i just laughed for 5 minutes straight

Rev0lver
Posts: 171
Joined: 2007-02-24
User is offlineOffline
i just laughed for 5 minutes straight

seriously. read leviticus 15:19-30. its funny.

it states that 2 pigeons must be sacrificed for every time a woman has her period.


JamesAChristian
Theist
Posts: 49
Joined: 2007-03-18
User is offlineOffline
deludedgod wrote: "DNA

deludedgod wrote:

"DNA dating is based on the assumption (debated by geneticists) that mutations occur at a constant rate."

Indeed it is! My personal take is that the Levinthal paradox suggests it is constant, but I digress. Furthermore, in this case with the mtDNA, we are measuring much smaller scales because it does not extend back to speciation. And, this is corroborated by radiometry. Furthermore, you (suprise!) failed to answer my question

If think you are missing something here... I have no problem with  Endogenous Retroviral Gene insertion or mitochondrial DNA horizontal transfer migration because as far as I can see your description is irrelevant... by it self it prove nothing except that errors happen over time. My problem is with how it is used in dating and that is where my interest lie but you have not provided the necessary information on that part. However if you are asking question with implication to us being related to monkeys... just because two things share a component or more prooves nothing. My Microwave and my TV share many components but that does not mean they evolved from the same device. If you assume that then your logic is faulty.


JamesAChristian
Theist
Posts: 49
Joined: 2007-03-18
User is offlineOffline
GreyhoundMama wrote: The

GreyhoundMama wrote:
The piece that I totally fail to understand is how you (theists among you) can say he can't be described, but then proceed to explain all these things that you KNOW he wants/needs/expects. The contradiction is glaring.

You miss understand theist then... we say you cannot describe/understand God completely or even mostly but that is all. We can only get a small glimpse of God and the stuff we know we know only because he has told us in one way or another (example. through creation, through the prophets, through Christ). 


deludedgod
Rational VIP!ScientistDeluded God
deludedgod's picture
Posts: 3221
Joined: 2007-01-28
User is offlineOffline
far as I can see your

far as I can see your description is irrelevant... by it self it prove nothing except that errors happen over time

No! Dont you get it! The errors have precise lineage distribution to the point where even on different karyotypes the endogenes can be discovered in the precise flanking positions of the chromosomes of multiple interspersed geologic eons. Do not project your inability to understand onto me.

However if you are asking question with implication to us being related to monkeys... just because two things share a component or more prooves nothing. My Microwave and my TV share many components but that does not mean they evolved from the same device. If you assume that then your logic is faulty.

A poor analogy. You really are embarassing yourself. THe importance is not just the errors, but the genomic distribution and the function, the probabilities associated with such over geologic lineages. TV and microwaves do not have parts inserted into them for no reason, and they do not swap genetic material, and they do not perform horizontal transfer of these parts. Your understanding of science is so awful...

Chew on these:

http://www.aps-pub.com/proceedings/1483/480302.pdf

http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2148/1/3

http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/abstract/101/51/17747

http://lanl.arxiv.org/PS_cache/q-bio/pdf/0702/0702005.pdf

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/section4.html#retroviruses 

"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


deludedgod
Rational VIP!ScientistDeluded God
deludedgod's picture
Posts: 3221
Joined: 2007-01-28
User is offlineOffline
you assume because God is

you assume because God is infinite you cannot understand him at all and that he does not have emotions

Incorrect. You are projecting your wrongess onto me. I am stating that to project emotion onto God, thus it has no merit, so there is no need to take it seriously as a proposition.

 I however am not making that assumption at all

You make the opposite assumption, that God is anthropomorphic

 Tell me, where is the proof that God implies no emotions or not understandable at all?

It is merely a definition. The philosophers pointed out that religion is worthless because it fails to make God understandable. The whole point of the thesis was the religion says nothing about God, rather the underlying projection of man, hence the diffusion of different faith across the globe. The evidence that God is not understandable is quite simply that it cannot be verified to exist.

