit" (and encourage others to), so I am in the Greatest of Company when you won't accept the time of day from me even if it's noon.

You have set your DPS to "there is no God" and the destination and time of arrival window is EMPTY but you and all your buds in your handbaskets are excited and partying - even though you don't know where you are going or how your faith "there is no God" applies to your life. There isn't even a steering wheel in your handbasket.

"Rational" is a good sarcastic name for the forum. Is it rational to have faith in your DPS with "destination unknown"?

Is it "rational" to have a faith ("there is no God" is a faith - you haven't proved anything on that - except your escape into your mocking, blasphemy and DG's counterfeit reasoning) that doesn't apply to what's happening now?

If ask how your faith applies to anything in your life you cop, bob, and weave a smokescreen of firebrands, arrows and death.

If ask what you care about - interesting - as just shown - you are silent as rocks held by gravity that you can't explain. What do you care about - other than this parading of what you falsely think is courage by spitting in the face of the Father who made you and loves you?

Oh, I forgot, you also have a religion of your own invention too that makes you feel like you are making the world a better place. It's comparable to Adam and Eve's leaf outfit.

I don't buy it. I'm beginning to think you guys aren't honest about it either. When one of you pipes the rest all dance.

 

 

 

 

Mephibosheth (GPS not DPS - until hell freezes over..... then - on ice)

Oh, I forgot - "What do you care about?" (that'll shut you up)

 


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Quote:

Quote:

("there is no God" is a faith - you haven't proved anything on that - except your escape into your mocking, blasphemy and DG's counterfeit reasoning)

First of all, read this (and take note, sir, this is the second article I have essentially written just to answer your idiocy, honestly, it is like talking to a child who understands nothing of science or logic, so I expect you to read it. It explains why your arguments are false. Then you will be so kind as to tell me where my faulty reasoning lies. If you can find a flaw in the watertight logic (since this is indeed just pure logic) I will stand down. Otherwise, you will stand down. It is here:

The Employment of the False Dichotomy Fallacy and Its Variants In Debate

Sir, while I had thought perhaps that you might be coaxed, perhaps even forced, into having some sort of sane discussion (one in which you wrote coherently, to start), I see now with your latest trash of a post, miscarraige of verse, that you are not to be dissuaded from dishonest, fingers-in-ears debate tactics which reflect immaturity and borderline obsession.

You would be so kind as to tell me where there is any fault or fallacy in my reasoning. You will do this properly and in a logical ,argumentantive fashion. Until then, you will stand down and cease your assertions. Of course, my request for you to do so, I have already resigned myself to, is to fall on deaf ears. Being that you have not read anything I have written (in fact, with this latest post, I would call into serious question your ability to read at all) how can you possibly accuse me of faulty reasoning?

And please do not use the phrase "I can see you hate God". Surely, even you can see that this is a non sequitur ad absurdum of a statement to make to an atheist. It contradicts the next paragraph. Were you drunk, or shot up with mephamphetamine or dimethyltriptamine when you wrote this? The quality of your posts would suggest so.

Also, "blasphemy" is a fictional notion, so do not employ it as if it were an insult to call someone a "blasphemer". You will get only cold laughter from the room.

Have I not already cleanly blasted, nay, destroyed, your claim that atheism requires faith? Have you responded. No! So stop making this claim until you commit to the proper counterrefutation.

Have I not already pointed out the fallacy of your previous request of how this "lack of faith" (which is the correct term) applies to life? Have you responded? You have not. I already itook the time to answer the question in the bottom line of your latest and worst post, and yet, you continue to imply that I have not... Time after countless time I blast, destroy, maul, savage, rent asunder your arguments and you ignore such refutations and continue to make the same arguments. Are you genuinely in possession of all of your mental faculties, or do you have serious OCD? As I suspect the latter, I recommend you check immediately into a neuropsychiatry clinic where they will administer the proper treatment for sub-cortical neural circuitry miswiring and malfunction which causes OCD.

Sir, I have never, ever, not online nor in person ever spoken to anyone as dishonest, vilitrolic, willfully ignorant as I am speaking to now. And considering that I spend a lot of my time dealing with creationists, that says a very great deal indeed.

"Physical reality” isn’t some arbitrary demarcation. It is defined in terms of what we can systematically investigate, directly or not, by means of our senses. It is preposterous to assert that the process of systematic scientific reasoning arbitrarily excludes “non-physical explanations” because the very notion of “non-physical explanation” is contradictory.

-Me

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mephibosheth

mephibosheth wrote:
mephibosheth wrote:

 

Well, Upside,

Saul went out looking for his father's asses and Samuel met him and anointed him king. After that he didn't worry about the asses anymore.

I'm not worried about asses anymore.

 

Mephibosheth (no ass worries)

jcgadfly wrote:
Too heavenly minded to be of any earthly good?

 

jcgadfly,

 

 

I understand you hate God, Jesus, and some of you even do your impression of what you think is "denying the Holy Spirit" (and encourage others to), so I am in the Greatest of Company when you won't accept the time of day from me even if it's noon.

