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There’s plenty of evidence that god does not exits. There's the historical origins of the ruse, the sun god, Zeus and any of the plethora of other fairy tales man made up to explain what he did not understand.
That doesn't stop people from still worshipping Zeus or any of the plethora of other fairy tale gods. As near as I can tell, Wiccans believe that all gods exist.
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As has already been mentioned, the burden of proof rests with he who asserts the positive. God is fantastically unlikely, hence there is no reason to accept his existence in the absence of proof. Whereas evolution, the result of which appears equally unlikely, is supported by reams of evidence. It is also worth noting that humanity can only appear unlikely after the fact; had we evolved differently, we'd be pointing out the unlikely-ness of whatever form we *did* end up taking.The creation of the universe, the earth, and life are incredibly unlikely events. These really have nothing to do with evolution and cannot be backed by any evidence. In fact, Steven Hawking's conclusion was that the odds of there being some kind of "god" are greater than there not being one. And to my knowledge, he isn't a believer. In addition, intelligence is not a natural evolutionary by-product. (At least in my opinion.) Dinosaurs and other creatures have had FAR longer to gain intelligence and we humans managed it in only a few thousand years.
Moff,
No, it isn't a natural by-product of evolution. But neither are tails, eyes or anything else. Evolution is a succession of make-do-and-mend, squeeze-the-best-out-of and accident. In that mix, intelligence crops up. We can find a whole series of intelligences present in animals, such as tool use, self-awareness, empathy. We're just lucky/unlucky enough to have the traits that combine them into the current mess that is human intelligence. Sorry to break it to you, but there is no such thing as a uniquely human intelligence (except possibly, and highly ironically, faith in God). We've found too many examples of "uniquely human traits" that weren't for any such claim to have much credibility.
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There’s plenty of evidence that god does not exits.
Your arguments would be more persuasive with a quick proof-read.
There's the historical origins of the ruse,
Eh?
the plethora of other fairy tales man made up to explain what he did not understand.
Like the Luminiferous Ether, like the Ladder of Creation, like Heliocentrism? Yeah, we make up a lot of ludicrous stuff. That doesn't mean that Photons, Evolution, and the Solar System don't exist.
There's the fact that man, for his own personal gain has lied about god
Man, for his own personal gain, has lied about everything. Because I lied about being able to bench press the Enterprise to get laid, does that mean Star Trek is fake?
There's a lot of evidence to suggest that God does not exist in the form we ascribe to It. There's NOT a lot of evidence that disproves the concept entirely; the phenomena is, to be blunt, unprovable (or un-DISprovable) by science. Science deals with the quantifiable, the measurable, and the concrete. It has no more business telling people how to deal with matters unquantifiable, immeasurable, and immaterial than religion has telling people how to deal with matters Physical, Chemical, and Biological.
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There’s plenty of evidence that god does not exits. There's the historical origins of the ruse, the sun god, Zeus and any of the plethora of other fairy tales man made up to explain what he did not understand.That doesn't stop people from still worshipping Zeus or any of the plethora of other fairy tale gods. As near as I can tell, Wiccans believe that all gods exist.
Moff,
This is true. But the point Courtfool is trying to make is "why should your God be any different? Why is your version of the truth the truth when all these other versions, equally improbable, aren't?"
The creation of the universe, the earth, and life are incredibly unlikely events. These really have nothing to do with evolution and cannot be backed by any evidence.
Great post, Moff. I'd remove Earth from your "unlikely" list, though, because physically-speaking it's a fairly straightforward acceretion, and odds-wise, it appears there are any number of Earth-sized planets in the galaxy.
Also remember that no matter how unlikely something is, remember it only has to happen once -- and you've got billions of years to work with, a time scale that dwarfs many seemingly outrageous odds into some semblance of likelihood.
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Creation exists? Are you going back to the argument that if the universe exists, someone must have created it? If something can not exist without someone or something creating it, then who created god? If god does not need a creator, why does the universe?
And then there is the problem of trying to figure out who is saying what to who. Bugleyman seems to suggest that there is no faith required to believe that the universe just happened to come into being by accident without magic. I'm trying to suggest to him that there are still things that he takes on faith regardless.