 Since I start with the Bible I know that man is made in the image of God (Gen 1:26-27) (thus he has some common ground with God no matter how small) and that God has revealed himself through the Bible (that is why it is called God's word).

Please. The Bible is worthless drivel. The Quran is also called Gods word. So are the Vedic texts and the Talmud, even the Greek mythology was considered God's word at one point. Please provide any evidence that the Bible is any more valid than any other holy book. And don't start rambling on about some ancient prophecy because that is common to virtually all religions. 

"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


JamesAChristian
Theist
Posts: 49
Joined: 2007-03-18
User is offlineOffline
Iruka Naminori wrote: Your

Iruka Naminori wrote:

Your beliefs are just as silly, just as without merit as those of Scientologists, Pastafarians and Muslims.

Well now you know what I think of atheist too... just silly. But not a laughing matter... 

You will deny it but you are just as brain washed. You feel you are on the winning side just because you have "science" but majority never can be equated to right.

I shall probably hang out here until someone admits that they have no more proof then I have for anything however since that is unlikely to ever happen I guess that means I will be here for a long time.


Vastet
atheistBloggerSuperfan
Vastet's picture
Posts: 13234
Joined: 2006-12-25
User is offlineOffline
JamesAChristian

JamesAChristian wrote:
Iruka Naminori wrote:

Your beliefs are just as silly, just as without merit as those of Scientologists, Pastafarians and Muslims.

Well now you know what I think of atheist too... just silly. But not a laughing matter... 

You will deny it but you are just as brain washed. You feel you are on the winning side just because you have "science" but majority never can be equated to right.

Must I really point out that science by definition is testable and provable? Are you brainless enough to suggest that science is brainwashing when science can be and is proven?

JamesAChristian wrote:

I shall probably hang out here until someone admits that they have no more proof then I have for anything however since that is unlikely to ever happen I guess that means I will be here for a long time.

It won't happen. God is impossible. Laws of physics prove it. Matter and energy cannot be created or destroyed.

Enlightened Atheist, Gaming God.


Rev0lver
Posts: 171
Joined: 2007-02-24
User is offlineOffline
JamesAChristian

JamesAChristian wrote:
Iruka Naminori wrote:

Your beliefs are just as silly, just as without merit as those of Scientologists, Pastafarians and Muslims.

Well now you know what I think of atheist too... just silly. But not a laughing matter... 

You will deny it but you are just as brain washed. You feel you are on the winning side just because you have "science" but majority never can be equated to right.

I shall probably hang out here until someone admits that they have no more proof then I have for anything however since that is unlikely to ever happen I guess that means I will be here for a long time.

what you dont realize is that the burden of proof is on you, not us. you cant expect me to believe something without giving proof for it. thats the whole idea with the flying spaghetti monster. can you disprove it? no. if i told a christian that theres an invisible spaghetti monster i'd expect them to ask me to prove it.


deludedgod
Rational VIP!ScientistDeluded God
deludedgod's picture
Posts: 3221
Joined: 2007-01-28
User is offlineOffline
You will deny it but you

You will deny it but you are just as brain washed. You feel you are on the winning side just because you have "science" but majority never can be equated to right

I want everyone to observe this: The theist cannot argue thus he projects his flaws onto you.

Science is not a popularity contest. It is the opposite. Science is about having evidence and experimental data. Verification and induction to make proof. Religion

a) Does not have this

b) Is the opposite: religion is a popularity contest. This is why Islam and Christianity are respected and Mormonism and scientology are not. They attempt to continue the popularity contest by vying for converts and evangelizing.

 

Also, please explain how requiring evidence, logic, reason and science to believe something is "brainwashing"

 Well now you know what I think of atheist too... just silly. But not a laughing matter...

The theist fails to counter Iruka's point regarding different religions so he just replaces a word in the sentence and posts it.

 It won't happen. God is impossible. Laws of physics prove it. Matter and energy cannot be created or destroyed.

