I haven't stated what I believe, but more than that, my statements on evolution and Christianity are based on what the Bible says
That's exactly what I'm pointing out. You cannot bring the Christian deity into the discussion without unfairly ignoring all the other deities or supernatural phenomena.
The fact that science cannot disprove the supernatural applies to any supernatural entity. Which supernatural entity is the true one is a different question.
It should be a different question, but you've already answered that question by assuming that all of supernatural phenomena are inherently non-falsifiable and desire to keep their interactions with the physical world secret.
But...in an evolutionary belief system, there is no absolute good or bad...so therefore, there is no such thing as "bad people."
You will start understanding reality a lot better once you stop treating a scientific theory as a belief system. Are you really so misguided that you seriously believe that my capabilities of forming opinions on ethics are limited to the workins of raw biological processes? We both hopefully accept as reality that we started our lives inside the vagina of a woman. Does that mean our ethics has to be based on vaginas? (hhm.. now that I think about it, that might be close to the truth...:-) )..by people who were distoring what the Bible said.
The bible says "treat your slaves well". It doesn't say "don't have slaves". It just depends on interpretation. My bet is that you only read portions of the bible in english translation. Unless you attempted to read it in the original language, you're not an authority on what it actually says. As a side-note: no one seems to know who is Christians, because they always accuse other Christians of not being Christians. Odd.
In an evolutionary world, morality based on majority opinion is quite dangerous.
Interesting point. I agree that morality based on majority opinion IS dangerous. We see that happening in the U.S. with the majority wanting e.g. constitutional bans on gay marriage.
Perhaps today *most* people have no desire to kill others, but if the mob shifts whims, it would be completely justifiable.
Look in your closest supermarket. You will find body parts of dead animals neatly packaged, labeled and categorized. How is the murder of billions of animals justified? I think it's grotesque. Most people don't desire to kill directly, but indirectly they kill a lot. Almost all people have the desire to not be killed and giving up the freedom to kill is an easy choice. Too bad for the people who do enjoy killing. Remember that in the U.S., most people wanted the U.S. to go to war against Iraq and indrectly the mob did indeed want killing to happen... and it happened.
You are getting it right when you say morality is relative and culture/environment dependent.
All religions are faith-based belief systems. Evolution is a faith-based belief system. Atheisim is a faith-based belief system. All belief systems have as their bedrock a belief about something that cannot be observed, measured, tested, or proven.
You're contradicting yourself: evolutionary mechanisms have been measured, tested and proven. Would you like me to cite scientific papers on this subject for you to verify?
I'm not telling anyone what to believe. I'm not trying to persuade anyone to change a belief from X to Y.
What you are doing is claiming that people who accept evolution theory have to find murder, rape, racism, etc justifiable. That's what I'm taking issue with. In my own experience and observation, strong morals do not conflict with evolution theory. Ignorance on what constitutes personal ethics, valid science or solid logic does not constitute proof.
I can tell you from that everything else they are going to claim as "science".
The difference is that one claim does have measurable backing, the other does not.
1. First you label evolution an ideology and then you criticize it for not living up to your expectations of an ideology. Certainly, you seem unaware that people who support evolution theory (and the scientific method) may subscribe to a whole range of ideologies, including Humanism, Buddhism, Christian religion, etc. Whether you consider them to be mistaken or not changes little in their convictions. You might want to mention your own qualifications before making statements that broad and bold regarding correct interpretation of translated scripture.
2. Your almost valid point that oberservation can be influenced by preconceived ideas is then highlighted by your own biases regarding supernatural forces. To distinguish between natural vs. supernatural may seem attractive at first, but all your assumptions regarding the supernatural are based on the Christian deity. The whole spectrum of supernatural entities are not limited to this deity and if you want to make this distinction, you have to be open to the hypothetical possibility of the entire spectrum. The distinction you present in your argument is (natural + supernatural - Christian-like deity) vs. Christian-like deity.
