Maybe 6 hours for Windows and maybe a little longer for Ubuntu.
Once that's done I make an image of my harddrives in case something goes wrong. For Linux I use partimage, and for Windows I use ntfsclone - never had any problems.
I then periodically update the images when I install and configure major software. Making an image takes about half an hour for Linux and 10 minute to reimage the drive, and for Windows it takes about an hour to image the drive and about 30 minutes to reimage the drive.
Ok. They did not explicitly say "premodern" though, and I've had a lot of people say "I didn't come from no ape" and "If humans came from monkeys then why are there still monkeys today?" Malarky.
What does the composite extension actually do? I have an ATI x1600 and have not been able to try this - and I can't find much info on this online either. Does it have something to do with layering and transparency?
We came from apes. Apes came from monkeys. Monkeys came from lemurs. Lemurs came from rodents. Rodents came from some earlier mammal. That mammal came from reptiles. Reptiles came from amphibians. Amphibians came from fish. And so on. In fact, the biggest evidence of this IS embryology. Do some research on it some time. There's a reason human embryos have a tail, and are indistinguishable from nearly every other land dwelling embryo for quite a large amount of it's development.
Correction...the theory goes that we did NOT come from apes but from a common ancestor...from wikipedia:
Since the time of Carolus Linnaeus, the great apes were considered the closest relatives of human beings, based on morphological similarity. In the 19th century, it was speculated that their closest living relatives were chimpanzees and gorillas, and based on the natural range of these creatures, it was surmised humans share a common ancestor with other African apes and that fossils of these ancestors would ultimately be found in Africa.
I wonder when the geneticists will take responsibility for that.
In case there are any human behavioral geneticists reading, step back and some the perspective on that.
You were pointing out flaws in their methods and activities; I am doing so with yours. If you are going to do that to others then you should expect the same to be done to you.
The geneticists have been deceived, and, in being deceived, they have been saying things that would deceive others into adopting cold, calloused and deceitful worldviews. They have been publishing things that, if taken seriously, could result in someone following the primrose path to hell.
That sounds pretty condemning (express strong disapproval of; demonstrate the guilt of) to me. And I never confirmed I was a Christian or subscribed to Jesus' teachings.
The point of my posting in the first place was not to criticize you; the purpose was to convey the shortsightedness that many Christians often convey toward alternate (not necessarily non-Christian) worldviews. Yes, I seem to have directed things at you, but I really I did not mean anything against you personally.
You are going to be left in the dark as new things are discovered.
Please refer to my bit about the sun revolving around the earth, the earth being flat, etc. I did say this to be nasty. When those things were believed to be true alternate views actually were adamantly condemned - and the alternate views very often ended up being correct. The type of worldview you seem to convey seems to be advocating the condemnation of alternate views - and when that permeates the political arena and our schools and peoples' minds it is not a good thing because it creates confusion and inconsistent teachings. And those purporting those alternative views were often killed. If the church had not been so shortsighted, those people would have lived.
Yes, we are off track. Maybe we should just stop here. I think we've both pretty well said what we wanted to say; people can draw their own conclusions.
The argument that genetics only accounts for PART of human behavior is even worse than the argument that it accounts for ALL human behavior. To make the assumption that it accounts for any behavior, any morality, any faith, AT ALL, already assumes that the human mind, soul, spirit, will, etc., is subject to obeying a genetic code, a material program. Once you've conceded that point, there really is no such thing as pick and choose. It's all or nothing. Either the "human robot" is "obeying" its genes or it isn't.
About this I've thought that maybe genes have an influence on our behavior (e.g. make us more or less sensitive and likely to respond to certain stimuli, at least partially), but genetics alone do not dictate our actions. I think that if a person is continually doing something wrong, for instance, they cannot change unless they a) have knowledge that the thing they are doing is wrong and b) have someone to facilitate their change. Now you could say that God reveals these things to the person, and that he is also the facilitator, and in my view that's fine. However think that how he does so (e.g. through nature, through a series of causational events, entirely supernaturally, at a quantum level, etc.) would be the matter of a different debate - and very likely one of the things we cannot know.
On the other hand, if you make the conclusions you WISH to find more important than being diligant about finding them, I believe it is highly unlikely that your arguments will stand the test of time and honest reasoning.
Allow me to comment further.
Science/research is all about diligence (determination and persevering to gain understanding). It is cumulative. It makes inductions, and it builds on those inductions. Anything and everything is always subject to change and revision by anyone. Science has no room for arrogance.
