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General discussion (archive)A Message to Atheists and Agnostics - I get you(2370 posts)(2370 posts)
(2370 posts)
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This is my favourite topic
Posted January 23, 2014
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Coelocanth: That's not at all what he said.
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mystikmind2000: My point is that reality does not bend itself to fit with what people believe just because of their education or intelligence. That is not a valid argument to believe something to be true. What i do understand is that these things are part of his journey as to why he believes Evolution is true and that i can understand. but he then tries to use it to mock the validity of the reasons i believe what i do.
Yet you're doing just that with religion. Virgin birth, a jewish zombie on a stick rising from the dead, etc.
Post edited January 23, 2014 by pimpmonkey2382
Posted January 23, 2014
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Magnitus: An issue with modern science in our society is that it is beyond the reach of many people.

Have you considered that perhaps, you haven't spend enough time in the various disciplines to get the necessary understanding to make sense of it?

I'm not saying I understand evolution in it's entirety, but between the biology I took in college, the 57 credits in maths & stats I did in university and the genetic algorithm I worked with in my AI class, I saw why evolution works on many levels.

Of course, I invested 6 years of my life in higher education. I'll understand if you don't want to make a similar time investment in the disciplines I studied just to better visualize evolution.

EDIT: However, you can simply accept that thousands of incredibly smart people spanning multiple disciplines spent several millenia of combined man-years to come up with the current body of research supporting evolution.

You can take their word or take the words of a handful of individuals over two thousands years ago who probably didn't do a lot of research on the subject matter.
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mystikmind2000: So your argument is that Evolution must be true because of the intelligence and education of human beings? Oh well i carnt argue with that, i tip my hat to your superior education, meanwhile i will go and study why i should win lotto and if i am smart enough, that will magically make it true!
Sigh.

No, the evidence strongly supports the theory of evolution, or something very close to it. Creationists at present have yet to provide any evidence to support their assertion. There's fossil evidence, DNA evidence and not to mention the geological record that disproves the notion that the world is only a few thousand years old.

The only element of creationism that hasn't been comprehensively debunked is the notion that God started the process.

Oddly enough, creationists tend not to hold actual degrees in any of the sciences. Probably because in order to get a degree you can't be willfully ignorant of such basics.
Posted January 23, 2014
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mystikmind2000: My point is that reality does not bend itself to fit with what people believe just because of their education or intelligence. That is not a valid argument to believe something to be true. What i do understand is that these things are part of his journey as to why he believes Evolution is true and that i can understand. but he then tries to use it to mock the validity of the reasons i believe what i do.
I think you're completely misunderstanding what he means. You stated that evolution is only 'assumption' and there is 'almost no evidence' to support it. This simply isn't the case. What he's saying is what I said on the previous page: if you think there's almost no evidence, then it would probably be a good idea to do a little more research into the topic.

Obviously, that's not the way it came across to you, but I'm pretty sure that's what he meant.
Posted January 23, 2014
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tinyE: *hands mystikmind2000 a chill pill*

Relax, we're just having a discussion here and no one here is attacking you so breath.
It is not that i need to chill.... i have a sarcastic personality, difficult to reign it in.
Posted January 23, 2014
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mystikmind2000: My point is that reality does not bend itself to fit with what people believe just because of their education or intelligence. That is not a valid argument to believe something to be true. What i do understand is that these things are part of his journey as to why he believes Evolution is true and that i can understand. but he then tries to use it to mock the validity of the reasons i believe what i do.
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pimpmonkey2382: Yet you're doing just that with religion. Virgin birth, a jewish zombie on a stick rising from the dead, etc.
OR a horrible place called hell, people automatically go to if they masturbate too much and don't repent to Jesus Christ.
Post edited January 23, 2014 by monkeydelarge
Posted January 23, 2014
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pimpmonkey2382: Yet you're doing just that with religion. Virgin birth, a jewish zombie on a stick rising from the dead, etc.
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monkeydelarge: OR a horrible place called hell, people automatically go to if they masturbate too much and don't repent to Jesus Christ.
Or be in hell simply for not believing, I'd rather not follow that kind of god even if he were real.
Posted January 23, 2014
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Coelocanth: That's not at all what he said.
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mystikmind2000: My point is that reality does not bend itself to fit with what people believe just because of their education or intelligence. That is not a valid argument to believe something to be true. What i do understand is that these things are part of his journey as to why he believes Evolution is true and that i can understand. but he then tries to use it to mock the validity of the reasons i believe what i do.
If you're skeptical of what the mainstream scientific community has to say after having weighed the evidence. Then it's your responsibility to dig into it and find some actual evidence that falsifies those theories. The fact that no creationist has managed to do that, is a reliable indication that evolution is true and creationism isn't.