It's unfortunate that you are confusing a practical understanding of a political situation with moral justification and even extrapolate this to saying that slavery, murder and rape may be "okay" the next day. Bad people use anything to justify their actions. The bible was used to justify slavery and racism too. It's just interpretation. To see why your statement is silly, look into biology and psychology. Most people have no desire to kill others. We are social animals after all. Heck, even in nature you're not going to see one antilope or ape kill another for no reason and they don't subscribe to any explicit moral code at all.
Well, since it can be shown that atrocities were committed in the name of the Christian God, then according to your logic, the Christian ideology is evil. In fact, the bible outlines various scenarios in which killing is allowed or even mandatory. Today, such actions are highly illegal.
Actually, in the case of evolution, anything is acceptable, because there is no standard for right or wrong.
That's exactly what I've been trying to clear up: evolution is not an ideology, it describes the mechanism by which nature works. Most of us take part in this process by mating with people with whom we have "chemistry" (i.e. estimated chance of fertility is high). It would be quite an insulting strawman fallacy to claim that people who accept evolution theory have no philosophies or ideologies at all other than "law of the jungle".
In order to save lives, we have to understand how biology works and for that, evolution theory describes and predicts really well. This is what you're going to need if you want to make medicine to cure people. This is the reason most people go to hospitals instead of to faith healers. This is why I think it's far superior to any non-scientific or pseudo-scientific theory, but only within the confines of biology. I much prefer my personal philosophies and ideologies if I want to find purpose in my existence.
It brings up an interesting question of what right anyone has to tell someone else that they have to obey a law, and more so, punish them for not doing so.
Very simple: you choose to live in their territory and you do not have the military capability to defeat them in a confrontation. In exchange for your productivity, you get protection and certain limited levels of freedom. Territories with reasonable levels of freedom usually have higher wealth and power than those without. It makes sense.
If the core values and ideology is true, the true followers will be able exist in truth.
Ideology has nothing to do with evolution and evolution doesn't dictate that you should not be religious, hence people who believe in "theistic evolution" (i.e. evolution as a tool of God). It seems that the ones who dislike evolution hold it in higher regard as a moral standard than those who don't.
The very thing that brought us to be, is something we should not favor?
No, for three reasons:
1. Evolution is slow and clumsy, even if you control the matching. Example: you can enhance desirable attributes in pets and plants by selective breeding, but it takes a long time. If you employ genetic manipulation, it's a much faster process. The fastest way to build custom-designed super-beings is through this route. Whether this is ethically or morally desirable is another question.
2. Caring for other beings in the group and loyalty are important for survival in groups of individuals where each individual is too weak to survive on its own. It's our binding strength, not our weakness. Even belief (or the desire to believe in) in higher beings appears to be hard-wired in our brains.
3. I don't want "higher" being to replace me, because I want to keep living! Thus, knowingly blocking the future existence of such beings makes a lot of sense to our own survival.
Darwin himself admitted he didn't even buy some of his own claims,... Hitler...
Well, lots of rumours have been spread about Darwin, even that he converted to Christianity on his death bed. Medical science and biology have since then shown the scientific merit of his theory. As for Hitler, it has also been claimed that he was very Catholic and that the Catholic Church supported eradication of Jews, etc. He was also supposedly a vegetarian and wasn't a womanizer. It's rather fallacious for three reasons:
1. Just because we don't like what we consider a painful reality, doesn't make it less true. This leads to letting wishful thinking arbitrate truth and that's an obstacle to finding actual truth.
2. I don't consider evolution a philosophy on its own, for mostly the same reasons I don't consider it religious. We can look under microscopes at how cells interact with one another and find out how organism A is related to organism B and so on... which philosophies does that give us? If "raw" biology is the sole basis of your philosophies, you're going to end up quite depressed and nihilistic.
3. Oppression has been linked to "leaderships" of all sorts of religious and philosophical backgrounds. In some environments, "survival of the fittest" may mean "survival of the most religious".