I can't speak for Steven Helt, but for me I believe that God exists. Because I believe that, it follows for me that he created everything. If I came at it from your point of view, I would most likely come to the same conclusion. The creation of the universe is not the reason for my faith. I did not wake up one morning and say "the universe wasn't always here -- someone must have made it!!"
"God is unproven" is a wildly different assertion - logically, epistemologically, and scientifically - than "God does not exist."To muddy the waters with analogy, the existence of the Higgs Boson is as yet unproven, but that lack of proof is not held up as proof that it does exist. Quantum Physicists are certain they will find it because their math doesn't work without something that fills that niche; the religious are certain of God because their math doesn't work without It.
God in inherently impossible to prove or disprove. No one I know, all the way to Richard Dawkins, states with certainty that god doesn't exist. It is more accurate (and useful) to state that God is fantasically unlikely, and in a world of fantastically unlikely things (with an infinite number yet to be proposed), there is no time (or need) to take them all seriously.
Quite simply: Bring evidence or go home.
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Great post, Moff. I'd remove Earth from your "unlikely" list, though, because physically-speaking it's a fairly straightforward acceretion, and odds-wise, it appears there are any number of Earth-sized planets in the galaxy.
I'll admit that my knowledge of this is fairly limited, and I try not to suggest some of this as a lot of my information has come from snippits of "propaganda" from Christian sources -- but I've heard that there are a number of things that if it were even a little different, then life (if it could exist at all) would be very different than they are. Size of the planet, the rotation of the earth the distance of the orbit, the fact that we have one moon, the distance of that moon from the earth, etc. Again, I'm not saying that this "proves" anything. Just that the odds of it all happening exactly as it did by chance are fairly astronomical.
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In addition, intelligence is not a natural evolutionary by-product. (At least in my opinion.) Dinosaurs and other creatures have had FAR longer to gain intelligence and we humans managed it in only a few thousand years.Intelligence doesn't fossilize. :)
Buildings and other evidence do. (And hitting a clam with a rock is not what I call "tool use".)
And then there is the problem of trying to figure out who is saying what to who. Bugleyman seems to suggest that there is no faith required to believe that the universe just happened to come into being by accident without magic.
Not at all; Please don't put words like "accident" in my mouth. I have no idea how the universe came into being. But saying God created it solves nothing, because then we must ask where God came from. Conversely, if we can accept that God has simply "always" existed, then why not the universe?
All of this of course assumes time is a linear thing and that things like "beginning" even make sense. I don't think they do, but that doesn't change the fact that first cause introduces more problems than it solves.
To declare oneself an atheist is to declare, with certainty, that there is no god. That's what atheist means.
See my post above about mind-sets, especially regaring absolutes. To a Theist, yes, you have correctly described what "atheist" means. Most atheists, however, have a rationalistic world-view; they deal with proponderance of evidence, not with claims of absolute Truth. An atheist sees the lack of evidence for a God and draws a logical conclusion from that, but unless he's a total whack job, that conclusion is not absolute: if God appeared to him tomorrow and said, "Boo!", he'd change his opinion very quickly. Until then, he's happy that his theory is better than the alternative.
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Intelligence doesn't fossilize. :)
Buildings and other evidence do. (And hitting a clam with a rock is not what I call "tool use".)
Really. You've got a fossilized building to bring before us?
There are 1.5 million extant animal species known to science, with the possibility of as many as 4.5 million species alive currently. After 200 years of systematic study, there are 250,000 known fossil species - which has to cover all extinct life forms over a period of approximately 600 million to 1 BILLION years (depending on where you want to draw the line for animal life).
We estimate that less than 10% of all animal life alive today will fossilize. That suggests that we do not know, and we will NEVER know about 90% of all the life that has ever lived on this world. We know almost nothing of the material culture of humans living 50,000 years ago; their tools, their dwellings, their culture. Almost none of it survives, and this is with little to no geologic activity acting upon it. Scale us back 200 million years, and we can, with a straight face, suggest that there may have been thousands of Archosaurian stone age civilizations throughout the Age of Dinosaurs, that we will never know about and can never know about without time machines.
It's unprovable, though, so scientists go work on important things, like trying to disprove God. I kid, I kid. Most scientists work on important things that ARE provable/disprovable, and leave the unprovable things to philosophers and theologians.