You have set your DPS to "there is no God" and the destination and time of arrival window is EMPTY but you and all your buds in your handbaskets are excited and partying - even though you don't know where you are going or how your faith "there is no God" applies to your life. There isn't even a steering wheel in your handbasket.

"Rational" is a good sarcastic name for the forum. Is it rational to have faith in your DPS with "destination unknown"?

Is it "rational" to have a faith ("there is no God" is a faith - you haven't proved anything on that - except your escape into your mocking, blasphemy and DG's counterfeit reasoning) that doesn't apply to what's happening now?

If ask how your faith applies to anything in your life you cop, bob, and weave a smokescreen of firebrands, arrows and death.

If ask what you care about - interesting - as just shown - you are silent as rocks held by gravity that you can't explain. What do you care about - other than this parading of what you falsely think is courage by spitting in the face of the Father who made you and loves you?

Oh, I forgot, you also have a religion of your own invention too that makes you feel like you are making the world a better place. It's comparable to Adam and Eve's leaf outfit.

I don't buy it. I'm beginning to think you guys aren't honest about it either. When one of you pipes the rest all dance.

 

 

 

 

Mephibosheth (GPS not DPS - until hell freezes over..... then - on ice)

Oh, I forgot - "What do you care about?" (that'll shut you up)

 

Wow.

You certainly made a whole lot of assumptions with out even knowing me.

I don't hate God or Jesus - I don't hate who I haven't met and can't meet a "person" who isn't proven to exist. I might even like a guy like the Jesus described in the Gospels. Too bad so many people are living that "Christianity" that Paul dreamed up.

You ask me what I care about. I care about:

- my family

- my society

- my country

- my fellow humans

That's why I hate to see what Paul's "Christians are under grace so they can do whatever they want because there is no sin without law" is doing to those things I care about.

That's why I asked the question that you forgot to answer - Are you so hung up on telling people how cool it is that you're going to heaven and they're not that you've stopped trying to improve people's lives while you're on the planet?

It sounds like you're more concerned with trying to get your reward then you are about living like the Jesus you claim to respect. "Going about doing good? That's crazy - Paul never said anything about that and I only follow his writings." You sound like you only care about you. I can summarize all your posts with this sentence - "I've got mine and it sure sucks that you don't"

And you really don't want to go into how the Father made me and loves me. If God made me, then he has some serious design and construction issues.

I was born with one working eye and degenerating retinas in both. I don't know for sure but my eye problems could've had something to do with my mother's immune system trying to attack me while I was in the womb (opposing Rh factors). Intelligent design at work?

God was also kind enough to trigger the cells that composed my thyroid into uncontolled growth about five years ago. Most people call that cancer - would you call it God's plan?

Thanks to several surgeries and synthetic thyroid hormone, I'm cancer free and can see better than I ever have. Man's science had to fix what your God screwed up.

Now as to my destination - I know where I'm going. Eventually I will die and be put into the ground. That's why I do my utmost to make this life as good as I can make it for those I care about and myself. I'm not running around saying "Oh this old world is so bad. I sure am glad I'm going to heaven to be with my Lord and getting away from all those dirty sinners" and not doing a damn thing to improve the situation. I hope that you're not really like that and you do occasionally help those less fortunate than you but I don't get that impression from your posts here.

My faith is based in the people that I care about and who care for me. That seems a whole lot better than the Biblical crapshoot that you live under.

"I do this real moron thing, and it's called thinking. And apparently I'm not a very good American because I like to form my own opinions."
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Thanks JC for your response

Thanks JC for your response to my original post. 

If others had things to share of what they cared about that would be cool as well.  Point is to not get wrapped into spiraled thoughts and debate that shrink others as well as yourself at the same time, in advancing apathy.

I was in St. Louis 3 months ago when I pulled up at the BP gas station behind Busch stadium.  Pumping gas after the Cubs had just destroyed the Cardinals, something I was happy about.  I looked over and saw this picture painted on a garage, the picture that I have next to my name.

There are lots of colors in the mural and the overall picture is very cool as well.  Though I got some grief, I quit pumping gas and ran out in the middle of the 4 lane road so that I could get a good picture of the painting.  The road was clear, but my wife thought the painting was dumb at the time, has since then come around, but didn't like my initial idea of putting it on my background on my computer at work.  It was her first reaction to it. 

I think anything is a lot like this picture.  There are a lot of colors.  If I told you a specific color (green), that might be what stands out to you, that might steal the focus of your eyes.  In the big picture it isn't what color stands out the most, but the whole picture that defines the picture.  A person could represent a color, a situation/experience could represent a color, and when you look at a certain something your overall picture of that something is highlighted by those specific colors that steal your focus.  

Oh my it isn't a stretch to apply this comparison to religion, faith, or God stuff whatever you call it.  There have been so many colors in my life to this picture, and even some "who cares" applied to my vision or viewing of the full picture.  It's worth considering.  I was glad to have taken the picture and enjoyed the picture after I got home.  There were about 20 - 30 people that day including my wife who thought was I dumb for taking the picture, getting in the way of them trying to drive on the road as I snapped several pictures off, and others passing by who gave me a strong look of curiousity and envy, I think they too wanted a picture of the garage door.  