Granted, is is possible and in my view likely that God makes himself and some other things untestable via the scientific method. But does that really mean that evidences (e.g. miracles, prophecy fulfillment) cannot complement our faith? Why would God provide these things then? Does having faith really mean you cannot try to understand the world in a rational and logical (i.e. scientific) manner while still believing there is a God who exists who somehow created the universe, loves you, and wants a personal; relationship with you?
Can science not complement religion? Maybe science cannot explain everything or provide absolute reason to believe God exists, but can one's view of the world (e.g. whether genetics are involved in behavior) not be partially based on products of the scientific method? You seem to advocate that a partial scientific view of the world is absolutely wrong - that we can only know what God has told us through the Bible - and that is the main reason I have continued debating with you.
I don't need to quote anybody just to use my own mind. My mind works plenty well, and where I've come up with original arguments, I certainly don't need to pay intellectual homage, unless it's to the LORD, for giving me the mind to reason and debate.
You are entitled think for your own self, but there are other people who have asked and do ask the very same questions you do and that have been and will be in the same place you are in. This view is very self-centered IMO and discrediting of others and their research/thinking efforts. Have you researched everything there is to research, or will you do so in your lifetime? Why reinvent the wheel - why not use what is available to you to solve problems / find answers? Some people are biased, but everyone is not.
Yes there is bad/poor science/research today, but not all science/research is done badly/poorly.
We can see from history that thinking for ourselves is a bad idea. Did not dictators like Hitler tend to think for themselves more rather than listening to and collaborating with others?
If you were a student in Bible school and were writing an exegesis paper on a passage from scripture, do you think you would get a good grade if you did not cite any sources except the Bible and your own self? Certainly not. You would at least cite commentaries, concordances, Bible encyclopedias, Bible Dictionaries, Wikipedia, the Internet, etc. If we did not collaborate and share ideas, research, and cite our sources we would not understand the Bible, for instance, as we do today.
Or maybe you just don't believe in these things. Maybe you believe we should just accept things and not research them further. But if we think along those lines we would still believe the world is flat, that the sun revolves around the earth, and that flies com out of meat rather than other flies laying their eggs on the meat. Or maybe you still believe these things? If not, then how is good, proper, and non-biased research bad? Does it objectively draw us away from God, or can it draw us away from God if done improperly and unfairly? Or maybe you think we should just think about things and not do research? If so, would everything then not be based on assumptions?
The argument that genetics only accounts for PART of human behavior is even worse than the argument that it accounts for ALL human behavior. To make the assumption that it accounts for any behavior, any morality, any faith, AT ALL, already assumes that the human mind, soul, spirit, will, etc., is subject to obeying a genetic code, a material program. Once you've conceded that point, there really is no such thing as pick and choose. It's all or nothing. Either the "human robot" is "obeying" its genes or it isn't.
Yes, I know that it's theoretically possible, but, practically speaking, it isn't
Any modern psychology book will provide evidence that advocate the possibility and liklihood that genetics play a part in behavior. For instance, most of these books will contain have information about twin studies. My book says the following:
Are identical twins, being gentic clones of one another, behaviorally more similar than fraternal twins? Studies of nearly 13,000 pairs of Swedish twins, or 7000, Finnish twin pairs, and 3810 Australian twin pairs provide a consistent answer: On both extraversion (outogingness) and neuroticism (emotional instability), identical twins are much more similar than fraternal twins. In explaning individual differences, genes matter.
And how about mentally handicapped individuals (e.g. people with down syndrome)? Their genetics certainly do not affect their behavior...
But books - except the Bible alone - and what other people think and say - especially those with PhD's - are pointless because we all just think for ourselves.
Science is not faith. Science is inductive, while faith is deductive. That is a key difference. Now when you get to theoretical science, that more or less does require faith. Science involves critical thinking (does not blindly accept arguments and conclusions), while faith more or less does not. You should read what Richard Dawkins wrote here: http://www.thehumanist.org/humanist/articles/dawki ns.html (or you can just brush that off and say you don't need to).
As noted many, many times on Slashdot, faith is "belief that does not rest on logical proof or material evidence," while the scientific method involves "systematic methods used in scientific investigations of the natural world, which include designing controlled experiments, gathering data, and developing and testing hypotheses." Might I ask, in light of this, how is science faith?
The error in the way you have approached the question is here: you have made the assumption that matter precedes, and dictates, human behavior, human free will, and that human spirit is its subject. However, if you'll read some philosophy books, Kant or Descartes, for instance, you'll soon recognize that psychology got scooped by philosophy. The epistemic divide, as professor Johanna Seibt (of U.T. Austin) used to call it, is a well established breach in the capacity of any of the scientific / empirical fields of study to claim descriptive dominion over anything except a portion of the "phenomenal world".