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To a Theist, yes, you have correctly described what "atheist" means.
To a person who knows what the hell words mean. A- means "no, the absence of", Theoi means "god" = ATHEIST MEANS "NO GOD". You want to try to weasel out of Dawkins and Hitchens never absolutely ruling out the possibility of God, you should suggest they not call themselves atheist.
We've got the perfectly serviceable word "Agnostic" meaning "No Knowledge" to describe people who ACTUALLY don't have any proof one way or the other and thus withhold judgement.
Because there seems to be evidence (scientifically) that the universe had a beginning.
Allow me to repeat: first cause introduces more problems than it solves. Discuss.
I've heard that there are a number of things that if it were even a little different, then life (if it could exist at all) would be very different than they are. Just that the odds of it all happening exactly as it did by chance are fairly astronomical.
The thing is, if they were different, so would we be, and we'd be marvelling at what a stretch of chance made it possible for us to have three moons and a gaseous form, or whatever. If you have a trillion different possible combinations and an endpoint determined by chance alone, the odds of each are the same: one in a trillion. That's pretty long odds. But the odds of one of those one-in-a-trillion endpoints occurring are one in one.
To a Theist, yes, you have correctly described what "atheist" means.To a person who knows what the hell words mean. A- means "no, the absence of", Theoi means "god" = ATHEIST MEANS "NO GOD". You want to try to weasel out of Dawkins and Hitchens never absolutely ruling out the possibility of God, you should suggest they not call themselves atheist.
We've got the perfectly serviceable word "Agnostic" meaning "No Knowledge" to describe people who ACTUALLY don't have any proof one way or the other and thus withhold judgement.
We're getting hung up on semantics. Agnostic has connotations that do not describe Dawkins. Scientists, as a rule, do not deal in absolutes; they deal in degrees of proof.
If the word "atheist" is that jarring, perhaps we can propose something between agnostic and atheist...a seriouslydoubtitist? :)
To a person who knows what the hell words mean. A- means "no, the absence of", Theoi means "god" = ATHEIST MEANS "NO GOD". You want to try to weasel out of Dawkins and Hitchens never absolutely ruling out the possibility of God, you should suggest they not call themselves atheist.
Is Dawkins a whack job? Many people would say "yes." I have no control over what he calls himself, in any event.
That aside, because you seem to have missed it, let me repost the earlier mind-set discussion I referenced for you:
(a) A true scientist has only one belief, which can be summed up as "men lack omniscience, and therefore nothing is ever proven." Everything is is either theory (supported by a preponderance of physical evidence -- statistical probability counts for nothing here -- and having withstood every test thus far), hypothesis (a testable idea), or falsehood. There is no "truth," only theories that can forever be either improved upon or eventually shown to be false. A scientist makes no absolute claims regarding the amino acid soup hypothesis, and fully accepts that it might one day be falsified; he merely asserts that no other testable hypotheses have been proposed for the origin of life (and, please, people: to a scientist, the origin of life is a TOTALLY SEPARATE ISSUE from the evolution of life; evolution by natural selection is a theory, not a hypothesis, because it fits the propenderance of observable physical evidence; it is not an Absolute Truth, and in fact is constantly being refined and improved). The limitations of this type of world-view are obvious: absolutes have no part in it, incredulity is a paramount virtue, and these kinds of people expect a preponderance of physical evidence before they'll accept that your view is a theory. Until then, they'll consider it either a hypothesis to be tested, or a falsehood. This is why Dawkins is so militant; he cannot take God seriously as a theory without a preponderance of observable, testable physical evidence in His favor. Without that, the existence of God is an untestable hypothesis, or, to put it more bluntly, a likely falsehood.
(b) To one with faith, especially Abrahamic religious faith, life deals in absolutes. There is no improving a hypothesis; there's only Truth or Falsehood. The insistence of Truth implies that "proof" is attainable. They therefore view a theory incorrectly: either as a claim of absolute Truth, or as a vague, unfounded guess (which is not at all what a "theory" is). The very strong advantage of this mind-set is that you can make intuitive leaps, rely on instinct and scripture, and resolve all apparent contradictions and paradoxes and break through any supposed barriers to your ideas through simple faith. These are exceptionally powerful tools that can make seemingly impossible things possible. The down side is that you are very seldomly able to understand people who require more scientifically rigorous thinking.
