Heh, actually, it's more energy efficient (factoring in the costs of obtaining and refining gas versus growing cows for burgers) to drive somewhere than to cycle somewhere, and even more efficient to use a motorcyle.
I understand perfectly. Metaphor, by its very DEFINITION, is not literal. Get it? You can't "believe" in something if it has no literal meaning. As I said before, and as should be obvious, you can choose to interpret or learn from such things, but unless you take the writings as written literal truth, it is not possible for you to believe in them.
Another thing I said before, if it is metaphor, explain the book of Numbers? Then explain Leviticus. Did people not take those texts as perfectly literal? How about the gospels. Do people not take those as literal accounts?
Do you see how completely flawed it is to say these things are metaphor? They were clearly never intended as such.
I don't assume you are ignorant because you don't share my point of view. I assume you are ignorant because you fail to re-assess the very fundamental assumptions from which you launch your arguments -- assumptions which are clearly flawed to begin with. It's not rude to point this out, although when dealing with someone whose arguments are so, it is fruitless to discuss anything.
Not sure where your definition of supernatural comes from, but most people use the concept to describe something that is in this universe and that interacts with it in some way beyond the possibilities of nature and beyond cause-and-effect as defined by possible physical forces. See the laws of thermodynamics if you are unsure what I'm getting at.
Also, there is absolutely NO proof that god has ever revealed himself in any shape or form. Your assumptions are based on hearsay and zero evidence. See the problem?
I believe your comment was a longwinded way of saying "it's all metaphor".
So, if the bible is all metaphor, what does god stand for?
Let me push this a bit further.
If you told me, "I just counted about 68 dogs and at least 93 cats raining out of the sky over the course of sixty seconds", I would know you're not just using a figure of speech, and I would probably be able to disprove it. The same is true for the bible, which states many, many, many things as factual. And even if you ignored ALL of that, simply accepting certain concepts presented in the bible, metaphor or not, would place you quite squarely in the realm of falseness.
It is simply illogical to state that you believe in the bible, because it is utterly impossible. You can say you enjoy the bible, or you learn from the bible, or any of those things, but stating belief in it is as ridiculous as stating belief in any other provably incorrect account of a set of events, or any other work of fiction.
In your example, there are certain aspects which simply MUST be taken literally. Such as the existence of god and that he's talking to someone. Simply put, it would be preposterous to believe that assumption. Therefore, you can't believe in it.
Yeah, you probably missed the point of everything I said about "believing in" it. I read Arthur C. Clarke books. I learned a lot from them, but I can never say I "believe in" them. If I were to take any of his stories as fact, I would be a fucking idiot -- because they're fictional and they never happened.
Your logic is utterly and completely flawed. From reading your other posts, it's quite evident that you lack the ability to understand sound logic for what it is. Everything you read and write goes through several different mental filters which ruin the meaning. You adhere to many vastly incorrect assumptions. I'm sorry, but I just can't help you there.
But really, I want to see some hard evidence
You do NOT *prove* the nonexistence of something. That's not how logic and reason work. It's the other way around. You prove the existence of something, and you prove that an interpretation of something is correct.
The corollary is if a certain phenomenon is observed but not enough facts are known, a hypothesis is formed and tested, and supporting evidence is sought.
There is no such "phenomenon" in the universe that can lead any logical or sane person to hypothesize about the existence of a god. Nothing in the universe points to this. Everything has cause and effect. The effects whose causes are not yet understood still do not point directly to anything resembling a higher being, and therefore it is entirely erroneous for such thinking to enter the process.
The only truly BIG question we have, and will always have, is how the universe came about in the first place. We aren't guaranteed to ever work this one out because the concept of information itself is not valid past the big bang. This *still* does not point directly to the existence of any being. It is merely an unanswered question, and only the lazy mind will lean back to a vague and untestable concept in order to satisfy their curiousity.
I'm afraid that makes you a zealot in your beliefs
There's nothing wrong with being zealous. I'm a zealot in my belief against homophobia. I'm a zealot in my belief for integrity and truth. I'm a zealot in my belief for many, many things, and my belief against stupidity and lack of reason and proof is just one of those things.