 

 

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mephibosheth wrote: I

mephibosheth wrote:
I understand

See, here is your first mistake, from which all the other ones follow. You don't understand. You haven't understood a single thing we've told you. You just keep repeating the same stupid crap which was destroyed 10 pages ago, and you even seem proud of this! That, of course, could be expected from someone so incredibly close minded as you.


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KSMB, I am reading back

KSMB,

I am reading back through some of the rest of the posts in this blog.  Explain your stance a little more.  I read what you wrote to the guy who's picture is him as a child.

In talking about close mindedness, it is a pretty interesting topic.  Anytime I come to a confidence or conclusion that I make for myself, at that moment I am ruling out a lot of other options.  Last night I was really hungry late at night, I wanted cereal, I got cereal and I don't think anyone could have convinced me of eating something else.  

I think in life I have developed a perspective on a lot of things.  It could be said that I am close minded to others, or since there is still possibility of movement, I could be considered open-minded.  It's really a circular topic and like a fish in the water, hard to grab a real strong hold on. 

In talking about theists as inventors of a god, arrogant in that they actively pursue that God and call that a relationship, that is a perspective.  This would seemingly be a real slam to that person who pursued the God they feel so strongly about.  In fact if this God was so important that this theist felt that God was the ruler of the entire universe, I can see how your statements would really cause some anger.  

Unless an individual is truly open to anything I really struggle with how they can call themselves open-minded.  I am close minded, I go to Dairy Queen, I am ordering a large blizzard, the price is only 100 more than the small and 50 cents more than the medium.  If you were with me, you wouldn't convince me to do it differently.  Your way of saving the 1 dollar or getting the cone would be discarded as soon as you started talking about it.  When it comes to furniture, if I were to buy furniture which I haven't, I would buy leather.  It lasts the longest and cleans up the easiest.  You wouldn't convince me to get cloth unless you gave me an amazing deal on the cloth furniture, it would almost have to be free, and you'd have to bring it to my house. 


Upside


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Why don't we list our

Why don't we list our understanding of the definitions of Open Minded and Closed Minded.  Maybe then we can help us understand what you are saying better. 

 

Open Minded: If you are presented with evidence you would change your position, or refute the position with evidence. 

Closed Minded: When presented with evidence on the contry of your belief or understanding of a topic, you simply say don't respond at all, and still keep the the belief. No refutation and you still hold the position.

Sounds made up...
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Upside wrote: KSMB, I am

Upside wrote:

KSMB,

I am reading back through some of the rest of the posts in this blog. Explain your stance a little more. I read what you wrote to the guy who's picture is him as a child.

In talking about close mindedness, it is a pretty interesting topic. Anytime I come to a confidence or conclusion that I make for myself, at that moment I am ruling out a lot of other options. Last night I was really hungry late at night, I wanted cereal, I got cereal and I don't think anyone could have convinced me of eating something else.

I think in life I have developed a perspective on a lot of things. It could be said that I am close minded to others, or since there is still possibility of movement, I could be considered open-minded. It's really a circular topic and like a fish in the water, hard to grab a real strong hold on.

In talking about theists as inventors of a god, arrogant in that they actively pursue that God and call that a relationship, that is a perspective. This would seemingly be a real slam to that person who pursued the God they feel so strongly about. In fact if this God was so important that this theist felt that God was the ruler of the entire universe, I can see how your statements would really cause some anger.

Unless an individual is truly open to anything I really struggle with how they can call themselves open-minded. I am close minded, I go to Dairy Queen, I am ordering a large blizzard, the price is only 100 more than the small and 50 cents more than the medium. If you were with me, you wouldn't convince me to do it differently. Your way of saving the 1 dollar or getting the cone would be discarded as soon as you started talking about it. When it comes to furniture, if I were to buy furniture which I haven't, I would buy leather. It lasts the longest and cleans up the easiest. You wouldn't convince me to get cloth unless you gave me an amazing deal on the cloth furniture, it would almost have to be free, and you'd have to bring it to my house.


 

First, I support Magus' post:

 

Magus wrote:

Why don't we list our understanding of the definitions of Open Minded and Closed Minded.  Maybe then we can help us understand what you are saying better. 

 

Open Minded: If you are presented with evidence you would change your position, or refute the position with evidence. 

Closed Minded: When presented with evidence on the contry of your belief or understanding of a topic, you simply say don't respond at all, and still keep the the belief. No refutation and you still hold the position.

 

But I'd also like to point out that being open-minded does not mean that we should necessarily give an equal amount of respect and merit to all claims or personal belief. For example, if someone still believed in the many gods of the Classical Greek tradition, I would not be required to be open-minded about that. If someone, in their adult age, honestly believed in Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny, I would not be required to be open-minded about that.

If we were talking about a difference of opinions in where the two of us think would be the better place to eat dinner, that would be one thing; but that's not the type of belief we're talking about here. If we merely had differing opinions on what made for a good Halloween costume, that would be one thing; but that's not the type of belief we're talking about.

I think I understand where you're coming from, and I agree that atheists/theists can sometimes let the hostilities get out of control in debates. I know that I can be overly aggressive myself at times, but there are some beliefs that are worth being aggressive about.