Indeed. First law of thermodynamics. There is only one person in this discussion who has no understanding of molecular kinetics. 

"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


JamesAChristian
Theist
Posts: 49
Joined: 2007-03-18
User is offlineOffline
I'm just wondering... what

I'm just wondering... what implications do "the barcode of life" results have upon these findings? 


JamesAChristian
Theist
Posts: 49
Joined: 2007-03-18
User is offlineOffline
deludedgod... do mamals and

deludedgod... do mamals and reptiles share retroviruses in their DNA? Do mamals share retroviruses with any other animals?


deludedgod
Rational VIP!ScientistDeluded God
deludedgod's picture
Posts: 3221
Joined: 2007-01-28
User is offlineOffline
deludedgod... do mamals and

deludedgod... do mamals and reptiles share retroviruses in their DNA? Do mamals share retroviruses with any other animals?

thanks for the polite question. If we can continue in this civilized manner, rest assured I will cease volleying.

ALL animals have retroviral insertions. In bacteria, this is hard to quantify due to their highly promiscous nature of horizontal gene exchange. But in Eukaryota, they are indepedent entities, thus the existence of the ERVs and their position and nature in the genome indicates that all life comes from the same proto-cells. I am not sure what you mean by "share" retroviruses. If you mean that they have the same retroviruses, then yes they do. If you mean do they "exchange" retrovirals, then no they do not. Eukaryota do not exchange genes except through progeny lineages. Only bacteria can do that.

However, obviously because they will accumulate, the most recent species will have the most retroviral insertions. Humans have many special ERVs that are called HERVs. Some HERVs are suspected of causing MS and autoimmune disorder. Others are thought to be helpful during embryonic genesis and immunogenesis. Nonetheless, it is established that most of them are useless, due to the denaturing of their proteins and the nonsense mutatations that have been repeatedly strung throughout the insertions.

"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


Iruka Naminori
atheist
Iruka Naminori's picture
Posts: 1955
Joined: 2006-11-21
User is offlineOffline
JamesAChristian

JamesAChristian wrote:
Iruka Naminori wrote:

Your beliefs are just as silly, just as without merit as those of Scientologists, Pastafarians and Muslims.

Well now you know what I think of atheist too... just silly. But not a laughing matter...

You will deny it but you are just as brain washed. You feel you are on the winning side just because you have "science" but majority never can be equated to right.

I shall probably hang out here until someone admits that they have no more proof then I have for anything however since that is unlikely to ever happen I guess that means I will be here for a long time.

Yes, I knew you felt the same way about atheists. That's why you are here. We are trying to convince one another.

Let me reiterate two points that have already been covered admirably by others:

  • Science is not on the same footing as religion. Science is testable: provable and falsifiable. Religion is not. And all religions that rely on faith, from Pastafarianism to Scientology to Christianity are equally unprovable.
  • It is true that it is impossible to either prove or disprove god's existence (at this point); however, belief and disbelief are not on equal footing. The default position for any outrageous claim is always unbelief. The burden of proof is on the person making the outrageous claim, in this case: "God exists." Otherwise we'd spend every waking moment trying to disprove the non-existence of all kinds of things. Here's an example: Prove Santa doesn't exist. Once you give me some arguments, I'll tell you that Santa actually has an underground fortress at the North Pole that is undetectable by all current technology. If you argue further, I'll come up with another way to define Santa into existence. This is what apologetics does for religion...and it makes the rational want to bang their heads against the wall.

I've read quite a few of your posts, James, and one of the assertions you've made is that atheists cannot understand the theistic position. This is completely unfounded. I understand better than most. I grew up in a Christian home and attended a Christian school from grades 2 through college. I honestly believed in Jesus Christ and had devoted my life to his glory.