Other stronger organisms are part of the habitat. Surviving predatory behavior is certainly part of successful survival in any habitat.
Yes, but... there are numerous ways in which an organism can gain the ability to not be eaten, for example by being able to fly, by being able to outrun the predator, by being untasty, by being greater in numbers, etc. A fly is physically weaker than almost any being, yet thrives everywhere.
No, this argument can't be made.
I agree: just like your argument cannot be made regarding a humanist point of view.
The double standard is yours because you extract a goal from nature's mechanism to create well-adapted living beings and then claim that this goal belongs to the humans who resulted from this mechanism. Just because evolution is nature's favoured way doesn't mean it has to be our favoured way. Thus, interestingly, non-evolutionary biological processes result from evolutionary processes.
You might want to actually read up on Darwin's groundbreaking work and more recent literature from biologists. Survival of the "fittest" means those who are best adjusted to their habitat, not the physically strongest.
Similarly, one could argue that it makes no sense for a believer in an afterlife to cherish life. After all: the best part of their existence is after death, right? Thus, your argument dictates that any/most life-extending science is futile.
The U.S. was one of the last countries to get into WW 2. Of course U.S. involvement was welcome, but without it, Germany would have fallen too. Their military was too stretched and their economy was getting worse. Except then, it would be to the Russians and the Cold War would have been even less pleasant for the U.S. In short: it would have been totally against U.S. interest to NOT get involved.
Uhm, the reason the U.S. doesn't do "crazy things like that" is because it would be tremendously stupid and amazingly harmful to the U.S.. Just look at how much time, money and trouble it's costing to invade even a third-world country like Iraq. Do you seriously believe that the U.S. can invade an entire continent that actually does have nuclear and military capability? This is the MAD principle (mutually assured destruction).
I don't you which "we" you are referring to, but for some reason I very seriously doubt that some slashdot kid called "breadboy21" has the authority to come even remotely close to the people and equipment to make choices on that magnitude. It would be more accurate for you to refer to "the guys who run the country I happen to live in".
On a more positive note, given the newer technology that's going in this project, I think it's very good for all parties (countries) involved. The U.S. has taken the initiative in this project and everyone profits... it's right for Europe to contribute as well.
The question was "what is ID?". The best people to answer those questions are the inventors of the concept, the people who wrote the textbooks, and principal proponents and the financial backers. During the proceding of the court case, Behe and others were found to be mistelling the truth. For example, he claimed there was no scientific research being done on e.g. the flagellum when there was. Thus, he was claiming non-existence of something when the existence is easily proven. What more proof do you need that these figures don't know what they're talking about? You can attribute it to ignorance or to malice, either way their credibility is worthless. Maybe you have different views on what the core of ID is, but I find Behe to be more of an authority figure on ID than you.
It has been proven that the ID textbooks started out as Creationism textbooks, but that the word "Creation" was simply literally replaced with "Intelligent Design". Where do legalities come into play here? It's rather a sore-loser attitude to blame the judge (who was appointed by G.W. Bush out of all people) for ID's shortcomings.
For some reason, when we talk about ID, you immediately start referring to the word "God", which indicates the Christian deity. I thought we were discussing ID here, which explicitly leaves open what this creative force is. It might be dozens of deities, it might be aliens from other planets, anything. Whenever ID/Creationism is discussed, the Christian God is right around the corner... why would that be?
The flaw throughout your argument is that you claim that falsifiable theories are somehow equivalent to non-falsifiable ones. The consequence of this argument is that the concept of "false" no longer exists as everything becomes true. Then you further undermine your own argument by actually choosing a position by drawing a line across religious lines. It makes much more sense to draw the line at falsifiable vs. non-falsifiable or observable vs. non-observable, visible vs. invisible or emotional vs. rational. These lines are much more visible and relevant in argumentations than believers vs. non-believers.