An opinion on restaraunts and halloween costumes is not worth the aggression---that would just be silly; but when faced with an adult who sincerely believes in the existence Father Christmas, it may be time to get serious. This is especially true if the person in question is saying that it's YOU who is the crazy person, meanwhile inserting his fingers in his ears while screaming christmas carols at the top of his lungs and reminding you that you'll only be receiving lumps of coal this christmas. This is especially true if this happens to be the belief of the majority, if it slows scientific progress, if it indoctrinates children against their will, and if it continues to spread unchecked.

In short, a mere difference of opinion is worthy of respect. An outright ludicrous belief about the nature of the world is not.

A mere difference of opinion is acceptable. An outright ludicrous belief about the nature of the world is not. 

 

A place common to all will be maintained by none. A religion common to all is perhaps not much different.


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  Arche, JC, DG, Mag, I

 

Arche, JC, DG, Mag,

I can appreciate the certain amount of honesty you have - I mean, you are not working for the devil "in the church", you are working for the devil "in the world". But I'm not sure you would be totally conscious of that. That's my position however.

We are on two separate hills, two separate positions. No one is in the valley between. You belong to Satan and are working for Satan. I belong to Jesus and God and am working for Jesus and God. Nobody walks on both sides of the road - trying to serve two masters would be intoxicating.

As far as unraveling DG's map as to how he got to the top of your hill, I look at it this way: I don't want to go there. If I unravel what I view as confusion built on the fundamental lie, "there is no God" and arrive at DG's hill he wouldn't be rescued from it. If he has gone there he knows the way back if he wants to leave. I haven't got the time to unravel his confusion. I am running a different race with a different map and trying to put all my energy into it, although I admit not perfectly, but I hope to.

I have tried to think of something we have in common to build on, but haven't come up with it sorry. To me at this point it seems we have nothing in common (beyond being men held on the ball by gravity as designed by God with the designed world all around us shouting the glory of God).

So, as I see it we are at war. The spirit that is at work in you is at war with the spirit that is at work in me. The spirit that is at work in you has even deluded some of you into unconsciousness that you have a spirit, so it's darkness and you don't know what you are stumbling over.

I would want to rescue you, but I can't - I can only direct you to Jesus. He can, and that's a faith - based - fact.

Again this is all shouted from my hill. I know it doesn't agree with any of you, so I don't expect any agreement. But you didn't expect it from me either did you?

I, like you (maybe this we have in common) see frankness in communication as kindness. I am not trying to manipulate you with a cat and mouse approach, name calling, defensive escape, or throwing up distractions. This is all honestly the way I see it.

 

Mephibosheth (peace in the midst of war - in Christ. I know whose going to win. I read ahead.)

 

 

 

 

 

 


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"Mephibosheth (peace in

"Mephibosheth (peace in the midst of war - in Christ. I know whose going to win. I read ahead.)"

You just contradicted the claim that caused you to create this massive thread. I figured I'd tell you since I doubt if you figured it out.

I will, however, let you see if you can figure out how you did it. 

"I do this real moron thing, and it's called thinking. And apparently I'm not a very good American because I like to form my own opinions."
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Wow. I thought I was

Wow. I thought I was dealing with simply a rock. Now It seems I am dealing with a fundamentalist as well.

Sir, do not insult me. Do you truly think that after years of debate I have never come across this feeble psychological defense mechanism by which theists attempt to retreat into their adorable little bubble-world of comfort thoughts and denial, projecting their anger onto the other by means of a highly childish and crude notion which only comes at a moment of absolute desparation: My opponent is an agent of Satan? I suspect you do not actually believe this, but you are so terrified that there is even the hint of a possibility that I may have a good point to make, or at least, one which you simply cannot refute, which puts a hole clean through your beliefs...that you turn to this....this astonishingly childish, laughably feeble argument. Not once in your posts have you generated an argument of substance, but this time you don't even try, you just repeat a set of rhetorical ad nauseam nonsense dependant wholly on metaphors (I laughed espcially at the "hill" one) attempting to detract from the rather unfortunate fact that you cannot cobble together a single coherent point. Not one. The insult comes because you assumed that I would not see through this in seconds. Do you know for how long I have been debating? Do you how many times after ripping my opponent asunder with swift ease, I find myself cordially being informed that I am working for the devil? Do you really think that this utter, childish nonsense will do anything except convince everyone, including the bulk of your fellow theists0 that you are a moron who deserves to be laughed at? 

In terms of philosophical sophistication, your belief could be quite well equivocated with those of the Flat Earth Society. The idea that we are “agents of Satan” is so utterly ridiculous. It is so ridiculous I am struggling with the notion that an organism of sentience could come up with it. It reveals an absurdly childish worldview. Tell me,  are you the sort of person, perchance, who watches the illusionist on stage and believes they are actually doing magic? When your arguments fail, when your reason is rent asunder, you turn to your comfort box “Its OK, I cannot read arguments even if they put holes in my arguments the size of dinner plates because their authors work for Satan”. Do you realize how utterly ridiculous this is? Do you realize that your worldview can be unfavorably compared . Tell me, how can I possibly be an agent of a notion I think is utterly ridiculous?