EDIT: Ninja'd again!
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But the point Courtfool is trying to make is "why should your God be any different? Why is your version of the truth the truth when all these other versions, equally improbable, aren't?"
Over the past few months, my wife and I have been teaching a "course" at our church on other religions. For now, I have two answers...
1) There are a few things that I could mention -- and have mentioned long ago in this thread. But in the end, I've found that it really doesn't matter that much. There will never really be enough "proof" that my religion is "right" and anyone else's (or lack thereof) is "wrong".
2) Even if I did have some kind of magical "proof" that my religion was "right", I don't know that I would post it here. Psychologically speaking, telling people how wrong they are generally has a poor track record toward convincing people.
In this day and age, I truly don't believe that religion in any form makes "sense". Never-the-less, I am a Christian.
Bella Sara Charter Superscriber
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I'll admit that my knowledge of this is fairly limited, and I try not to suggest some of this as a lot of my information has come from snippits of "propaganda" from Christian sources -- but I've heard that there are a number of things that if it were even a little different, then life (if it could exist at all) would be very different than they are. Size of the planet, the rotation of the earth the distance of the orbit, the fact that we have one moon, the distance of that moon from the earth, etc. Again, I'm not saying that this "proves" anything. Just that the odds of it all happening exactly as it did by chance are fairly astronomical.
Well, the universe is astronomically big and has existed for an astronomical amount of time.
Plus, the latest thinking re: life seems to be that it is more common than originally thought and able to flourish in a wider variety of places.
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Allow me to repeat: first cause introduces more problems than it solves. Discuss.
Because there seems to be evidence (scientifically) that the universe had a beginning.
Yet you keep talking about "evidence". I understand what you are saying, but then are you also saying that you are going to pick and choose what "evidence" you will consider?
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Bella Sara Charter Superscriber
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To a Theist, yes, you have correctly described what "atheist" means.To a person who knows what the hell words mean. A- means "no, the absence of", Theoi means "god" = ATHEIST MEANS "NO GOD". You want to try to weasel out of Dawkins and Hitchens never absolutely ruling out the possibility of God, you should suggest they not call themselves atheist.
We've got the perfectly serviceable word "Agnostic" meaning "No Knowledge" to describe people who ACTUALLY don't have any proof one way or the other and thus withhold judgement.
From what I've seen of Dawkins, he doesn't claim to be atheistic in the general sense, but he is atheistic about the Christian God being an actual deity. I think in general that's what most people mean when they say they are athesists (at least, it's what I mean because, hey, some divine being could come up to me some day and reveal himself, but I find the idea that such being wrote the bible, created a son, sent his son down, killed his son, ressurected his son but only allowed his close friend to witness the ressurection, etc. to be completely unbelievable).
I think that's the true challenge - it's not just enough to show that a god could exist, it's to show that any particular god is the God with a capital 'G'. I've yet to see anyone make a compelling argument in that regard - such arguments tend to be framed emotionally (e.g., wouldn't you rather have a friendly god than your mean god who requires sacrfices).
Yet you keep talking about "evidence". I understand what you are saying, but then are you also saying that you are going to pick and choose what "evidence" you will consider?
A rationalist would say "evidence that involves physical reality." Of course, that cuts out incorporeal supernatural gods right at the outset -- unless those said gods are good enough to reveal themselves more explicitly than they have to date.
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Bella Sara Charter Superscriber
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I've heard that there are a number of things that if it were even a little different, then life (if it could exist at all) would be very different than they are. Just that the odds of it all happening exactly as it did by chance are fairly astronomical.The thing is, if they were different, so would we be, and we'd be marvelling at what a stretch of chance made it possible for us to have three moons and a gaseous form, or whatever. If you have a trillion different possible combinations and an endpoint determined by chance alone, the odds of each are the same: one in a trillion. That's pretty long odds. But the odds of one of those one-in-a-trillion endpoints occurring are one in one.