Thus, the second consequence of your argument is that religious scientists cannot possibly exist. Interestingly, the ones who claim something intangible must exist seem to require the tangible to not exist (like Behe).
I really wonder how you envision anything being non-true if everything is equivalent to eachother and rational debate is impossible. We have 2500 deities in recorded human history... they must all be true then. After all, anyone who claims otherwise is biased from their pre-existing view. You could claim that the Easter Bunny doesn't exist, but that's just because you fall in the anti-Bunny camp.
The only way to accept your argument as entirely valid is by being forced to also accept a whole range of other obviously ridiculous possibilities and equating the objective with the subjective.
As has been shown in court, ID proponents are typically prone to rehashing the same old refuted material in the hope that if they rehash it enough, in the public opinion it'll be truthlike.
Sorry, but you're really using a big strawman here regarding scientists, as if they are the ones who uncritically and ignorantly make blind non-falsifiable assumptions. I guess you've never witnessed a real scientific debate. The existence or non-existence of a deity falls outside the scope of science as it cannot be proven nor disproven. It can be said that no falsifiable claims exist by which to measure whether the deity exists (or interacts with) the physical world. Emperical evidence shows that this deity prefers a very constant and consistent universe.
or subscribe to intelligent design (which by the way is not Creationism, and in probably the most important way is more like evolution than creation)
Nope, it has been proven in court that ID == Creationism == religion. Feel free to read the testimony of the leading ID proponents and authors.
Regardless which side of the debate anyone falls on, these issues have never been, nor will ever be, about so-called "science"
The same can be said about Astrology vs. Science or a Witch Doctor vs. Surgeon. One side has non-falsifiable theories, the other has. Just because there is disagreement doesn't mean both sides are equally right. The crux of ID arguments is ignorance and by rigging the angles through which something can have happened. Behe has clearly shown his own ignorance by being unaware of dozens of articles being written on the flagellum, yet claiming for a fact they did not exist (prior to having them plopped down in front of him).
The issue with ID is not that they present a theory which is unpleasant (lots of scientists are religious), but that they are intellectually and politically dishonest. Now they are openly making political threats against the judge. So much for neutrality...
It has been proven clearly and thoroughly that high-ranking ID proponents lie. Behe claimed that his work was thoroughly peer-reviewed when it was not, he claimed that there was no scientific progress made when dozens of books and journal articles were written (of which he has read none). All of them try to hide the link to creationism, when ID is clearly just a reformulation. They hide religious motivation when there clearly is one. And so on, and so on. Either they are ignorant and thus not credible or intentionally dishonest.
Now they even have the audacity to claim it was an activist court when everything points to an activist school board (i.e. NOT supported by voters). That's the problem with fighting these people: they resort to lies and tricks to get their points across. Instead of using sound and consistent science (i.e. free of Behe-style fraud), they attempt to sway public opinion, when clearly the majority of the public has no understanding of what constitutes good science.
No, this is a big win because it demonstrates that in a neutral court (judge appointed by G. W. Bush!) that ID is rubbish. It provides a lot of material and gems for any future court case. A court case is the worst thing for these people, because it's a more-or-less controlled environment where they can't get away as easily with fallacies and lies.
I don't see it as a win against religion, but rather as a win for both the religious and non-religious among us. It's to everyone's advantage to have deceitful people unmasked.
It's my opinion that this alleged God figure condemns ID. They are doing a disservice to the religion by trying to make it jump through hoops to make it science-like to the unbelievers. You could probably use the bible to as a basis for that opinion.
I agree with your first reply (regarding Astrology, etc) so I won't comment on that.
As for atheism... you have to distinguish between "weak" and "strong" atheism. The first is closer to agnosticism and the second closer to what you might consider religion. I would consider that a lousy religion though as it gives you no afterlife, no central holy book, no rituals, no prayer and no church system. It misses all the traditional characteristics of religion, so it seems like more of a philosophical than a religious position.