Now, as for your last paragraph, in order to merely state those points of view, betrays a phenomenal amount of ridiculous assumptions and ignorance.
The existence of God clearly falls completely outside the realm of empirical science
And therefore falls outside the realm of the observable universe which is tied to things like cause and effect. And therefore is not in the universe. And therefore does not exist. No flaw in the understanding of science here, mate.
If god exists, it is only as an outside observer, and undetectable. If he is not just an observer but is actively "involved", his actions will be scientifically measurable in SOME regard, most likely by some heinous breach of the laws of thermodynamics.
So, either he doesn't exist, or he does but exerts absolutely no control over anything in the universe, including doing things like talking to humans and writing on clay tablets -- and by definition therefore, all religion and understanding of him does not come from him.
Perhaps you need to think that one through a bit more and see how illogical your statement is.
Would you call their work unscientific?
In that paragraph you managed to commit several crimes against logic. I emplore you to actually think about the words you've written.
Why would you assume that anybody would be so stupid and bigoted as to disagree with everything an individual says, on the basis of a certain unrelated characteristic or opinion? Newton could have dedicated his life work to an anally prolapsed ferret for all I care -- his work stands for itself.
I find that most people who are offended by religion in general (as opposed to being offended by some specific aspect of a particular religion) completely misunderstand what religion is
How amazingly confused you are by reality. Seriously now, run that by me again? Seriously?
I know exactly what religion is. I come from a deeply religious background. The foundation of religion is clinging to superstitious and unreasonable beliefs and fairytales. Religious people can turn that into any number of good and bad things.
Religion is offensive because it promotes false belief and false motives. There are many things which people should just get over and tolerate, but I do not consider the active choice to hold false beliefs, as one of those things.
My reply was directly addressing your words, not those from the article. My logic still stands (as any sound logic should), and you still seem to want to lump various disciplines of scientific study together whereas what's in discussion is simply evolution versus ID.
I'm not talking about who feels threatened by what. I'm talking about your completely erroneous assertions and assumptions.
I think you pretty much entirely missed how logic works. Fact disproves a lot of Christianity. It is therefore false, as a belief. Ok, glad we got that out of the way.
As for agnosticism, that's not good enough in my books. For instance, scientists can't prove that there aren't bright pink microscopic 16-legged elephants hiding on a planet 28,000 light years away. So, does that mean you have to say, "welll yeah I guess it could be possible but I can't disprove it".
Sane people would say, "that's preposterous, I'd have to see it to believe it". You don't need to prove something does NOT exist, you need to prove it DOES.
Does evolution really offer an explanation for the origin of humanity based solely on natural processes?
Straw man alert! Evolution describes how animal and plant species changed and/or diversified since life on earth began. Your comment is kinda doing the illogical "switcharoo" there by confusing the study of the origins of the universe, with the study of the origins of the species. Reel it in there son. Maybe spend a bit more time on your critical thinking skills, yeah?
Where did the original matter making up the primordial soup (or the infinitesimally small mass before the big bang) come from?
Science is concerned with everything up until that point. It's absurd to hypothesize beyond that because logic itself may not even be valid in that context.
What about these natural laws that seem to govern the universe which make natural processes possible?
Completely and utterly the wrong question to ask. If I had to tally up the amount of circumstances, events, and coincidences that had to occur in order for a sperm cell to eventually become who I am some decades later, I would end up with some fucking crazy hyper-insane unfathomably unlikely odds. This means I can't possibly exist without someone actually planning it that way from the beginning. Right? I am, considering the vast amount of other possibilities, essentially impossible.
So how am I here? Let's try a little thing called LOGIC!
Throw a deck of cards into the air. Take note of which cards land face up and which cards land face down. OH MY GOD THERE ARE EXACTLY 2^52 (4503599627370496) POSSIBILITIES OF THAT EXACT COMBINATION OCCURING! This MUST mean somebody planned it that way. Right? That combination you observed is unfeasibly unlikely so as to be impossible without some "god" designing it that way. Right?