Yeah, Watchmen makes that point with Dr. Manhattan on mars when he notes that every single life is a one-in-a-trillion endpoint. If your mother wasn't in the mood and declined sex the night of your conception, you wouldn't exist. If a different sperm reached the egg, you wouldn't exist. Any event rests upon a one-in-a-trillion set of circumstances, any of which could have changed along the way.
My favorite example of this is A&E and its constant rehashing of WWII in which each minor event of the war is identified as the event responsible for winning the war.
Yet you keep talking about "evidence". I understand what you are saying, but then are you also saying that you are going to pick and choose what "evidence" you will consider?Allow me to repeat: first cause introduces more problems than it solves. Discuss.
Because there seems to be evidence (scientifically) that the universe had a beginning.
You're confusing two separate statements. Let's try again.
For the sake of argument, I hereby concede that the universe has a beginning.
The argument from first cause, which you're essentially making, is that God must exist because something must have created the universe. The problem simply becomes, however, is where did God come from? If the universe has to have a cause, why doesn't God?
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Plus, the latest thinking re: life seems to be that it is more common than originally thought and able to flourish in a wider variety of places.
Really? I like the thought of aliens as much as the next person. Are we talking about simple bacteria on some planet or "Alien Planet"?
Yeah, Watchmen makes that point with Dr. Manhattan on mars when he notes that every single life is a one-in-a-trillion endpoint. If your mother wasn't in the mood and declined sex the night of your conception, you wouldn't exist. If a different sperm reached the egg, you wouldn't exist. Any event rests upon a one-in-a-trillion set of circumstances, any of which could have changed along the way.
This will damage my geek cred, but I have yet to see Watchmen, nor read the comic. (Nor do I really care to see it.) Dr. Manhattan on Mars, whoever he is (someone referred to him as a "blue dick guy") makes a good point, though!
Really? I like the thought of aliens as much as the next person. Are we talking about simple bacteria on some planet or "Alien Planet"?
Before you get too excited, look into the kinds of distances we're dealing with between solar systems, and remember that "faster-than-light-travel" is SciFi Channel code speak for "sorcery."
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Bella Sara Charter Superscriber
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Plus, the latest thinking re: life seems to be that it is more common than originally thought and able to flourish in a wider variety of places.Really? I like the thought of aliens as much as the next person. Are we talking about simple bacteria on some planet or "Alien Planet"?
Simple stuff like bacteria. All you really need for life (as far as I understand) is liquid water and access to energy (e.g., sunlight). I'm sure one of the scientists in the thread can pop in and actually provide the right ingredients, but it's not that difficult as I understand it.
But in any event, we're still talking about a long long long time and a lot of stars in the sky. That's a lot of monkeys and a lot of typewriters.
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Bella Sara Charter Superscriber
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This will damage my geek cred, but I have yet to see Watchmen, nor read the comic. (Nor do I really care to see it.)This will be a rental for me.
Go the library and get the comic. It's got a lot of depth in the way it tells the story, and I doubt that is replicated in the movie.
Yeah, Watchmen makes that point with Dr. Manhattan on mars when he notes that every single life is a one-in-a-trillion endpoint. If your mother wasn't in the mood and declined sex the night of your conception, you wouldn't exist. If a different sperm reached the egg, you wouldn't exist. Any event rests upon a one-in-a-trillion set of circumstances, any of which could have changed along the way.My favorite example of this is A&E and its constant rehashing of WWII in which each minor event of the war is identified as the event responsible for winning the war.
They probably mean that "without this occurring, the war would have been lost." Which might be correct, in even the case of many such assertions, but in which case it is *not* correct to say any given one is responsible for winning the war. It would be more accurate for them to say that event X was necessary, but not sufficient, condition for winning the war.
No doubt such a distinction may seem overly fiddly to some, but subtley is the only lens through which the truth can be discerned. You lawyers probably eat stuff like that for lunch...you know, because of all the deals with infernal powers and such.
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Yeah, Watchmen makes that point with Dr. Manhattan on mars when he notes that every single life is a one-in-a-trillion endpoint. If your mother wasn't in the mood and declined sex the night of your conception, you wouldn't exist. If a different sperm reached the egg, you wouldn't exist. Any event rests upon a one-in-a-trillion set of circumstances, any of which could have changed along the way.This will damage my geek cred, but I have yet to see Watchmen, nor read the comic. (Nor do I really care to see it.) Dr. Manhattan on Mars, whoever he is (someone referred to him as a "blue dick guy") makes a good point, though!