Yes, I have assumed that matter precedes, and dictates, human behavior, but as I annotate below psychology shows that everything psychological is simultaneously biological.
And Kant and Descartes assume that God exists.
And again, that matter does not precede and dictates human behavior is an assumption - and it is an assumption that spirits exist and people have spirits. Now maybe spirits exist and people have them, and maybe we cannot prove that, but why believe that spirits have anything to do with human behavior without sound supporting evidence? Because philosophy says so? Well if you believe that science is based on assumptions then how is philosophy any different?
The conscious experience you know as daily life is, in fact, not EXPERIENCE OF THE WORLD, it is EXPERIENCE OF CONSCIOUSNESS. The world is not a thing that CAN be directly experienced. Smells, sights, sounds, senses, etc... ALL of it must be PRESENTED to the mind, which is then able to churn on the sum on them, assimilating them into a unified thing called consciousness, experience, awareness, what have you.
Are these not mere theoretical ideas and assumptions? Where is the evidence that these things are true? The field of psychology has, IMO, offered much more trustworthy and a more solid view of the world. As my psychology 101 book (Psychology Eight Edition in Modules by David G. Myers) says, "everything psychological is simultaneously biological." The book goes on to show how every human behavior affects the brain, and whenever the brain is affected human behavior is consequently affected. In light of this, what reason is there to believe Kant's Fundamental Categories as they pertain to perceiving reality?
Kant separates reality into two fields of knowledge: the Noumenal (nonrational. nonlogical, paradoxical, symbolic, untestable, unverifiable, suprahistorical, imaginative, religius) and the Phenomenal (rational, logical, historical, factual, real, testable, empirical, scientific). There are problems with this manner of believing:
Using this method of understanding Christianity becomes weakened.
This nullifies Biblical accounts of God's/Jesus' miracles and the Bible's prophecies as basis for obtaining faith. It implicitly asserts that they are unimportant, pointless, and useless.
It is quite unfortunate, anecdotal, and IMHO arrogant that you wish to turn your mind off to and not consider other peoples' ideas. You are going to be left in the dark as new things are discovered.
Actually, I can rule it out. I'm surprised to hear you say it's a matter of "what degree you think each of the influences is involved", since you really can't grant any genetic explanation of human behavior without granting all genetic explanation of human behavior, and that means you don't believe in free will. But if you don't believe in free will, then you have no moral justification for anything at all, since morality itself has no meaning in a world bereft of free will.
If someone were to go around killing your friends and family, then, you couldn't even tell them why they should stop doing it. You couldn't even tell them they could stop doing it.
You could in most cases, but in some cases studies have indeed shown that you can not - or it is very, very difficult to convince the person. It would be hard, for instance, to convince a psychopath to have regard for others and a sense of moral obligation. This is rationally undeniable - there are recorded cases of such things.
So are you saying that a person who becomes so enraged due to hideous life circumstances and harms others is 100% at fault for their actions? How so - did they cause themselves to become that way? What about a woman who is a lesbian? Lesbians are often lesbians because a in their male abused them (I do not have a good reference for that, but that is what I heard in my (Christian) ethics class today). Are they to blame? Would they have decided to become a lesbian if they were not abused? And how about Hitler's Children - did they choose with their "free will" to act in their aggressive manners? Or, was their behavior a result of external influences? And are Germans more likely to be aggressive because of genetic descent? Would they have elected to act in those ways had they not had external influences acting on them? Perhaps some but certainly not all.
Before we go any further we should try to find common ground. (In light of what I rote in the previous paragraph) please define the term "free will."
Actually I can say it with certainty, and the faith of those scientists is not a delimiting benchmark of my own.
You may as well be able to for your own self, but when posting on the internet where people will read your comments in their own searching you should cite your sources if you state something as fact. I'm not saying I'm perfect and always do this, but it's something we all should at least try to do.
Actually, I can rule it out.
Again, you can, but other people cannot based on what you have said without references/sources.
I'm surprised to hear you say it's a matter of "what degree you think each of the influences is involved", since you really can't grant any genetic explanation of human behavior without granting all genetic explanation of human behavior, and that means you don't believe in free will. But if you don't believe in free will, then you have no moral justification for anything at all, since morality itself has no meaning in a world bereft of free will.
And again, I did not say that behavior is due exclusively to those two influences. I was advocating that those things are at least part of what is involved.