Life in the universe is tuned to the characteristics of the universe. NOT the other way around. It is NOT logical to ask the question you asked.
when it comes to someone's personal beliefs I don't really think that there is any burden of proof
It's fairly obvious beliefs which aren't based on proof or logic are, at best, dreams, and at worst, lies. I only ask for the permission to describe them as such, because that's exactly what they are.
consensus is not science
Consensus *is* science. That's exactly what it is: when many scientists and people who are experts in a field agree on an interpretation of verifiable facts.
Furthermore, have you ever heard of a chap called Einstein? This whole theory of relativity thing of his sounds like *complete* nonsense. It sure did sound completely absurd when I first heard it. And do you know how he came up with it? By extrapolating obvious facts -- a little thing he called a "thought experiment."
Thing is, his logic was sound. It turns out that thousands upon thousands of experiments in the last century have proved many, many aspects of relativity.
Funny what you can achieve with logical extrapolation. Perhaps you could try it sometime?
Science as it is written, is not in that strong of a conflict with the bible as it is written
Perhaps not if you don't take the bible literally. But many do. And science is, and let's not mince words here, absolutely and completely at odds with the bible as it is written, should it be interpreted as literal text.
Now, I've never understood anybody who said they believed in the bible but didn't take it literally. What. The. Fuck.
OK, how about: "I believe in The Complete Works Of Shakespeare, but I don't take it as a literal historical document." Say what now? What does "believe in" *mean* then?!
Nah mate, science and Christianity are NOT compatible, so long as Christianity promotes any kind of belief that is either at odds with provable fact, or is not supported by any direct evidence.
And just to be clear, attributing unknown or unexplained things to god is *never* a reasonable theory because that logic requires the concept of god in the first place, which (if you spend any amount of time thinking about it) you should know is circular reasoning and therefore crap. One of the fundamentals of the scientific method is never to search only for facts to fit a theory, but rather to constantly revise the theory to fit the facts. This precludes the possibility of the concept of "god" to ever factor in to any scientific theory because there was never any direct evidence to cause the scientist to develop the concept and theory of a god.
Personally, I find religion deeply offensive, in the same way I find littering, racism, homeopathy, and liars offensive. If anybody is going to be doing any of that on my lawn, I'm going to yell at them.
Now, I know exactly the tribal mentality you mention, but that is human nature and humanity will always have a Complete Dick contingent. However, I certianly do not need smug reassurance from anybody else whose beliefs line up with mine. My smug reassurance comes from ascribing to verifiable truth, which stands on a mountain of evidence, and holds its own.
Like hell you can. The scientific method requires that your theory fits as "tightly" around the facts and experiments as possible (see Occam's Razor). It logically follows that you can't start making up theories like "somebody created us" when you can find no direct evidence of the existence of the "somebody" in the first place.
Also, just because you can't explain something doesn't automatically make someone else's baseless theory more correct - that's a terrible logical fallacy.
Although, as you say, such beliefs are not "disprovable", they do open up the realm for an infinite possibility of counter-beliefs, none of which are disprovable, and certainly unchallengeable should the ID/YEC believer insist his initial assumption be considered or believed.
For instance, I could say back to him, "Erm, no, actually *my* god created the Earth just last week. All your memories are false, and I have here a book which declares, above all, that you're a fucking idiot, and you can't disprove me because any evidence you might think you have found to the contrary has been put there in order to make this existence seem real."
Slashdot Mirror
They should really have called the successor E#
Heh, actually, it's more energy efficient (factoring in the costs of obtaining and refining gas versus growing cows for burgers) to drive somewhere than to cycle somewhere, and even more efficient to use a motorcyle.
Well, if you heat it enough, it combusts, and you get to harness that energy in something called a combustion engine. Awesome!
I understand perfectly. Metaphor, by its very DEFINITION, is not literal. Get it? You can't "believe" in something if it has no literal meaning. As I said before, and as should be obvious, you can choose to interpret or learn from such things, but unless you take the writings as written literal truth, it is not possible for you to believe in them.