How can I possibly have discussion with someone who believes that anyone who disagrees with them is an agent of Satan? How old are you, seven, eight? Do you actually believe this ridiculous crap, or are you saying it to engage in a psychological defense mechanism to defend a desperate and epistemologically corrupt worldview that which you are so frightened because without any refutation from you, I have shorn asunder that a man may rip apart a piece of paper. Is that how close minded you are? Truly, if you actually believe this, you are insane. Not insane in the colloquial sense, but I mean you could actually qualify for therapy.

Have you so surrendered yourself to blind, Orwellian refusal to think for yourself that you have utterly destroyed your ability to think rationally and laterally? In fact, when people think rationality and offer rebuttals based on pure rationality and science, you refuse to read them on grounds- what was it? “That we are agents of Satan”. Do you have some terminal brain disorder or have you lived your whole life with blinders on? When your arguments are shattered…you turn to your sandbox, your comfort thoughts. Such a worldview, one which is in such terror of being false that it not only refuses to admit the possibility of its falsehood, but also attempts to hold refutations at arms length by claiming those who propogate them are agents of a fictional “Satan” could only be described as a lie for the weak, a beacon for the deluded. And yet…the psychological mechanisms which caused you to offer this ridiculously feeble fundamentalist auto-generating response are very, very well understood. You have given your whole life to this. It took me minutes to destroy it. You cannot accept this…and so, you attempt firstly, to refute the arguments presented, in the proper fashion. You could not do this, and hence began the next step, drawing attention away from t

Consider this analogy. At present, I have ripped a hole in your worldview great enough that you cannot ignore. As such, until or if you bother (you have already admitted to refusing to do so) to rectify it argumentatively, your worldview is dying.

Do you know what the stages of progression of the Kubler-Ross model of a patient with terminal illness are?

Denial: You refuse to accept the mere possibility that I might have scored a good point against beliefs you have. You compound this by refusing to read such possible refutations. You call them “counterfeit” despite not having even read them. You attempt to deny such possibilities by hiding behind incredibly childish shields. Often you attempt to mask this by generating verbal garbage (your prose is ridiculous) which has no substance nor argument. You create comfort thoughts in order that you may retain your shield of faith from rational inquiry into sacrosanct beliefs. You have no idea how common this tactic is among theists who only believe what they do because it makes them feel good.

Anger: The whole ad nauseam phase, progressing from the denial, we find in this thread that you simply repeat the same points over and over, despite that they were already refuted. Since you cannot accept the mere possibility that they were refuted, you turn to anger

Bargaining: Attempting to put the positions on equal footing “ie I have my faith, you have yours” ignoring that I crushed this notion and continued to hammer your beliefs unopposed.

Depression: Once your arguments failed, you turned back to emotionalism (How would you comfort a dying child. How does it apply to life etc)

Stage not yet reached:

Acceptance (I am not asking you to abandon Christianity, far, far from it. I am asking you to rationally think and evaluate your beliefs and not dismiss opposition on grounds of insane, childish fairy tales- such as that your opponents in debate are agents of Satan. I am asking you to accept (as I have) that the notion of an empirical absolute truth is absurd (Hume proved this) and hence, we should rationally evaluate subjective epistemologies before coming to conclusions about the world. I am asking you, in other words, to take your fingers out of your ears)

You could sell your religion to me in a second. Just provide me with empirical evidence which does not contain fallacy nor error of reason. How precisely does asking you to trust rationality qualify me as an “agent of Satan”. Spinoza once said True virtue is life under the direction of reason. So trust your ability to think rationally. Think for yourself. Examine the ontological and metaphysical claims of your religion just as you would any other. Does this request- that you admit (as I have) the possibility that you are wrong, completely and utterly wrong- qualify me as an agent of Satan? 

Your position is so philosophically unsophisticated you refuse to admit even the possibility of being wrong. Look at me by contrast. I post in the hopes that eventually I shall have a worthy adversary. Your worldview, one of magic, and fairies, of faith, of children’s stories, of refusal to admit possibility of error, is one of such childishness, of such utterly laughable psychological mechanisms, that I can scarcely believe a 21st century human would entertain it.

"Physical reality” isn’t some arbitrary demarcation. It is defined in terms of what we can systematically investigate, directly or not, by means of our senses. It is preposterous to assert that the process of systematic scientific reasoning arbitrarily excludes “non-physical explanations” because the very notion of “non-physical explanation” is contradictory.

-Me

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Archeo/Magnus/DG/all, It is

Archeo/Magnus/DG/all,

It is almost Halloween, very current example, and the discussion of faith does have significant difference between outfits chosen or what restaurant or diner a person chooses to eat at after making a swift round of trick or treat.  

Some thoughts on Halloween.  Most years that I can remember it has rained on Halloween.  This year I visited my first Pumpkin farm, and it was a great experience.  There I was able to hand pick pumpkin.  There were live farm animals everywhere, one being a young donkey ass who was showing his dinger to all present.  A wild billy goat that had a jungle gym type facility built from straw that belonged to him.  An aggressive wild turkey was also on hand showing feathers and threatening.  I'm living in a city of 200,000, and to have this type of farm available so close was a real find.  