And again,
your statement there is only an interpretation. Behaviorism does not have to be mutually exclusive with free will. You could, for instance, define free will as behavior which is localized to the individual which the individual determines to partake in for whatever reason(s).
According to Google, free will is defined as "freedom of self determination and action independent of external causes."
Suppose I am a happy person, but then one day someone kills my kid, and I soon become an angry, bitter person. Am I choosing to be angry and bitter (behavior) without any external influence? Absolutely not. I would not become that way if someone did not kill my kid. And if the event had transpired later in time I would also have become angry later in time - so in this case my behavior is dependent on an event.
Now can you describe a single hypothetical situation where a person would make a choice that actually is "free of self determination and action independent of external causes" - based on absolutely no external influence (i.e. environmental influences, genetics, a person's needs/well-being)?
. I cannot (if you can, then please do). Your well-being (state of human existence in which a person's basic needs are adequately met and satisfied), for instance, is _always_ dependent on external influence.
I think the whole notion of free will is extremely evasive.
What you don't seen to "grok" is that I've already been where you're talking about. (behavioral human genetics as a substitute for faith, soul and free will) It's a dead end.
I mean you no harm, but if you keep following the faith that "man is an evoloved ape", I'm afraid that the most likely fate for you, as it was for me, is that one day Satan will visit you, as he did me, and he'll offer you something, as he did me, and the next day you'll wake up with a bunch of demons for neighbors, and where your Holy Bible should have been, you'll just have a shelf full of high brow books that tell you you're a monkey, as it happened for me.
Do modern ideas (ways of explaining behavior, evolution, etc.) _really_ _have_ to be mutually exclusive with faith and the Bible?
For example, it seems as though people in Biblical times explained human behavior, thinking - everything that seems to have _some_ biological basis - via spirits/souls. These people did not have a grasp of science or the scientific method, and that was best explanation - and it was sufficient for their purposes.
Now that may raise the objection that God authored the Bible, the Bible is inerrant, etc., but keep in mind that the authors were human, and they used terms of their day to describe things. For instance, in Revelation if John saw visions of the future, and if he saw missiles and airplanes he would explain them using his existing knowledge - the knowledge of the day (missiles -> fire (explosions), stars raining down; airplanes -> wings). He would/not/ have used the terms we use today.
So in short we don't know/what/ a spirt is, so IMO there is no point or basis in, for example, arrogantly saying that describing behavior biologically is wrong. To do so would be to make assumptions, and assumptions very often lead to problems.
Science and seeking technical understanding are not the problem. It is man's methods and conclusions (whether they are conducted/reached fairly, appropriately, reasonably) and what man does with them. Research results just provide facts; facts are not interpretations. To say that explaining behavior in terms of the biological (hence evolution) is wrong because behavior should be attributed to the spirt/soul is just an interpretation - and as I said above we don't definitively know the role of the spirit/soul (if there even are such things).
I mean, presuming God created man, then maybe he created him to be a purely biological creature as far as his physical body and his behavior is concerned. And maybe the spirit/soul is just some representation of us after we die - something that remains dormant and in another place until that time comes. Or maybe there is some quantum basis (i.e. random) for our actions. In such a case there would have been _no way_ people thousands of years ago would have been able to have explained the underlying technical details of human behavior.
You see, you - we all - need to accept that we/do not/ have all the answers. We have facts, theories, and interpretations - but no absolute answers. There are very often other ways of looking at things which we have not considered. Yes maybe the Bible is true, but often is is so general and abstract (namely in its terminology) that we cannot definitively pin things down.
In the grand world of debate, there is a thing called presumption.
Granted they are doing a bit of presuming, but there is at least evidence to support many of their claims/beliefs. Any good Intro to Psychology book has this information.
Not to be cynical, but perhaps he could also have meant that maybe man has invented God - that it's all just psychological? Not advocating it either way myself, just pointing that out.
There are philosophical problems with the assumption, as well. Specifically, there is a philosophical hypothesis called "epiphenominalism", which stipulates that consciousness arises out of matter (in much the same way a movie is projected onto a screen), and a locus of awareness is generated by something in matter itself. It's a clever solution, but I challenge any person to explain how that would actually happen.
Neurological basis? Pattern recognition and association, IMO, are the basis of consciousness. Thinking involves associations (and I think could be reduced largely to that), and what we think about and how we think about things things [seems to me to] involves pattern recognition. I'm convinced (though on an anecdotal basis) that all behavior can be explained in this manner. And neurological makeups have basis in both genetics and environmental influence. Chemicals play a large part in the scheme of things as well.