Another thing I said before, if it is metaphor, explain the book of Numbers? Then explain Leviticus. Did people not take those texts as perfectly literal? How about the gospels. Do people not take those as literal accounts?
Do you see how completely flawed it is to say these things are metaphor? They were clearly never intended as such.
I don't assume you are ignorant because you don't share my point of view. I assume you are ignorant because you fail to re-assess the very fundamental assumptions from which you launch your arguments -- assumptions which are clearly flawed to begin with. It's not rude to point this out, although when dealing with someone whose arguments are so, it is fruitless to discuss anything.
Not sure where your definition of supernatural comes from, but most people use the concept to describe something that is in this universe and that interacts with it in some way beyond the possibilities of nature and beyond cause-and-effect as defined by possible physical forces. See the laws of thermodynamics if you are unsure what I'm getting at.
Also, there is absolutely NO proof that god has ever revealed himself in any shape or form. Your assumptions are based on hearsay and zero evidence. See the problem?
By your complicitly I take it you are unable to refute my initial comment refuting your own logic. That's kinda still the point.
I believe your comment was a longwinded way of saying "it's all metaphor".
So, if the bible is all metaphor, what does god stand for?
Let me push this a bit further.
If you told me, "I just counted about 68 dogs and at least 93 cats raining out of the sky over the course of sixty seconds", I would know you're not just using a figure of speech, and I would probably be able to disprove it. The same is true for the bible, which states many, many, many things as factual. And even if you ignored ALL of that, simply accepting certain concepts presented in the bible, metaphor or not, would place you quite squarely in the realm of falseness.
It is simply illogical to state that you believe in the bible, because it is utterly impossible. You can say you enjoy the bible, or you learn from the bible, or any of those things, but stating belief in it is as ridiculous as stating belief in any other provably incorrect account of a set of events, or any other work of fiction.
In your example, there are certain aspects which simply MUST be taken literally. Such as the existence of god and that he's talking to someone. Simply put, it would be preposterous to believe that assumption. Therefore, you can't believe in it.
Right, so if you don't take it literally, you can't believe in it. By definition. Make sense now?
Yeah, you probably missed the point of everything I said about "believing in" it. I read Arthur C. Clarke books. I learned a lot from them, but I can never say I "believe in" them. If I were to take any of his stories as fact, I would be a fucking idiot -- because they're fictional and they never happened.
Do you see the correlation?
Your logic is utterly and completely flawed. From reading your other posts, it's quite evident that you lack the ability to understand sound logic for what it is. Everything you read and write goes through several different mental filters which ruin the meaning. You adhere to many vastly incorrect assumptions. I'm sorry, but I just can't help you there.
But really, I want to see some hard evidence
You do NOT *prove* the nonexistence of something. That's not how logic and reason work. It's the other way around. You prove the existence of something, and you prove that an interpretation of something is correct.
The corollary is if a certain phenomenon is observed but not enough facts are known, a hypothesis is formed and tested, and supporting evidence is sought.
There is no such "phenomenon" in the universe that can lead any logical or sane person to hypothesize about the existence of a god. Nothing in the universe points to this. Everything has cause and effect. The effects whose causes are not yet understood still do not point directly to anything resembling a higher being, and therefore it is entirely erroneous for such thinking to enter the process.
The only truly BIG question we have, and will always have, is how the universe came about in the first place. We aren't guaranteed to ever work this one out because the concept of information itself is not valid past the big bang. This *still* does not point directly to the existence of any being. It is merely an unanswered question, and only the lazy mind will lean back to a vague and untestable concept in order to satisfy their curiousity.
I'm afraid that makes you a zealot in your beliefs
There's nothing wrong with being zealous. I'm a zealot in my belief against homophobia. I'm a zealot in my belief for integrity and truth. I'm a zealot in my belief for many, many things, and my belief against stupidity and lack of reason and proof is just one of those things.