Then a funny thing happened. Through a series of events, I finally learned I had been duped. So, when I say I feel embarrassed for you, it's not just a figure of speech. I really do feel embarrassed for you. It's a little knot that enters my gut and makes me feel very uncomfortable, both for you and for the me of 20 years ago who would be saying the same things you're saying now.

Instead of getting angry--it's hard not to when you wasted a large portion of your life on a dangerous lie--I am trying to view religion in the same way Richard Dawkins does. It's a virus of the mind and it is virulent and highly infectious. The person who has the virus will deny its very nature. I denied it and denied it and denied it, but in the end I finally beat it. It was a painful process. The more people who go through the process, the less painful it should be. I had to do it mostly alone, but now there are places like this site. Smiling If you do manage to extricate yourself from religion, there will at least be people online you can talk to about your experiences.

Books on atheism, purchases on Amazon support the Rational Response Squad server.


JamesAChristian
Theist
Posts: 49
Joined: 2007-03-18
User is offlineOffline
deludedgod wrote: I am not

deludedgod wrote:

I am not sure what you mean by "share" retroviruses. If you mean that they have the same retroviruses, then yes they do.

To clarify... a retrovirus enters a species it copies its genome into the DNA of the species. Later on the species branches, say into humans and gorillas. We know that this happened because the retrovirus occurs at the same place in the DNA of both humans and gorillas. Does this same sort of proof exist for say humans and reptiles or between mamals and reptiles? This method has been used to link humans with what other species?  Do you have articles to back up you up? If yes then can I see them?

Humans and the next closest species (According to Coffin this would be Chimpanzee and Bonobo) share how many of these ERV in their DNA? I assume humans share less ERVs with all other species? Do we know what the function of these ERVs were? (Send articles for anything you can backup please.)


kmisho
kmisho's picture
Posts: 298
Joined: 2006-08-18
User is offlineOffline
JamesAChristian

JamesAChristian wrote:
Rev0lver wrote:

i'm not sure what he means with the ammonites, but he might be referring to judges 11:29-31

but, jephthah did kill 42,000 Ephraimites in chapter 12

I don't know where exactly to place this answer so I'll put it here...

I don't expect anyone to really understand this because we live in a society devoid of morality but...

The Bible teaches that God is defined by two chracteristics, love and justice. Love implies he will give us as much time as possible (even give us a substitute) but justice implies that eventually our times runs out. According to these two things time had run out for those people in the Bible who God had destroyed by the Isrealites. It is interesting to point out that eventually Israel's time ran out also and that is when the Assyrians carried away the Northern kingdom. Judah went on for a while longer and then God had to punish them and they went to Babylon. However he saved a remenant so that his promise to Adam and Eve (that he would one day send the seed which would crush the head of the serpent) could be fullfilled.

Nah. God could have just fixed what was broken. He didn't have to go on a murderous spree.


deludedgod
Rational VIP!ScientistDeluded God
deludedgod's picture
Posts: 3221
Joined: 2007-01-28
User is offlineOffline
Later on the species

Later on the species branches, say into humans and gorillas. We know that this happened because the retrovirus occurs at the same place in the DNA of both humans and gorillas. Does this same sort of proof exist for say humans and reptiles or between mamals and reptiles? This method has been used to link humans with what other species?  Do you have articles to back up you up? If yes then can I see them?

ERVs are not used to verify the order of evolution or the  speciative splits that created it. ERVs are used to verify common descent. I think I fully answered this in the link I gave you.

I gave you some more links to articles. Here is an article about the ERVs in Wolly mammoths. Is that far back enough for you (Note, this does not mean that men evolved from mammoths, that is ridiculous. But the two share a common ancestor)

http://mbe.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/reprint/18/5/840.pdf 

"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


BenfromCanada
atheist
BenfromCanada's picture
Posts: 811
Joined: 2006-08-31
User is offlineOffline
Will_Know wrote: Rev0lver

Will_Know wrote:

Rev0lver wrote:
the laws stated in leviticus doesnt apply after jesus died on the cross. but these are what god told the people to do, if he decided to change them later i wouldn't say he is too perfect.