Would artificial life, then, have a soul, though? Would that locus of awareness be enough to call the entity "alive, spirited and soulful"? I think it would take more.
Depends on what a soul is, whether they actually exist, and whether they actually have anything to do with behavior.
You cannot with certainty say that either evolution or ID (which I assume is what you are aluding to) are true or false - there is evidence on both sides. No one - including these scientists - are 100% or anywhere near 100% certain on either side.
You cannot rule out evolution entirely when explaining behavior. Behavior *is* partially due to environmental influences, but it *is* also due to genetics (hence evolution). The question is to what degree each of these processes are involved.
Looking at the world fully convinced of their worldview, their lense, comes at the expense of faith in God, human love and compassion, altruism, faith in your fellow man, brotherhood and genuine goodwill.
Not necessarily. It does not *have* to be that way. Doing so would just be one interpretation/implication of how to live based on the evidence.
but I am telling you that, without a doubt, the geneticists belief is dead wrong
I am sorry, but I and many others feel there is just not enough evidence to rationally say this.
Allow me to suggest some very interesting reading material. There is a Christian professor I know who has given the evolution/ID thing a fair trial, and he has put together some articles which you can read here: http://www.letu.edu/opencms/opencms/_Academics/Art s-Science/chem-phys/resources.html. It's under the section "Dr. Steven Ball - Short Booklets on Topics in Science and Faith." Definitely worth the read. All I am advocating with that is that we need to have open minds rather than being arrogant. There *are* different ways of looking at things - ways that sometimes we simply don't consider but need to.
"For when Gentiles, who have no law, do by nature the things of the law, these, though they have no law, are a law to themselves, who show the work of the law written in their hearts [brain?], their conscience bearing witness with it and their reasonings, one with the other, accusing or even excusing them."
Here's a question: can a person become convinced to become and then become more moral based on their life experience? If so, where do genetics fit in that case?
I'm running Vista Business on a laptop from leadcomp.com (MSI-1039; 2.2GHz, 1GB RAM, 100GB HDD, 256MB RAM), and I can confirm that when I leave the computer on overnight it often locks up 99% and is basically unusable without a hard reset. Ubuntu, on the other hand, works much better, and I can leave it on for days straight:) Hopefully one of these patches will solve the lockup problem with Vista.
there was a time when I lived as an agnostic. (15 years) During that time, I had seen NO evidence of God, and I'd given up on faith. But when I finally saw the light, there was no turning back. During that first 15 years, it was empirical science and philosophy that kept me as an agnostic. Since I saw the light, however, no amount of empirical, scientific or psychological speculation could diminish my faith.
If you're willing to then send me an email with your testimony (curious for personal reasons). Also, what church (Catholic, Protestant, Mormon, etc.) & denomination do you subscribe to? You can find my email address at http://aletheia.sourceforge.net/
I would be deeply surprised if the experimenters had taken the time (or given the consideration) to examine the DNA of people BEFORE and AFTER they had converted from atheist to religious (or vice versa).
Do you think it would be better to say that any change that occurs - whatever it's attributed to (God/Jesus, the person having newfound motivation, etc.) - is due to psychological experiences rather than genetics?
Isn't the purpose of this article to say that the whole general concept of religion (just the very fact that it exists) has origins in "evolution or some neurological accident?" I don't think it was proposing that life changes have been due to shift in genetics.
Slashdot Mirror
Maybe 6 hours for Windows and maybe a little longer for Ubuntu.
Once that's done I make an image of my harddrives in case something goes wrong. For Linux I use partimage, and for Windows I use ntfsclone - never had any problems.
I then periodically update the images when I install and configure major software. Making an image takes about half an hour for Linux and 10 minute to reimage the drive, and for Windows it takes about an hour to image the drive and about 30 minutes to reimage the drive.
Ok. They did not explicitly say "premodern" though, and I've had a lot of people say "I didn't come from no ape" and "If humans came from monkeys then why are there still monkeys today?" Malarky.
What does the composite extension actually do? I have an ATI x1600 and have not been able to try this - and I can't find much info on this online either. Does it have something to do with layering and transparency?
Correction...the theory goes that we did NOT come from apes but from a common ancestor...from wikipedia:
Also see http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/evolution/library/faq/cat0 2.html.
You were pointing out flaws in their methods and activities; I am doing so with yours. If you are going to do that to others then you should expect the same to be done to you.
That sounds pretty condemning (express strong disapproval of; demonstrate the guilt of) to me. And I never confirmed I was a Christian or subscribed to Jesus' teachings.