Now, as for your last paragraph, in order to merely state those points of view, betrays a phenomenal amount of ridiculous assumptions and ignorance.
the argument of young-earth Creationists is that macro-evolution and a billions-of-years-old universe is NOT provable fact
Erm, yeah... http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=977815&cid=25174421
The existence of God clearly falls completely outside the realm of empirical science
And therefore falls outside the realm of the observable universe which is tied to things like cause and effect. And therefore is not in the universe. And therefore does not exist. No flaw in the understanding of science here, mate.
If god exists, it is only as an outside observer, and undetectable. If he is not just an observer but is actively "involved", his actions will be scientifically measurable in SOME regard, most likely by some heinous breach of the laws of thermodynamics.
So, either he doesn't exist, or he does but exerts absolutely no control over anything in the universe, including doing things like talking to humans and writing on clay tablets -- and by definition therefore, all religion and understanding of him does not come from him.
Perhaps you need to think that one through a bit more and see how illogical your statement is.
Would you call their work unscientific?
In that paragraph you managed to commit several crimes against logic. I emplore you to actually think about the words you've written.
Why would you assume that anybody would be so stupid and bigoted as to disagree with everything an individual says, on the basis of a certain unrelated characteristic or opinion? Newton could have dedicated his life work to an anally prolapsed ferret for all I care -- his work stands for itself.
I find that most people who are offended by religion in general (as opposed to being offended by some specific aspect of a particular religion) completely misunderstand what religion is
How amazingly confused you are by reality. Seriously now, run that by me again? Seriously?
I know exactly what religion is. I come from a deeply religious background. The foundation of religion is clinging to superstitious and unreasonable beliefs and fairytales. Religious people can turn that into any number of good and bad things.
Religion is offensive because it promotes false belief and false motives. There are many things which people should just get over and tolerate, but I do not consider the active choice to hold false beliefs, as one of those things.
My reply was directly addressing your words, not those from the article. My logic still stands (as any sound logic should), and you still seem to want to lump various disciplines of scientific study together whereas what's in discussion is simply evolution versus ID.
I'm not talking about who feels threatened by what. I'm talking about your completely erroneous assertions and assumptions.
I see you, too, have been touched by His noodly appendage :)
I think you pretty much entirely missed how logic works. Fact disproves a lot of Christianity. It is therefore false, as a belief. Ok, glad we got that out of the way.
As for agnosticism, that's not good enough in my books. For instance, scientists can't prove that there aren't bright pink microscopic 16-legged elephants hiding on a planet 28,000 light years away. So, does that mean you have to say, "welll yeah I guess it could be possible but I can't disprove it".
Sane people would say, "that's preposterous, I'd have to see it to believe it". You don't need to prove something does NOT exist, you need to prove it DOES.
THERE ARE EXACTLY 2^52 (4503599627370496) POSSIBILITIES OF THAT EXACT COMBINATION OCCURING!
That should read something "1:2^52 odds against that exact combination occuring", whoops :)
Evolution vs Intelligent Design
Darwin vs Darfail, basically, yeah?
Does evolution really offer an explanation for the origin of humanity based solely on natural processes?
Straw man alert! Evolution describes how animal and plant species changed and/or diversified since life on earth began. Your comment is kinda doing the illogical "switcharoo" there by confusing the study of the origins of the universe, with the study of the origins of the species. Reel it in there son. Maybe spend a bit more time on your critical thinking skills, yeah?
Where did the original matter making up the primordial soup (or the infinitesimally small mass before the big bang) come from?
Science is concerned with everything up until that point. It's absurd to hypothesize beyond that because logic itself may not even be valid in that context.
What about these natural laws that seem to govern the universe which make natural processes possible?
Completely and utterly the wrong question to ask. If I had to tally up the amount of circumstances, events, and coincidences that had to occur in order for a sperm cell to eventually become who I am some decades later, I would end up with some fucking crazy hyper-insane unfathomably unlikely odds. This means I can't possibly exist without someone actually planning it that way from the beginning. Right? I am, considering the vast amount of other possibilities, essentially impossible.