I myself don't tend to make claims about the non-existence of deities because it's logically impossible to prove a negative. Of course, one or more deities can exist, but does a specific religion make the right claims about them... I doubt it. Through a "reductio ad absurdum" we can see that when the existence of so many deities (we have 2500 of them) cannot be disproven, the most likely scenario becomes that none of them exist.
As Oscar Wilde put it (more or less): "If atheism is a religion, then not collecting stamps is a hobby". The only thing that binds atheists is that they do not subscribe to a theist-centric philosophy. That's like saying that everyone not from the US is from the same country.
I find it as insulting that my personal philosophies and beliefs are dumped in the category "unbeliever" as you find it insulting that you are dumped in the "non-rational ID looney" camp.
Also, following your argument, belief in Astrology would be equivalent to belief in e.g. the supernatural powers of Jesus. Can you prove Astrology to be false? Or the FSM?
It's not too different from how women are (from the male perspective): once she gets used to being bought expensive stuff, try dropping down to 40% of your old level and see if she won't think you're a cheap jerk.
I guess that's why some male readers have trouble understanding this...
I understand from the article that the guy got approx. 15k clicks for $1 per click. That means that he paid $15k for that experiment, which seems quite unlikely to me.
The article is a little shaky. It's not clear what happened with the first site: how were those click-throughs changed from day 1 to 2? Certainly, the "market" for that word isn't large enough to sustain two identical campaigns with two identical sites?
So the best strategy would then be to start low at $0.05 and then very gradually increase it to $0.10? On the other hand, the system could then give lower click-throughs to encourage the advertiser to keep raising the price.
I would challenge those of you who have a problem with what the bible says to actually sit down and read a few chapters. You might find the story to be a bit different than you perceived it to be.
Actually, I have read various portions of the bible. It makes no sense to dismiss claims one hasn't bothered to study. However, the more I read, the more obvious it is how anecdotal any of the evidence is and how prone even this evidence is to translation errors, e.g. Jesus walking ON water of NEAR water may be written the same in the original language.
In this day and age, modern DNA techniques would prove conclusively Jesus was the bastard child of Joseph and no "angels" or whatever were involved. In a sense, it's because of science that a Jesus figure has trouble coming back.
As for the alleged resurrection, one of THE most important happenings in Christianity, how much evidence is there really? The different gospels don't even align on who was present at the cave or what happened afterwards. There's a LOT of wishful thinking involved to take such evidence seriously. However, churches seem to encourage a lot of selective reading that focuses on a message of hope (i.e. wishful thinking) and discourages critical observation.
Knowing the process by which the bible is generally studied, the psychological effects, study of the texts themselves and placing it in the context of other mythologies helps in being able to dismiss it without doubt or fear of divine punishment.
The bible as a collection of interesting stories with insight in the historical mindset, sure... but taking it more seriously than that is just silly.
and rejecting his greatest sacrifice on your behalf.
Without a priori belief in the deity and the belief that there is something inherently wrong with being human, the concept of the alleged sacrifice of the deity to itself is rather silly. It makes more sense to be grateful for the Sun God for shining each and every day. I'm not going to be grateful to your imaginary friend if you're not going to be grateful to mine!
I believe that real "salvation" comes from being able to tell yourself that you accept yourself for who and what you are. It is interesting that many of us have to use complicated structures involving imaginary friends to achieve this level, but it is obvious that it can be reached with various methods, including - but certainly not limited - Christian religion.
I consider the OP's question to be more rethorical than inquisitive.
The actual problem is with people like yourself who make absolute claims about deities and then that there must be something wrong with people who don't accept their mythology as fact. More troubling is the inability to conceive other points of view to the level that one cannot even imagine how another person's life and thoughts do not resolve around the same deity or a deity at all and that the person's motivations and logic can still be expressed in that deity.
It's all fine, but let's not forget that it's only one of the multiple popular mythologies of our present day. Once we start confusing mythology with reality, we run into trouble.