Good point Rev0lver, but were the OT laws for jews only? Or were them a perpetual covenant between god and people of the world?

This 'jesus-died-so-law-changes' seems a perfect excuse, and many christians do use it, but where is it stated in the NT? I know Paul did, but Jesus wasn't at all clear, he sometime said Law is to be kept, next time he changed parts of it, like for clean food.

So what's jesus message? Is 'I came to fulfill' the same as 'to change/add to it'?
By the way, I heard one reason for the new covenant is that it was *needed* now that jesus fulfilled the old law. Does it make sense? How can a man fulfill a law in a way that it then must decay?

And is paul's authority anywhere enough?

I think this is an important point to understand. Sometimes you see christians battling for having the decalogue on public walls, but if you say God killed so many people you hear them say 'Oh, that was the OT!'. Innocent

However, God is the same today, yesterday, and forever. AMIRITE? 


IAmParadox
IAmParadox's picture
Posts: 5
Joined: 2007-04-24
User is offlineOffline
I'm pretty sure there is no

I'm pretty sure there is no evidence whatsoever that the Jews were ever slaves in Egypt, and it is there that this story falls apart, and the lying nature of the writers of this history book becomes an issue, and are you going to admit that God lied by telling the writer to write false history to make them seem so much more persecuted than they actually were?


IAmParadox
IAmParadox's picture
Posts: 5
Joined: 2007-04-24
User is offlineOffline
This is a lie, we live in a

This is a lie, we live in a world devoid of your morality, thank goodness, but I live in a world of morality without God, which doesn't lead me to kill people or do anything I want to do. I still must respect the morality of not harming my fellow humans unneccessarily, and if we were to uphold respecting each other instead of disrespecting each other (as religions do in abundance) the world would not be the shithole religion has made it. So, stop trying to say those of us who refuse to kill people because they are gay or having sex outside of marriage, are immoral, because it seems the height of immorality is killing people for stupid reasons handed down from an invisible fairy.


BenfromCanada
atheist
BenfromCanada's picture
Posts: 811
Joined: 2006-08-31
User is offlineOffline
IAmParadox wrote: I'm

IAmParadox wrote:
I'm pretty sure there is no evidence whatsoever that the Jews were ever slaves in Egypt, and it is there that this story falls apart, and the lying nature of the writers of this history book becomes an issue, and are you going to admit that God lied by telling the writer to write false history to make them seem so much more persecuted than they actually were?

Actually, we do have evidence from the Egyptian side that they were slaves in Egypt....not that this had anything to do with this thread.


IAmParadox
IAmParadox's picture
Posts: 5
Joined: 2007-04-24
User is offlineOffline
Actually, we do have

Actually, we do have evidence from the Egyptian side that they were slaves in Egypt....not that this had anything to do with this thread.

 

(this quoting system mystifies me)

 

There is no evidence of the Exodus is what i meant. and this shows that the word is not infallible and is open to being treated as a book of lies and not the word of any god of any importance. I only used this particular example as a tie-in to what JamesAChristian said (I didn't realize I had to explicitly quote him, I thought it would be attached to the message) so, here is what I was answering to

JamesAChristian said:

You make an interesting point that Moses killed but what does that proove? Are you implying that people cannot change? That the Moses who lead the Israelites out of Egypt was the same one who killed the Egyptian even though he had probably around 50 years to think about what he had done. You make an awfull lot of assumptions...

 

 

Assumptions indeed......


BenfromCanada
atheist
BenfromCanada's picture
Posts: 811
Joined: 2006-08-31
User is offlineOffline
IAmParadox

IAmParadox wrote:

Actually, we do have evidence from the Egyptian side that they were slaves in Egypt....not that this had anything to do with this thread.