The point of my posting in the first place was not to criticize you; the purpose was to convey the shortsightedness that many Christians often convey toward alternate (not necessarily non-Christian) worldviews. Yes, I seem to have directed things at you, but I really I did not mean anything against you personally.
Look, I don't intend to be a jerk. Maybe you should read some of the comments I wrote a couple years ago here http://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=182360 &cid=15073606 and here http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=135991&thresho ld=1&commentsort=0&mode=thread&pid=11356900#113569 44. At that time I simply did not consider others' views.
Please refer to my bit about the sun revolving around the earth, the earth being flat, etc. I did say this to be nasty. When those things were believed to be true alternate views actually were adamantly condemned - and the alternate views very often ended up being correct. The type of worldview you seem to convey seems to be advocating the condemnation of alternate views - and when that permeates the political arena and our schools and peoples' minds it is not a good thing because it creates confusion and inconsistent teachings. And those purporting those alternative views were often killed. If the church had not been so shortsighted, those people would have lived.
Yes, we are off track. Maybe we should just stop here. I think we've both pretty well said what we wanted to say; people can draw their own conclusions.
Sorry to go on and on and on, but...
About this I've thought that maybe genes have an influence on our behavior (e.g. make us more or less sensitive and likely to respond to certain stimuli, at least partially), but genetics alone do not dictate our actions. I think that if a person is continually doing something wrong, for instance, they cannot change unless they a) have knowledge that the thing they are doing is wrong and b) have someone to facilitate their change. Now you could say that God reveals these things to the person, and that he is also the facilitator, and in my view that's fine. However think that how he does so (e.g. through nature, through a series of causational events, entirely supernaturally, at a quantum level, etc.) would be the matter of a different debate - and very likely one of the things we cannot know.
What are your thoughts?
Allow me to comment further.
Science/research is all about diligence (determination and persevering to gain understanding). It is cumulative. It makes inductions, and it builds on those inductions. Anything and everything is always subject to change and revision by anyone. Science has no room for arrogance.
Granted, is is possible and in my view likely that God makes himself and some other things untestable via the scientific method. But does that really mean that evidences (e.g. miracles, prophecy fulfillment) cannot complement our faith? Why would God provide these things then? Does having faith really mean you cannot try to understand the world in a rational and logical (i.e. scientific) manner while still believing there is a God who exists who somehow created the universe, loves you, and wants a personal; relationship with you?
Can science not complement religion? Maybe science cannot explain everything or provide absolute reason to believe God exists, but can one's view of the world (e.g. whether genetics are involved in behavior) not be partially based on products of the scientific method? You seem to advocate that a partial scientific view of the world is absolutely wrong - that we can only know what God has told us through the Bible - and that is the main reason I have continued debating with you.
You are entitled think for your own self, but there are other people who have asked and do ask the very same questions you do and that have been and will be in the same place you are in. This view is very self-centered IMO and discrediting of others and their research/thinking efforts. Have you researched everything there is to research, or will you do so in your lifetime? Why reinvent the wheel - why not use what is available to you to solve problems / find answers? Some people are biased, but everyone is not.
Yes there is bad/poor science/research today, but not all science/research is done badly/poorly.
We can see from history that thinking for ourselves is a bad idea. Did not dictators like Hitler tend to think for themselves more rather than listening to and collaborating with others?
If you were a student in Bible school and were writing an exegesis paper on a passage from scripture, do you think you would get a good grade if you did not cite any sources except the Bible and your own self? Certainly not. You would at least cite commentaries, concordances, Bible encyclopedias, Bible Dictionaries, Wikipedia, the Internet, etc. If we did not collaborate and share ideas, research, and cite our sources we would not understand the Bible, for instance, as we do today.
Or maybe you just don't believe in these things. Maybe you believe we should just accept things and not research them further. But if we think along those lines we would still believe the world is flat, that the sun revolves around the earth, and that flies com out of meat rather than other flies laying their eggs on the meat. Or maybe you still believe these things? If not, then how is good, proper, and non-biased research bad? Does it objectively draw us away from God, or can it draw us away from God if done improperly and unfairly? Or maybe you think we should just think about things and not do research? If so, would everything then not be based on assumptions?
Any modern psychology book will provide evidence that advocate the possibility and liklihood that genetics play a part in behavior. For instance, most of these books will contain have information about twin studies. My book says the following:
And how about mentally handicapped individuals (e.g. people with down syndrome)? Their genetics certainly do not affect their behavior...