Point on close minded comments was the argument the guy with the pie chart made about someone on this blog being close minded.  I think we all are on this topic, so the suggestion that he remains open minded when discussing faith seems very questionable. 

DG - I am able to follow what you are saying.  Your response to fellow blogger reminds me of Rocky training on the speed bag prior to his big fight.  Left, Right, Left, Right jabs, high intensity, quick, smooth each time.  Very descriptive, over descriptive on the degree to which Christianity is fake.

DG-The suggestion you posed is to "provide you with empirical evidence," and you would be sold on faith in a God, etc.  Empirical, I admit I was forced to look this definition up, means derived from experience or experiment.  So what I am telling you now is that it is impossible for blogger meph to provide you with empirical evidence, if that word is truly what you are looking toward.  In order for him to do so, he would have to experience God/faith/spiritual event and then transfer that experience to you.  Kind of like an email, he would have to have this encounter/experience and then transfer like data to you as a person.  Impossible.  Please clarify this suggestion that you can be sold on Christianity/faith beyond a reason of a doubt, empirical, etc.  

One more confession here before I am spent.  Looking back 10 years I can realize once thing, if I knew then what I know now, meaning things I have learned, I would probably done some things different.  I don't have any regrets.  But since I can look back and say that, I can also say that I know that I cannot fully trust my own thinking all the time.  Sometimes I have emotions, feelings, distractions, women, idiots at work that distort my perspective and disrupt my reasoning.  Rational is great, I am very rational.  Thinking, being rational, perfectly sound, I don't want to give a percentage for the amount of time I can claim close to 100%.  This confession comes from what I have read regarding the suggestion that a person can rely on their own thinking and that's it.  It should be reviewed.  Doesn't matter if you have 30 disorders and 2 illnesses that plague your brain or body.   Making the claim to be able to rely on own thinking should be reviewed.   


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Mephi-whatsit, you're a

Mephi-whatsit, you're a total retard. If you haven't got anything to say other than projection and mild ad homs then I suggest you go and stick your head up your arse.


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Jacob Cordingley

Jacob Cordingley wrote:
Mephi-whatsit, you're a total retard. If you haven't got anything to say other than projection and mild ad homs then I suggest you go and stick your head up your arse.

 

I think its already there 


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Jacob

Jacob

Regarding your comments vis-a-vis meph, I could not agree more, nor could I put it more accurately. It would take a calibre of proud idiocy such that I could not even begin to imagine to act in the debate-kamikaze style the meph has engaged in. Even I, who, has truly seen his fair share of morons and half-wits and creationists (all synonomous) am struggling to come to terms with the thought processes (or lack thereof) to debate using meph's modus operandi. First the ad nauseam- refuse to admit your opponent has a point, continue to repeat something your opponent has destroyed. Then, when your opponent has forced you to acknowledge the destruction of your argument, turn to emotionalism. Try to play a nonexistent angle in a desperate attempt to save your crumbling epistemic foundation. Whilst you do this, continue to assert your original assertion which was destroyed and you then later promised to acknowledge. Break this rule of debating and continue to ignore your opponents refutation. When your last line of defense crumbles, invent a desperate measure that allows you to retain the bubble, a sort of Bataan in reverse...

What you are witnissing, ladies and gentlemen, is an animal backed into a corner. And when all he has is falling around him, he remains more steadfast and resolute then ever, and more desperate. Calling your opponent an agent of the devil is truly the theist's Thermopylae-style last stand line of defence. I regret to inform you of how common it is. However, it indicates we have exhausted our opponent's caliber of dishonesty. This argument is only brought up when absolutely everything else, the feeble points put forth, have been so thoroughly burned to ash and cinder that there is truly nothing left to claw at save the remains of one last, desperate hope that is actually nonexistent but the opponent simply pretends exists, that allows the opponent to retain their comfort box and manage to keep their fingers in their ears, and convincing themselves that they don't have to listen to their opponents QED...all at the same time. I lament... It is a truly pathetic thing to witness even the most naive child doing it. Watching a full grown adult engage in such tactics may induce vomiting.

"Physical reality” isn’t some arbitrary demarcation. It is defined in terms of what we can systematically investigate, directly or not, by means of our senses. It is preposterous to assert that the process of systematic scientific reasoning arbitrarily excludes “non-physical explanations” because the very notion of “non-physical explanation” is contradictory.

-Me

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I'm going to go out on a

I'm going to go out on a limb and predicting his final "retort" is going to be "you're all going to hell" or something to that effect.

I'm trying to figure out how he can ignore this much evidence without consequence. My hypothesis is that he believes that silly things like "evidence" and "proof" don't apply to god because god is beyond human reason( which is also false claim, since he seems to be able to expound about the glories god quite well, and therefore not beyond his human reason). 

 anyone agree? disagree?


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AloneAtheist wrote: I'm

AloneAtheist wrote:

I'm going to go out on a limb and predicting his final "retort" is going to be "you're all going to hell" or something to that effect.