So how am I here? Let's try a little thing called LOGIC!
Throw a deck of cards into the air. Take note of which cards land face up and which cards land face down. OH MY GOD THERE ARE EXACTLY 2^52 (4503599627370496) POSSIBILITIES OF THAT EXACT COMBINATION OCCURING! This MUST mean somebody planned it that way. Right? That combination you observed is unfeasibly unlikely so as to be impossible without some "god" designing it that way. Right?
Life in the universe is tuned to the characteristics of the universe. NOT the other way around. It is NOT logical to ask the question you asked.
Next!
when it comes to someone's personal beliefs I don't really think that there is any burden of proof
It's fairly obvious beliefs which aren't based on proof or logic are, at best, dreams, and at worst, lies. I only ask for the permission to describe them as such, because that's exactly what they are.
consensus is not science
Consensus *is* science. That's exactly what it is: when many scientists and people who are experts in a field agree on an interpretation of verifiable facts.
Furthermore, have you ever heard of a chap called Einstein? This whole theory of relativity thing of his sounds like *complete* nonsense. It sure did sound completely absurd when I first heard it. And do you know how he came up with it? By extrapolating obvious facts -- a little thing he called a "thought experiment."
Thing is, his logic was sound. It turns out that thousands upon thousands of experiments in the last century have proved many, many aspects of relativity.
Funny what you can achieve with logical extrapolation. Perhaps you could try it sometime?
Science as it is written, is not in that strong of a conflict with the bible as it is written
Perhaps not if you don't take the bible literally. But many do. And science is, and let's not mince words here, absolutely and completely at odds with the bible as it is written, should it be interpreted as literal text.
Now, I've never understood anybody who said they believed in the bible but didn't take it literally. What. The. Fuck.
OK, how about: "I believe in The Complete Works Of Shakespeare, but I don't take it as a literal historical document." Say what now? What does "believe in" *mean* then?!
Nah mate, science and Christianity are NOT compatible, so long as Christianity promotes any kind of belief that is either at odds with provable fact, or is not supported by any direct evidence.
And just to be clear, attributing unknown or unexplained things to god is *never* a reasonable theory because that logic requires the concept of god in the first place, which (if you spend any amount of time thinking about it) you should know is circular reasoning and therefore crap. One of the fundamentals of the scientific method is never to search only for facts to fit a theory, but rather to constantly revise the theory to fit the facts. This precludes the possibility of the concept of "god" to ever factor in to any scientific theory because there was never any direct evidence to cause the scientist to develop the concept and theory of a god.
Personally, I find religion deeply offensive, in the same way I find littering, racism, homeopathy, and liars offensive. If anybody is going to be doing any of that on my lawn, I'm going to yell at them.
Now, I know exactly the tribal mentality you mention, but that is human nature and humanity will always have a Complete Dick contingent. However, I certianly do not need smug reassurance from anybody else whose beliefs line up with mine. My smug reassurance comes from ascribing to verifiable truth, which stands on a mountain of evidence, and holds its own.
*THAT's* when you can trot out the "God did it"
Like hell you can. The scientific method requires that your theory fits as "tightly" around the facts and experiments as possible (see Occam's Razor). It logically follows that you can't start making up theories like "somebody created us" when you can find no direct evidence of the existence of the "somebody" in the first place.
Also, just because you can't explain something doesn't automatically make someone else's baseless theory more correct - that's a terrible logical fallacy.
Although, as you say, such beliefs are not "disprovable", they do open up the realm for an infinite possibility of counter-beliefs, none of which are disprovable, and certainly unchallengeable should the ID/YEC believer insist his initial assumption be considered or believed.
For instance, I could say back to him, "Erm, no, actually *my* god created the Earth just last week. All your memories are false, and I have here a book which declares, above all, that you're a fucking idiot, and you can't disprove me because any evidence you might think you have found to the contrary has been put there in order to make this existence seem real."
Et cetera.
Mixed metaphors? I think you mean "pericombobulation".
Even if she is a Sheila!