I have the thing buried someplace (I think it may be in use as a doorjamb) if you want to have it.
;)
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The argument from first cause, which you're essentially making, is that God must exist because something must have created the universe. The problem simply becomes, however, is where did God come from? If the universe has to have a cause, why doesn't God?
No I'm not. (Others might be but I'm not.) I believe that God exists. Period. It has little to do with the universe. I brought up the "universe" because you seem to have evidence for everything and no need for "faith". Yet you said that you don't know how or what started the universe but somehow "know" that it wasn't God's doing.
I never said that the universe has to have a "cause". God doesn't "need to exist because something must have created the universe". I'm not using this as "proof" of there being a god.
You have been suggesting how you don't have "faith" at all. That all you have is "evidence". All I'm trying to suggest is that you either have faith that something started it all or nothing did. Either way, it's still faith.
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Bella Sara Charter Superscriber
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They probably mean that "without this occurring, the war would have been lost." Which might be correct, in even the case of many such assertions, but in which case it is *not* correct to say any given one is responsible for winning the war. It would be more accurate for them to say that event X was necessary, but not sufficient, condition for winning the war.
Yeah, but most of the events don't strike me as necessary to win the war. I remember one with a special bomb designed to destroy german dams and bridges. The assertion was that without this special bomb destroying the dams and bridges, the war would've been lost.
Which ignores the fact that prior attempts to destroy the dams and bridges failed. Had one of those prior attempts succeeded, we wouldn't have needed to have developed that special type of bomb, we could've used regular bombs.
And, if the dams and bridges weren't destroyed, it's hard to see how that would have been sufficient for Germany to win the war. The war still probably would've been won, but would've required additional resources to overcome the advantage provided by the dams and bridges not destroyed.
And heck, it ignores the fact that they didn't even have to build that particular bomb. They could've invested in some alternate technology that would've made the advantage granted by the bridges and dams irrelevant. Maybe they could've sent in 10 times as many planes. They didn't need that particular bomb and they didn't need to achieve that particular objective to avoid losing the war.
You're right that they tend to phrase it as a negative and that does make a difference, but the things they deem as necessary to win the war rarely seem necessary to me.
The argument from first cause, which you're essentially making, is that God must exist because something must have created the universe. The problem simply becomes, however, is where did God come from? If the universe has to have a cause, why doesn't God?No I'm not. (Others might be but I'm not.) I believe that God exists. Period. It has little to do with the universe. I brought up the "universe" because you seem to have evidence for everything and no need for "faith". Yet you said that you don't know how or what started the universe but somehow "know" that it wasn't God's doing.
I never said that the universe has to have a "cause". God doesn't "need to exist because something must have created the universe". I'm not using this as "proof" of there being a god.
You have been suggesting how you don't have "faith" at all. That all you have is "evidence". All I'm trying to suggest is that you either have faith that something started it all or nothing did. Either way, it's still faith.
By claiming I thought the universe came into being by "accident," you are implicitly arguing from first cause. If you can't see that, I'm afraid further discussion is impossible. I don't mean any offense, but at that point we simply aren't speaking the same language.
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(e.g., wouldn't you rather have a friendly god than your mean god who requires sacrfices).
(Again, not suggesting this as "proof" or anything like it, but...)
Human sacrifices or animal sacrifices? I myself wonder where the idea of sacrifices truly came from or why, but most (all?) the neighboring countries and societies at the time were doing human sacrifices. The Hebrews were not. I feel that this is at least one point in their favor.
EDIT: I know a lot of the reasons Biblically for the Old Testament sacrifices symbolically, etc. But in Sebastian's defense, I've occasionally thought -- why is this the "best" way?
They probably mean that "without this occurring, the war would have been lost." Which might be correct, in even the case of many such assertions, but in which case it is *not* correct to say any given one is responsible for winning the war. It would be more accurate for them to say that event X was necessary, but not sufficient, condition for winning the war.
Yeah, but most of the events don't strike me as necessary to win the war. I remember one with a special bomb designed to destroy german dams and bridges. The assertion was that without this special bomb destroying the dams and bridges, the war would've been lost.