I'm trying to figure out how he can ignore this much evidence without consequence. My hypothesis is that he believes that silly things like "evidence" and "proof" don't apply to god because god is beyond human reason( which is also false claim, since he seems to be able to expound about the glories god quite well, and therefore not beyond his human reason).

anyone agree? disagree?

I think i agree, he is in denial about there even being evidence i think. Others in this thread has ripped apart his pathetic arguments so bad that he must resort to self-defence mechanisms, hell he kinda started out with 1 eg classic projection.

We have seen from him : projection,denial,maybe even escapism.

i also would bet that he has had some supression and/or repression of some of the  things said in this thread, since they effect his worldview in such a manner that he wishs to not even confront it.

 


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Upside

Upside wrote:

Archeo/Magnus/DG/all,

Point on close minded comments was the argument the guy with the pie chart made about someone on this blog being close minded. I think we all are on this topic, so the suggestion that he remains open minded when discussing faith seems very questionable.

 I don't get it. It must be something I did, I mean there isn't an 'n' in my name right.  I don't blame you since hundreds of people put the 'n' in my name for some reason.   (not trying to be mean or sound angry, more confusion really). Anyway on the the guts of the post:

Care to prove the closed mindedness rather than state it?   I have yet to see your definition of the term.

Sounds made up...
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mephibosheth
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  Magus and all, Right you

 

Magus and all,

Right you are about one thing - me; however you have not been able to go low enough in your estimation of me without Christ. But now I am in Christ, and that has made all the difference.

I wish you could comprehend my joy over here. It's a strange story that will require a eternal answer. Throughout eternity it will be ask, "who are those that live around God?"

They are the ones God created man who fell to the depths. The Son of God took their fallen nature and died for them - these are the result of the turmoil of God's soul.

We have regained much more than we lost. He has made us kings and priests to God. We will be a people who have known sin and know redemption and will remember the price of victory. It's an honor inconceivable - even in our wildest dreams.

Please tell me about your joys over there.

 

Mephibosheth (palace scum)


deludedgod
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Quote:

Quote:

Right you are about one thing - me; however you have not been able to go low enough in your estimation of me without Christ. But now I am in Christ, and that has made all the difference.

This is why I despise Christian theology. It paints man as a worthless, vile creature incapable of saving himself save through utter submission, born condemned, marred without having done anything.

I assure you that despite my rather low opinion of your tactics, being that you are a human being, I consider you of great worth per se, Christ or no Christ. We are all human, and we are all worth something. The idea that you are worthless without a deity brings vomit to the corners of my mouth. This theology is vile. It does not matter whether you have found Christ, can you not wake up to the fact You are human, therefore, you are worth something. You are not born marked for damnation save for your will to submit to a deity. You are born free, and have nothing to lose, save your theological chains. I know there is no way I can convince you that an agent I believe to be utter fiction is working through me. I am speaking about what I believe.

Quote:

Please tell me about your joys over there.

The sheer joy of being alive and conscious ought be enough, but I find such things in what I do, my struggle that I may impart my positive mark on humanity by helping to slay the bastard, genetic disease. I have everything I could ever wish for in terms of joy which I and those around me create for myself, and which I do not falsely attribute to a deity. If my research my impact even a single person who, by nothing save pure accident of birth, happened to have nucleotide misslotting causing deformations unimaginable...I shall have all the joy in the world.

I believe it was Richard Dawkins who said look around you...what more do you want?

"Physical reality” isn’t some arbitrary demarcation. It is defined in terms of what we can systematically investigate, directly or not, by means of our senses. It is preposterous to assert that the process of systematic scientific reasoning arbitrarily excludes “non-physical explanations” because the very notion of “non-physical explanation” is contradictory.

-Me

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Upside
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DG - You did not respond to

DG - You did not respond to my question above.  Purely your choice of whether you respond, but I wanted to mention it to you in case you overlooked.  Again, you ask for "empirical evidence," please see last blog. 

I find you very intelligent and your use of the English language continue to prove that fact each time you enter a post in the blog.  You spent a long time slamming and totally destroying this Meph character on the blog in ways that I couldn't imagine, and now you are sounding lot different in this last blog.  There is no intent of guilt here, it was just an extreme change I wanted to point out.  So were you just having fun when slamming him into next decade? 

When you use words like diety, I would want no part in something that sounded as dull as deity.  When explaining that none of your joy is related to a diety, that easily sounds like a statement I would like to make.  A person can have joy, happiness and all the positive things of the universe without God.  Historically speaking many have survived and thrived without believing or surrendering to a God, this is all basic.  The real difference with the "Christian Theology," is the claim that there is an existence of a better joy.  Kind of like, when I go to a major league baseball game and I not only get to watch, but they let me play in the game.  My joy would be very high at that point.  The Christian claim is that there is a joy greater than physical existence, pleasures, enhanced relationships.  This DOES NOT discredt what you are saying about joy.  This is a separate joy, a separate claim.  This separate claim is where the faith comes in, and the true seeking of the "truth." comes to play.  All is disputable, some say there is evidence, others say coincidence or chance.  All is foolish to many, and brillance to others.  When you ask for empirical evidence, I say that is not a fair request.  I cannot or no one else can experience anything for you, and you expect to capture the full experience without you experiencing yourself.  The use of the word empirical in your statement invalidates your request. 