The ability to remain willfully ignorant does not change reality. The reality is that there probably is no god and there certainly isn't a god that's created every animal and creature in existence. Such a deity would have to be pretty ignorant to create all these creatures only to create us and watch us destroy them all.
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monkeydelarge: OR a horrible place called hell, people automatically go to if they masturbate too much and don't repent to Jesus Christ.
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pimpmonkey2382: Or be in hell simply for not believing, I'd rather not follow that kind of god even if he were real.
I believe the saying is: Go to heaven for the climate and go to Hell for the company. I'm not sure I'd want to spend all eternity with the kind of people that are allowed into heaven.
Post edited January 23, 2014 by hedwards
Posted January 23, 2014
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mystikmind2000: My point is that reality does not bend itself to fit with what people believe just because of their education or intelligence. That is not a valid argument to believe something to be true. What i do understand is that these things are part of his journey as to why he believes Evolution is true and that i can understand. but he then tries to use it to mock the validity of the reasons i believe what i do.
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hedwards: If you're skeptical of what the mainstream scientific community has to say after having weighed the evidence. Then it's your responsibility to dig into it and find some actual evidence that falsifies those theories. The fact that no creationist has managed to do that, is a reliable indication that evolution is true and creationism isn't.

The ability to remain willfully ignorant does not change reality. The reality is that there probably is no god and there certainly isn't a god that's created every animal and creature in existence. Such a deity would have to be pretty ignorant to create all these creatures only to create us and watch us destroy them all.
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pimpmonkey2382: Or be in hell simply for not believing, I'd rather not follow that kind of god even if he were real.
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hedwards: I believe the saying is: Go to heaven for the climate and go to Hell for the company. I'm not sure I'd want to spend all eternity with the kind of people that are allowed into heaven.
I don't know, I kind of like a hot climate myself.
Posted January 23, 2014
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iippo: ...US history is full of "us/them" dualism actually. Just look at your everyday politics, you call two party system democracy? ;)
There's a difference between favoring pancakes over waffles and telling people to think one way and stay away from everyone who doesn't agree. I think you didn't care to make that distinction. ^^
Posted January 23, 2014
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mystikmind2000: My point is that reality does not bend itself to fit with what people believe just because of their education or intelligence. That is not a valid argument to believe something to be true. What i do understand is that these things are part of his journey as to why he believes Evolution is true and that i can understand. but he then tries to use it to mock the validity of the reasons i believe what i do.
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Coelocanth: I think you're completely misunderstanding what he means. You stated that evolution is only 'assumption' and there is 'almost no evidence' to support it. This simply isn't the case. What he's saying is what I said on the previous page: if you think there's almost no evidence, then it would probably be a good idea to do a little more research into the topic.

Obviously, that's not the way it came across to you, but I'm pretty sure that's what he meant.
Take the evidence in support of Evolution, remove the assumptions and what do you have left? That is what i mean by almost no evidence.

But i am not one of those types of people who will reject blatantly obvious things such as 'natural selection' which anyone can see is true. Going beyond that, i have not seen anything else in support of Evolution that does not have an assumption attached to it, this is something many people do not realize about evolution.
Posted January 23, 2014
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Coelocanth: I think you're completely misunderstanding what he means. You stated that evolution is only 'assumption' and there is 'almost no evidence' to support it. This simply isn't the case. What he's saying is what I said on the previous page: if you think there's almost no evidence, then it would probably be a good idea to do a little more research into the topic.

Obviously, that's not the way it came across to you, but I'm pretty sure that's what he meant.
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mystikmind2000: Take the evidence in support of Evolution, remove the assumptions and what do you have left? That is what i mean by almost no evidence.