Which ignores the fact that prior attempts to destroy the dams and bridges failed. Had one of those prior attempts succeeded, we wouldn't have needed to have developed that special type of bomb, we could've used regular bombs.
And, if the dams and bridges weren't destroyed, it's hard to see how that would have been sufficient for Germany to win the war. The war still probably would've been won, but would've required additional resources to overcome the advantage provided by the dams and bridges not destroyed.
And heck, it ignores the fact that they didn't even have to build that particular bomb. They could've invested in some alternate technology that would've made the advantage granted by the bridges and dams irrelevant. Maybe they could've sent in 10 times as many planes. They didn't need that particular bomb and they didn't need to achieve that particular objective to avoid losing the war.
You're right that they tend to phrase it as a negative and that does make a difference, but the things they deem as necessary to win the war rarely seem necessary to me.
No doubt; I'm sure they're given to hyperbole. I guess they think it makes for better TV.
Are you saying that life, although clearly not life exactly as we know it, would have come about under a wider set of circumstances than current hypotheses suggest?
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Bella Sara Charter Superscriber
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No doubt; I'm sure they're given to hyperbole. I guess they think it makes for better TV.
I think that's definitely the point. The use of superlatives is a pet peeve of mine and this is a similar example.
Are you saying that life, although clearly not life exactly as we know it, would have come about under a wider set of circumstances than current hypotheses...
I would defer to the current hypotheses, but I thought they had become somewhat broader than they were a decade or so ago. It might just be that I was exposed to them, and they have always remained the same. From what I've read though, the ingredients for life are not that difficult to assemble, and there seems to be increased speculation about life on mars, europa, etc. lately.
So, I'm not trying to speculate beyond current scientific theory, I just thought that scientific theory had become broader in recent years. I could be making that up entirely. It wouldn't be the first time...
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In fact, Steven Hawking's conclusion was that the odds of there being some kind of "god" are greater than there not being one. And to my knowledge, he isn't a believer.
The Pontifical Academy of Sciences was founded by the Roman Catholic Church in 1936 under its current name by Pope Pius XI and is placed under the protection of the reigning Supreme Pontiff (the current Pope). Its aim is to promote the progress of the mathematical, physical and natural sciences and the study of related epistemological problems. The Academy has its origins in the Accademia dei Lincei ("Academy of Lynxes") established in Rome in 1603, under Pope Clement VIII by the learned Roman Prince, Federico Cesi (1585-1630) who was a young botanist and naturalist, and which claimed Galileo Galilei as its president. The current president is the physicist Nicola Cabibbo. The Academy is headquartered in the Casina Pio IV at the heart of the Vatican Gardens. The academy holds a membership roster of the most respected names in 20th century science, many of them nobel laureates including Stephen Hawking and Charles Hard Townes.
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Bella Sara Charter Superscriber
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Human sacrifices or animal sacrifices? I myself wonder where the idea of sacrifices truly came from or why, but most (all?) the neighboring countries and societies at the time were doing human sacrifices. The Hebrews were not. I feel that this is at least one point in their favor.
But in favor of what? It's nice to worship a deity that doesn't require human sacrifices, but what if that's because he's not the right deity to worship. Maybe the True God does require human sacrifice, thus explaining the prevalence of its use in the time of the Hebrews. Maybe the biblical god gained a foothold because he offered an easier, but less faithful, method of worship.
It's an argument that rests on human convenience, there isn't anything objectively correct about the practice of sacrificing humans v. not sacrificing humans because there's no way to determine which of the two gods is the true god or what is the appropriate way to conduct worship of such a being.
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Intelligence doesn't fossilize. :)
Buildings and other evidence do.
Really. You've got a fossilized building to bring before us?
If a leaf can become a fossil, so can a building, or pottery, or a rake, or a microwave oven. What I'm saying is that the evidence of our intelligence can and will still be around long after we are gone. (And isn't digging up "fossilized buildings" basically archeology?)
The whole intelligence this is interesting to me. Being able to build a spear, a chariot, a car, etc. is FAR more than simply being able to recognize oneself in a mirror. And if we are the peak of evolutionary greatness, it seems pretty sad to me. Our eyes are piss poor. We can't handle the heat. We can't handle the cold. We work more than any other species on the planet. We need drugs to help us feel better. "Survival of the fittest"? Humans are the most unfit that we've ever been.