The important thing to remember is that just because a predator can kill another animal, doesn't mean that it will kill every animal until they're all dead. Doing so would be very much to the disadvantage of the predator because it needs prey in order to survive. It balances out.
1. Predators generally don't kill more than they need for their survival. The fact that a predator is around who will always win in a 1 on 1 fight doesn't mean there will be 0% of prey left. There is an interdependency as predator needs prey for its own survival.
2. Conversely, the "prey" needs the predators to grow more resistant itself. Don't forget that predators aren't just lions and tigers.. it's also viruses.
We were fundamentally physically unequipped to survive in the wild 3.5M years ago.
And you really think that the folks 3.5M years ago were metrosexuals? The recurring flaw in your argument is that you're taking consuming-oriented modern-day humans and projecting their characteristics both on humans of then and the predators.
Actually, they can: their feathers make it them look menacing to would-be predators. Now you may not find it very scary, but then again, you probably don't run around naked eating raw meat either.
The theory of evolution is a start, but it IS flawed or in another sense incomplete.
Why "IS" it flawed? Genetic science sure seems to provide a lot of emperical support for evolution having taken place and still taking place. Aren't you familiar with antibiotics?
No, I don't think threats are okay, neither against a specific person, nor against a specific group of persons. At some point, you're going to have to draw the line and say "okay, this is legal speech and this is illegal speech". It doesn't make sense to argue that the U.S. has actual or better freedom of speech if you conveniently restrict the definition of free speech to the confines of U.S. laws. Yes, by its own definition it will be more free in some regards, but also less free in others.
And who gets to decide that they advocate eradicating people? What if they just advocated expelling the Jews?
The ideology of A. Hitler and the practical implications leave little room for interpretation.
Who gets to decide? Oh, that's right -- the current party that's in power and probably opposed to whatever it is that the illegal party is advocating.
If what you say is true, then the stable situation for most countries would be to end up with only 1 political party, yet the reality is that most E.U. countries have multiple parties that span a broader spectrum of ideologies, while the U.S. only has two major parties.
Now if we talk about illegal parties that may want to illegally fetch more power... the whole benefit of banning parties that are openly out to commit criminal activities (by the standards of established laws and human rights) or even already have roots in criminal circles is to prevent illegal parties from getting hold on power. Now you can ask who decides what is and what isn't criminal activity... well, that's the exact same courts that apparently defend freedom of speech within the limitations of the U.S. laws.
There are even laws in place that protect me from retaliation from certain types of non-Governmental agencies -- my employer for example can't legally ask me what political party I'm in.
Your employer can legally fire you and might be encouraged to do so if the secret service visit you in your workplace and grill you about your alleged assassination plans.
As far as it relates to individuals you need to have actual malice...
Okay, you can explain to me how the laws in the U.S. work, but you implicitly accept the limitations that those laws place on your free speech. The court's decisions are based on legislation, which is in turn decided by the people who define what malice is. Claims of Nazis are quite malicious in my view.
It's still not clear to me why I shouldn't be allowed to entertain myself and others with discussions about assassinations of political leaders. I'm quite harmless as I haven't even owned a gun or anything. I don't think that such harmless entertainment is morally inferior to joining a pro-genocide club.
It's unfortunate that you think that my passion for freedom and free speech is "empty circular rhetoric".
No, I only took issue with the closing sentence of your argument because it read like "if you don't agree with me, it's because you're wrong and don't get what freedom is". It's not a major point.
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I haven't stated what I believe, but more than that, my statements on evolution and Christianity are based on what the Bible says
:-) ) ..by people who were distoring what the Bible said.
That's exactly what I'm pointing out. You cannot bring the Christian deity into the discussion without unfairly ignoring all the other deities or supernatural phenomena.
The fact that science cannot disprove the supernatural applies to any supernatural entity. Which supernatural entity is the true one is a different question.