But books - except the Bible alone - and what other people think and say - especially those with PhD's - are pointless because we all just think for ourselves.Science is not faith. Science is inductive, while faith is deductive. That is a key difference. Now when you get to theoretical science, that more or less does require faith. Science involves critical thinking (does not blindly accept arguments and conclusions), while faith more or less does not. You should read what Richard Dawkins wrote here: http://www.thehumanist.org/humanist/articles/dawki ns.html (or you can just brush that off and say you don't need to).
As noted many, many times on Slashdot, faith is "belief that does not rest on logical proof or material evidence," while the scientific method involves "systematic methods used in scientific investigations of the natural world, which include designing controlled experiments, gathering data, and developing and testing hypotheses." Might I ask, in light of this, how is science faith?
Yes, I have assumed that matter precedes, and dictates, human behavior, but as I annotate below psychology shows that everything psychological is simultaneously biological.
And Kant and Descartes assume that God exists.
And again, that matter does not precede and dictates human behavior is an assumption - and it is an assumption that spirits exist and people have spirits. Now maybe spirits exist and people have them, and maybe we cannot prove that, but why believe that spirits have anything to do with human behavior without sound supporting evidence? Because philosophy says so? Well if you believe that science is based on assumptions then how is philosophy any different?
Are these not mere theoretical ideas and assumptions? Where is the evidence that these things are true? The field of psychology has, IMO, offered much more trustworthy and a more solid view of the world. As my psychology 101 book (Psychology Eight Edition in Modules by David G. Myers) says, "everything psychological is simultaneously biological." The book goes on to show how every human behavior affects the brain, and whenever the brain is affected human behavior is consequently affected. In light of this, what reason is there to believe Kant's Fundamental Categories as they pertain to perceiving reality?
Kant separates reality into two fields of knowledge: the Noumenal (nonrational. nonlogical, paradoxical, symbolic, untestable, unverifiable, suprahistorical, imaginative, religius) and the Phenomenal (rational, logical, historical, factual, real, testable, empirical, scientific). There are problems with this manner of believing:
It is quite unfortunate, anecdotal, and IMHO arrogant that you wish to turn your mind off to and not consider other peoples' ideas. You are going to be left in the dark as new things are discovered.
That's what Google is there for :)
Sorry, I missed this but wish to comment.
You could in most cases, but in some cases studies have indeed shown that you can not - or it is very, very difficult to convince the person. It would be hard, for instance, to convince a psychopath to have regard for others and a sense of moral obligation. This is rationally undeniable - there are recorded cases of such things.
So are you saying that a person who becomes so enraged due to hideous life circumstances and harms others is 100% at fault for their actions? How so - did they cause themselves to become that way? What about a woman who is a lesbian? Lesbians are often lesbians because a in their male abused them (I do not have a good reference for that, but that is what I heard in my (Christian) ethics class today). Are they to blame? Would they have decided to become a lesbian if they were not abused? And how about Hitler's Children - did they choose with their "free will" to act in their aggressive manners? Or, was their behavior a result of external influences? And are Germans more likely to be aggressive because of genetic descent? Would they have elected to act in those ways had they not had external influences acting on them? Perhaps some but certainly not all.
Before we go any further we should try to find common ground. (In light of what I rote in the previous paragraph) please define the term "free will."
Again, you can, but other people cannot based on what you have said without references/sources.
And again, I did not say that behavior is due exclusively to those two influences. I was advocating that those things are at least part of what is involved.And again,
your statement there is only an interpretation. Behaviorism does not have to be mutually exclusive with free will. You could, for instance, define free will as behavior which is localized to the individual which the individual determines to partake in for whatever reason(s).According to Google, free will is defined as "freedom of self determination and action independent of external causes."
Suppose I am a happy person, but then one day someone kills my kid, and I soon become an angry, bitter person. Am I choosing to be angry and bitter (behavior) without any external influence? Absolutely not. I would not become that way if someone did not kill my kid. And if the event had transpired later in time I would also have become angry later in time - so in this case my behavior is dependent on an event.
Now can you describe a single hypothetical situation where a person would make a choice that actually is "free of self determination and action independent of external causes" - based on absolutely no external influence (i.e. environmental influences, genetics, a person's needs/well-being)?
. I cannot (if you can, then please do). Your well-being (state of human existence in which a person's basic needs are adequately met and satisfied), for instance, is _always_ dependent on external influence.I think the whole notion of free will is extremely evasive.
Do modern ideas (ways of explaining behavior, evolution, etc.) _really_ _have_ to be mutually exclusive with faith and the Bible?