 

(this quoting system mystifies me)

 

There is no evidence of the Exodus is what i meant. and this shows that the word is not infallible and is open to being treated as a book of lies and not the word of any god of any importance. I only used this particular example as a tie-in to what JamesAChristian said (I didn't realize I had to explicitly quote him, I thought it would be attached to the message) so, here is what I was answering to

JamesAChristian said:

You make an interesting point that Moses killed but what does that proove? Are you implying that people cannot change? That the Moses who lead the Israelites out of Egypt was the same one who killed the Egyptian even though he had probably around 50 years to think about what he had done. You make an awfull lot of assumptions...

 

 

Assumptions indeed......

OK. Regardless, they were there, and then left. I'd assume that Moses, instead of commanding some god to do his work, led a rebellion that got the Jews freed. There's no evidence of plagues (though I suspect the "First Born Babies" plague to have been carried out, though not by an angel...) 


IAmParadox
IAmParadox's picture
Posts: 5
Joined: 2007-04-24
User is offlineOffline
BenfromCanada wrote: OK.

BenfromCanada wrote:

OK. Regardless, they were there, and then left. I'd assume that Moses, instead of commanding some god to do his work, led a rebellion that got the Jews freed. There's no evidence of plagues (though I suspect the "First Born Babies" plague to have been carried out, though not by an angel...)

 

Assuming will only leave you looking dumb. There were Jews in Egypt, of their own free will for the most part, and the ones (about 120,000) who were "slaves", taken by Ptolemy, were voluntarily released by Philadlephus soon after arriving somewhere between 400 BC and 641 AD. But, this comes from Josephus, and may well be completely false (remember some of his works concerning Jesus have been disputed as forgeries for hundreds of years)

read up on it here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Jews_in_Egypt 


BenfromCanada
atheist
BenfromCanada's picture
Posts: 811
Joined: 2006-08-31
User is offlineOffline
IAmParadox

IAmParadox wrote:
BenfromCanada wrote:

OK. Regardless, they were there, and then left. I'd assume that Moses, instead of commanding some god to do his work, led a rebellion that got the Jews freed. There's no evidence of plagues (though I suspect the "First Born Babies" plague to have been carried out, though not by an angel...)

 

Assuming will only leave you looking dumb. There were Jews in Egypt, of their own free will for the most part, and the ones (about 120,000) who were "slaves", taken by Ptolemy, were voluntarily released by Philadlephus soon after arriving somewhere between 400 BC and 641 AD. But, this comes from Josephus, and may well be completely false (remember some of his works concerning Jesus have been disputed as forgeries for hundreds of years)

read up on it here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Jews_in_Egypt

Wikipedia does NOT prove anything. How do I know you didn't write that yourself? 


MattShizzle
Posts: 7966
Joined: 2006-03-31
User is offlineOffline
Was that on the Simpsons

Was that on the Simpsons where they said "yeah, but that's Wikipedia. A 13 year old could've written that 5 minutes ago."

Matt Shizzle has been banned from the Rational Response Squad website. This event shall provide an atmosphere more conducive to social growth. - Majority of the mod team


Ophios
Ophios's picture
Posts: 905
Joined: 2006-09-19
User is offlineOffline
BenfromCanada

BenfromCanada wrote:
Wikipedia does NOT prove anything. How do I know you didn't write that yourself?

Check what sources is used.

 

That's important, an encyclopedia is only as it's sources. 

AImboden wrote:
I'm not going to PM my agreement just because one tucan has pms.


FreeThoughtMake...
Superfan
FreeThoughtMakesMeTingle's picture
Posts: 173
Joined: 2006-08-14
User is offlineOffline
If for only this alone I

If for only this alone I think the bible cannot be the word of a God lol.


BenfromCanada
atheist
BenfromCanada's picture
Posts: 811
Joined: 2006-08-31
User is offlineOffline
Ophios wrote: Check what

Ophios wrote:

Check what sources is used.

 

That's important, an encyclopedia is only as it's sources.

There are so many times that Wikipedia uses sources that don't actually support the argument that I've given up on it wholly.