I wanted to give a much better description of the "Christian Theology" different than you described or what you perceived from other's posts (meph, etc.) 

Magus - I apologize for the error in name.  I like the name Magnus as well, but that is not your name, and names are important.  Thanks for the slack.  

Close mindedness - I made the statement that I think we are all close minded when it comes to the faith topic, including myself.  This to me means that atheists have decided there is no God and Christian theology is a bunch of crap.  There appears little to no openness that athiests are open to reversing those 2 beliefs.  Likewise Christians, people of faith, "people with mind disorders" believe there is a God and on an on, and they are not open to believing that Christian theology is crap and God is no longer existing in their mind.  That is the extent of what I meant by my statement, and this is the definition I have for close mindedness. 

I'm also finding that the blog members who have the name "moderator" are far from moderators.  Moderator position seems to hold a position of sorting out the debate remaining unbiased to either side, etc.  Just an annoyance, like the text editor in the post that most likely won't be fixed but I wanted to share. 

Upside


deludedgod
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Quote:

Quote:

There is no intent of guilt here, it was just an extreme change I wanted to point out. So were you just having fun when slamming him into next decade?

When I am not insulted, I do not insult. That is why I stopped.

Quote:

The real difference with the "Christian Theology," is the claim that there is an existence of a better joy

Actually, Christian Theology claims that man is born marked for damnation except for his ability to save himself by begging and is hence worthless. Man is incapable of being a moral agent under Christianity since he cannot save himself except through faith. It commits, hence, an internal contradiction with the supposed notion of God "loving" man.

Being that Christian theology says that man is worthless from birth (as meph has established) per se and cannot save himself except through faith...I simply cannot see how on Earth you could claim that such theology could bring "joy", especially considering the mutual contradiction. See:

http://www.rationalresponders.com/the_fall_commits_an_internal_contradiction

Quote:

I wanted to give a much better description of the "Christian Theology" different than you described or what you perceived from other's posts (meph, etc.)

Actually, Christian theology as I described it was accurate, and was something I was already aware of before Meph reminded me of such by saying he was worthless without Christ, unless you can correct me. How could a theology which reduces man to such be construed as bringing joy?

 

 

 

 

"Physical reality” isn’t some arbitrary demarcation. It is defined in terms of what we can systematically investigate, directly or not, by means of our senses. It is preposterous to assert that the process of systematic scientific reasoning arbitrarily excludes “non-physical explanations” because the very notion of “non-physical explanation” is contradictory.

-Me

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Magus
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Upside wrote: Magus - I

Upside wrote:

Magus - I apologize for the error in name. I like the name Magnus as well, but that is not your name, and names are important. Thanks for the slack.

Close mindedness - I made the statement that I think we are all close minded when it comes to the faith topic, including myself. This to me means that atheists have decided there is no God and Christian theology is a bunch of crap. There appears little to no openness that athiests are open to reversing those 2 beliefs. Likewise Christians, people of faith, "people with mind disorders" believe there is a God and on an on, and they are not open to believing that Christian theology is crap and God is no longer existing in their mind. That is the extent of what I meant by my statement, and this is the definition I have for close mindedness.

I'm also finding that the blog members who have the name "moderator" are far from moderators. Moderator position seems to hold a position of sorting out the debate remaining unbiased to either side, etc. Just an annoyance, like the text editor in the post that most likely won't be fixed but I wanted to share.

  Like I said you were not the only person to call me "Magnus" I was just wondering if there was a reason behind it.

It doesn't appear you've read this thread, as I think most of the atheists here are not under the "There is no god exists", rather we do not have a belief in god.  I for one if presented with evidence would change my opinion.  However none has been presented.  A disorder of the mind it is, only because it has no evidence.  Once evidence is presented then our understanding of it will change.  

Sounds made up...
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Upside
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Magus - Ok, I understand

Magus - Ok, I understand your position.  I still think the same is true that I said to DG.  That is that an experience or evidence that is directly connected with personal experience cannot be directly transfered from one human to another human.  Since that is impossible, personal experience would need to occur to trigger or provide the evidence that you are requesting or demanding. 

DG - I do not think your sequence of reasoning is accurate.  I do not think that God or theology reduces man.  Instead I think that man feels reduced compared to God.  As an act of reverance or awe, a man can declare that he is nothing compared to the God he serves.  Meph - he can speak for himself....but I would say that Meph has come to the realization that compared to God he is such a small creature on this small planet.  Compared to God, Meph is not very powerful.  Compared to God, Meph is not very ____, you fill in the blank. 

The next question is why has Meph come to that realization or perspective?  1) Is it because he has applied the simple logic of:  we are small, God is big.? Or 2) has he come to this realization and perspective through a personal experience which has provided what he deems to be solid evidence that the God he believes in, is real, and is powerful?  Now, out of awe or reverance for how powerful he believes God to be, he as a Christians shows his this by humility in proclaiming his insignificance compared to God? 

The simple statement, there is no God technically refutes everything I have said.  And without the personal experience leading to evidence, it is hard for any of this to be real for anyone other than the human involved. 

 

Upside