But i am not one of those types of people who will reject blatantly obvious things such as 'natural selection' which anyone can see is true. Going beyond that, i have not seen anything else in support of Evolution that does not have an assumption attached to it, this is something many people do not realize about evolution.
What assumptions?
Posted January 23, 2014
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MaximumBunny: I've actually been told by a fundamentalist pastor, one of those "I'm your friend and respect you but you're wrong about everything and I will convert you eventually" types (full creationist and the works), that if it wasn't for 'God' that's exactly what he would be doing. And this person is teaching people what is good and what is not using his own interpretation of a religious text? Scary.

Fundamentalism teaches many small, dangerous ideas like that. I think it originally started as a fear of losing faith/members though. "If you leave US you will become like THEM". That would make sense as a tool to maintain converts and put the (wrong) "fear" into them. But you'll hardly find many Christians that understand what "the fear of the LORD" actually means.
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iippo: ...US history is full of "us/them" dualism actually. Just look at your everyday politics, you call two party system democracy? ;)
I get really tired of Europeans saying this kind of crap about the US. The number of parties is completely immaterial to the question of democracy. Whether you have 1 party or 2 dozen parties makes no difference. It's the diversity of the candidates that makes the difference. And what we refer to as Democrats or Republicans would correspond to at least 3 different parties in most parts of the EU. So, you get more party line votes than we do, because there's less diversity per party than there is under our system.

Also, you make it sound like it's only the US where that sort of duality happens. It happens all over the place, how do you think that the world wars started? Here's a hint, a large part of it was Us versus Them. It would have been virtually impossible for Hitler to convince people to exterminate the Jews et al., had they not already been considered "them." Had the typical view been that Jews are just like us, it would have been a substantially harder sell to exterminate them.
Posted January 23, 2014
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mystikmind2000: Take the evidence in support of Evolution, remove the assumptions and what do you have left? That is what i mean by almost no evidence.

But i am not one of those types of people who will reject blatantly obvious things such as 'natural selection' which anyone can see is true. Going beyond that, i have not seen anything else in support of Evolution that does not have an assumption attached to it, this is something many people do not realize about evolution.
Yet you assume a creator. Do you honestly think it's a more reasonable assumption that this creator decides to wipe out most of the species on the planet and replace them spontaneously with something else, only to do so again and again? Is that really a more acceptable 'assumption' than evolution?
Posted January 23, 2014
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Coelocanth: I think you're completely misunderstanding what he means. You stated that evolution is only 'assumption' and there is 'almost no evidence' to support it. This simply isn't the case. What he's saying is what I said on the previous page: if you think there's almost no evidence, then it would probably be a good idea to do a little more research into the topic.

Obviously, that's not the way it came across to you, but I'm pretty sure that's what he meant.
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mystikmind2000: Take the evidence in support of Evolution, remove the assumptions and what do you have left? That is what i mean by almost no evidence.

But i am not one of those types of people who will reject blatantly obvious things such as 'natural selection' which anyone can see is true. Going beyond that, i have not seen anything else in support of Evolution that does not have an assumption attached to it, this is something many people do not realize about evolution.
You take away the assumptions and you still have a crap load of evidence pointing towards evolution. You take away the assumptions from creationism and you have absolutely nothing whatsoever. There's a reason why most Christians accept evolution. Hell, even the Pope accepts it and that's been going back decades.

I assume that you're trolling, because this level of ignorance is astonishing.
Posted January 23, 2014
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mystikmind2000: Take the evidence in support of Evolution, remove the assumptions and what do you have left? That is what i mean by almost no evidence.

But i am not one of those types of people who will reject blatantly obvious things such as 'natural selection' which anyone can see is true. Going beyond that, i have not seen anything else in support of Evolution that does not have an assumption attached to it, this is something many people do not realize about evolution.
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pimpmonkey2382: What assumptions?
The interpretations of factual elements and the theoretical model that ties them together. There always "thought out" causality to fill the blanks, in any science (or in any peception of anything, including language and communication). You can always break down everything to some amount of faith or belief (wait, are you SURE you are reading this and not hallucinating ?).

However, what perplexes me, is that religious fundamentalists point at this as a shortcoming of scientific endeavour, while still doing the same thing at a broader scale and higher magnitude. It's okay if you choose one less refined theory of general miracles if the narrative suits you so much better, but... don't use the specific argument of a thought process you're immensely more guilty of, guys. :-/
Post edited January 23, 2014 by Telika
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This is my favourite topic
Community
General discussion (archive)A Message to Atheists and Agnostics - I get you(2370 posts)(2370 posts)
(2370 posts)