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It's an argument that rests on human convenience, there isn't anything objectively correct about the practice of sacrificing humans v. not sacrificing humans because there's no way to determine which of the two gods is the true god or what is the appropriate way to conduct worship of such a being.
And, in my defense, I as much as said this. (Probably not as well as you however.) All I was saying was that what the Hebrews were doing was different for the time. That was all.
...And if we are the peak of evolutionary greatness, it seems pretty sad to me. Our eyes are piss poor. We can't handle the heat. We can't handle the cold. We work more than any other species on the planet. We need drugs to help us feel better. "Survival of the fittest"? Humans are the most unfit that we've ever been.
The argument has been made that we now control our environment to such a degree that we've basically short-circuited evolution. I don't pretend to know enough about evolution to know how reasonable that is, but it isn't hard to imagine that, being extremely near-sighted, I would not have surivived to reproduce until very recently (in the grand scheme of things). A multitude of factors, from industrialization (and the specialization it brings), to corrective lenses (and later lasik), to social safety net may have conspired to ensure my survival. The one thing all those factors have in common is they are incredibly recent.
No doubt; I'm sure they're given to hyperbole. I guess they think it makes for better TV.I think that's definitely the point. The use of superlatives is a pet peeve of mine and this is a similar example.
Are you saying that life, although clearly not life exactly as we know it, would have come about under a wider set of circumstances than current hypotheses...I would defer to the current hypotheses, but I thought they had become somewhat broader than they were a decade or so ago. It might just be that I was exposed to them, and they have always remained the same. From what I've read though, the ingredients for life are not that difficult to assemble, and there seems to be increased speculation about life on mars, europa, etc. lately.
So, I'm not trying to speculate beyond current scientific theory, I just thought that scientific theory had become broader in recent years. I could be making that up entirely. It wouldn't be the first time...
I'm no scientist either; I certainly wasn't challenging you. Rather, I was trying to understand your point.
For my part, I accept that the odds of our exact environment are vanishingly small. But here it is; questioning it after the fact seems pointless. There are billions of other planets that didn't "get lucky." If one of those had been "the one," we'd be there looking around questioning the odds.
Put another way: If you roll a twenty-sided die 10 times, the odds of getting any particular sequence are something like 1 quadrillion(!) to one. Go roll them; write down the results. The odds of you getting those results were vanishingly small, but it happened. It hardly seems amazing in retrospect.
It's like the lottery; *someone* is going to win. Life was bound to develop somewhere. We aren't an amazing coincidence; we're a practical (and literal) certainty.
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The argument has been made that we now control our environment to such a degree that we've basically short-circuited evolution. I don't pretend to know enough about evolution to know if how reasonable that is, but it isn't hard to imagine that, being extremely near-sighted, I would not have surivived to reproduce until very recently (in the grand scheme of things).
Is there any other species where the kids stay with you for 20 years before they move out? ;-)
This was partially tongue-in-cheek. I just don't see that intelligence is a natural by-product of evolution. The crocodile/alligator to me is (one of) the most perfect species and it has lived for millions of years without much change in evolution. And it hasn't needed to build homes or boats or air conditioners.
The argument has been made that we now control our environment to such a degree that we've basically short-circuited evolution. I don't pretend to know enough about evolution to know if how reasonable that is, but it isn't hard to imagine that, being extremely near-sighted, I would not have surivived to reproduce until very recently (in the grand scheme of things).Is there any other species where the kids stay with you for 20 years before they move out? ;-)
This was partially tongue-in-cheek. I just don't see that intelligence is a natural by-product of evolution. The crocodile/alligator to me is (one of) the most perfect species and it has lived for millions of years without much change in evolution. And it hasn't needed to build homes or boats or air conditioners.
I agree that intelligence (well, sentience, really) isn't a natural byproduct of evolution. Alligators will probably go on for a few million more years with no appreciable changes (barring some catastrophic change in the environment). In a way, we were inferior, because we're still evolving.
Help me understand the relevance to what I see to be the question at hand (the existence of God). Seriously...I'm not at all being sarcastic. I want to understand your position.