For example, it seems as though people in Biblical times explained human behavior, thinking - everything that seems to have _some_ biological basis - via spirits/souls. These people did not have a grasp of science or the scientific method, and that was best explanation - and it was sufficient for their purposes.
Now that may raise the objection that God authored the Bible, the Bible is inerrant, etc., but keep in mind that the authors were human, and they used terms of their day to describe things. For instance, in Revelation if John saw visions of the future, and if he saw missiles and airplanes he would explain them using his existing knowledge - the knowledge of the day (missiles -> fire (explosions), stars raining down; airplanes -> wings). He would /not/ have used the terms we use today.
So in short we don't know /what/ a spirt is, so IMO there is no point or basis in, for example, arrogantly saying that describing behavior biologically is wrong. To do so would be to make assumptions, and assumptions very often lead to problems.
Science and seeking technical understanding are not the problem. It is man's methods and conclusions (whether they are conducted/reached fairly, appropriately, reasonably) and what man does with them. Research results just provide facts; facts are not interpretations. To say that explaining behavior in terms of the biological (hence evolution) is wrong because behavior should be attributed to the spirt/soul is just an interpretation - and as I said above we don't definitively know the role of the spirit/soul (if there even are such things).
I mean, presuming God created man, then maybe he created him to be a purely biological creature as far as his physical body and his behavior is concerned. And maybe the spirit/soul is just some representation of us after we die - something that remains dormant and in another place until that time comes. Or maybe there is some quantum basis (i.e. random) for our actions. In such a case there would have been _no way_ people thousands of years ago would have been able to have explained the underlying technical details of human behavior.
You see, you - we all - need to accept that we /do not/ have all the answers. We have facts, theories, and interpretations - but no absolute answers. There are very often other ways of looking at things which we have not considered. Yes maybe the Bible is true, but often is is so general and abstract (namely in its terminology) that we cannot definitively pin things down.
Not to be cynical, but perhaps he could also have meant that maybe man has invented God - that it's all just psychological? Not advocating it either way myself, just pointing that out.
Neurological basis? Pattern recognition and association, IMO, are the basis of consciousness. Thinking involves associations (and I think could be reduced largely to that), and what we think about and how we think about things things [seems to me to] involves pattern recognition. I'm convinced (though on an anecdotal basis) that all behavior can be explained in this manner. And neurological makeups have basis in both genetics and environmental influence. Chemicals play a large part in the scheme of things as well.
Depends on what a soul is, whether they actually exist, and whether they actually have anything to do with behavior.You cannot rule out evolution entirely when explaining behavior. Behavior *is* partially due to environmental influences, but it *is* also due to genetics (hence evolution). The question is to what degree each of these processes are involved.
Not necessarily. It does not *have* to be that way. Doing so would just be one interpretation/implication of how to live based on the evidence.
I am sorry, but I and many others feel there is just not enough evidence to rationally say this.
Allow me to suggest some very interesting reading material. There is a Christian professor I know who has given the evolution/ID thing a fair trial, and he has put together some articles which you can read here: http://www.letu.edu/opencms/opencms/_Academics/Ar
then
Maybe we're being a bit anecdotal here and jumping to a hasty conclusion, hmmm?
"For when Gentiles, who have no law, do by nature the things of the law, these, though they have no law, are a law to themselves, who show the work of the law written in their hearts [brain?], their conscience bearing witness with it and their reasonings, one with the other, accusing or even excusing them."
Comments?
I have been considering similar questions lately.
Here's a question: can a person become convinced to become and then become more moral based on their life experience? If so, where do genetics fit in that case?
I'm running Vista Business on a laptop from leadcomp.com (MSI-1039; 2.2GHz, 1GB RAM, 100GB HDD, 256MB RAM), and I can confirm that when I leave the computer on overnight it often locks up 99% and is basically unusable without a hard reset. Ubuntu, on the other hand, works much better, and I can leave it on for days straight :) Hopefully one of these patches will solve the lockup problem with Vista.
If you're willing to then send me an email with your testimony (curious for personal reasons). Also, what church (Catholic, Protestant, Mormon, etc.) & denomination do you subscribe to? You can find my email address at http://aletheia.sourceforge.net/
Do you think it would be better to say that any change that occurs - whatever it's attributed to (God/Jesus, the person having newfound motivation, etc.) - is due to psychological experiences rather than genetics?
Isn't the purpose of this article to say that the whole general concept of religion (just the very fact that it exists) has origins in "evolution or some neurological accident?" I don't think it was proposing that life changes have been due to shift in genetics.