thatonedude wrote:

Rising Sun wrote:

It might not matter whether you believe in philosophical or absolute free will, but it makes a world of difference if you believe in free will regardless of what type.  Moreover, to separate physical determinism from absolute free-will seems more for convenience rather than truth.  Compatabalism never made sense to me except to try to fit a round ball into a square.

Not at all. I am always operating on inputs. It does not matter if those inputs are determined or not. From an individual's point of view, the result is the same. And it has no bearing on intelligent design at all.

It might not change your position on evolution, but it certainly has an impact on how we behave.

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Yet, somehow you believe that something much more complex, your "underlying intelligence," did just that. You have no trouble imagining a mind capable of creating and ordering a universe just popping into existence, but the universe is too much for you?

Huh?  I never said anything about a mind capable of creating and ordering a universe by just popping into existence.  I don't know where you got that from.

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[Rising Sun=quote]

I am not sure why I'm here.  I guess I'm trying to hear your point of view, as well as defend mine.  I'm also trying to understand the goal.  It seems like everyone is trying to persuade the other to convert.

ThatOneDude wrote:

I'm not interested in conversions, but rather conversations. I fight against ID because it is a religious sham being foisted on the educational system. I have children in these school systems, and if I wanted them to hear religious propaganda, I'd send them to Ken Ham's "museum." I'd rather my tax dollars be burned in a barrel than go towards the undermining of science and rational thought that keeps getting shoved into schools.

I wouldn't want my children to be indoctrinated with religious progaganda either.  But to say the pledge of allegiance is not such a terrible thing.   

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I would like to read this book.  I will see if it's in the library.  Do you know the name of it?

ThatOneDude wrote:

Jerry A. Coyne. "Why Evolution is True." Link to the book on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Why-Evolution-True-Jerry-Coyne/dp/0670020532/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1245874528&sr=8-1

If your library doesn't have it, request it through the inter-library loan service. Most libraries are a part of that.

I would also recommend Carl Sagan's "The Demon Haunted World" which is about skepticism and science: http://www.amazon.com/Demon-Haunted-World-Science-Candle-Dark/dp/0345409469/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1245874666&sr=1-1

You can also find an excellent list of suggested reading at the end of Jerry's book. Richard Dawkins has several excellent books about evolution. And of course, not reading "The Origin of Species" is leaving out the seminal work in the field.

Thank you.  I wrote the names down and I will try to get them so that I can have a more constructive conversation.

 

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Right. But your premise was that evolution would appear in increments.  His math would be wrong in this case, but right now we are still debating over the validity of Darwinian evolution, aren't we?  Until it's proven to be absolutely factual, isn't everything else that follows based on conjecture?  We can surmise, but we can't know for sure.  The jury is still out.

I won't respond aside from saying that you need to start reading some of the books I linked. The only people still debating evolution are doing so from an explicitly religious standpoint. They are distorting evolution for religious and political gain.

 

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This IS the crux of the problem because if these laws were able to create peace on earth, this intelligence would seem more real, wouldn't it?  What if these very laws could prevent what our legal system could not?  What then?  Would that change your point of view to accomodate this new knowledge?

ThatOneDude wrote:

No, because it is obvious that they are oblivious to human concerns. Inertia is the same, whether it's acting on a ball hit off a child's bat or acting on a .45 slug entering that same child's skull. Fusion is fusion, whether it's warming my skin on a beach or inflicting cellular damage which will cause me to die of skin cancer. Physical laws are not good or bad, they just are. And they certainly don't "create peace on earth." That has never existed, and never will.

That's where we part ways.  Just because something has been a certain way for years, doesn't mean it has to be that way forever.  Our greatest visionaries knew that and that is why they were able to think outside of the box.

Hello.

Hello