It should be a different question, but you've already answered that question by assuming that all of supernatural phenomena are inherently non-falsifiable and desire to keep their interactions with the physical world secret.
But...in an evolutionary belief system, there is no absolute good or bad...so therefore, there is no such thing as "bad people."
You will start understanding reality a lot better once you stop treating a scientific theory as a belief system. Are you really so misguided that you seriously believe that my capabilities of forming opinions on ethics are limited to the workins of raw biological processes? We both hopefully accept as reality that we started our lives inside the vagina of a woman. Does that mean our ethics has to be based on vaginas? (hhm.. now that I think about it, that might be close to the truth...
The bible says "treat your slaves well". It doesn't say "don't have slaves". It just depends on interpretation. My bet is that you only read portions of the bible in english translation. Unless you attempted to read it in the original language, you're not an authority on what it actually says. As a side-note: no one seems to know who is Christians, because they always accuse other Christians of not being Christians. Odd.
In an evolutionary world, morality based on majority opinion is quite dangerous.
Interesting point. I agree that morality based on majority opinion IS dangerous. We see that happening in the U.S. with the majority wanting e.g. constitutional bans on gay marriage.
Perhaps today *most* people have no desire to kill others, but if the mob shifts whims, it would be completely justifiable.
Look in your closest supermarket. You will find body parts of dead animals neatly packaged, labeled and categorized. How is the murder of billions of animals justified? I think it's grotesque. Most people don't desire to kill directly, but indirectly they kill a lot. Almost all people have the desire to not be killed and giving up the freedom to kill is an easy choice. Too bad for the people who do enjoy killing. Remember that in the U.S., most people wanted the U.S. to go to war against Iraq and indrectly the mob did indeed want killing to happen... and it happened.
You are getting it right when you say morality is relative and culture/environment dependent.
All religions are faith-based belief systems. Evolution is a faith-based belief system. Atheisim is a faith-based belief system. All belief systems have as their bedrock a belief about something that cannot be observed, measured, tested, or proven.
You're contradicting yourself: evolutionary mechanisms have been measured, tested and proven. Would you like me to cite scientific papers on this subject for you to verify?
I'm not telling anyone what to believe. I'm not trying to persuade anyone to change a belief from X to Y.
What you are doing is claiming that people who accept evolution theory have to find murder, rape, racism, etc justifiable. That's what I'm taking issue with. In my own experience and observation, strong morals do not conflict with evolution theory. Ignorance on what constitutes personal ethics, valid science or solid logic does not constitute proof.
I can tell you from that everything else they are going to claim as "science".
The difference is that one claim does have measurable backing, the other does not.
You make two circular flaws in your argument.
1. First you label evolution an ideology and then you criticize it for not living up to your expectations of an ideology. Certainly, you seem unaware that people who support evolution theory (and the scientific method) may subscribe to a whole range of ideologies, including Humanism, Buddhism, Christian religion, etc. Whether you consider them to be mistaken or not changes little in their convictions. You might want to mention your own qualifications before making statements that broad and bold regarding correct interpretation of translated scripture.
2. Your almost valid point that oberservation can be influenced by preconceived ideas is then highlighted by your own biases regarding supernatural forces. To distinguish between natural vs. supernatural may seem attractive at first, but all your assumptions regarding the supernatural are based on the Christian deity. The whole spectrum of supernatural entities are not limited to this deity and if you want to make this distinction, you have to be open to the hypothetical possibility of the entire spectrum. The distinction you present in your argument is (natural + supernatural - Christian-like deity) vs. Christian-like deity.
It's unfortunate that you are confusing a practical understanding of a political situation with moral justification and even extrapolate this to saying that slavery, murder and rape may be "okay" the next day. Bad people use anything to justify their actions. The bible was used to justify slavery and racism too. It's just interpretation. To see why your statement is silly, look into biology and psychology. Most people have no desire to kill others. We are social animals after all. Heck, even in nature you're not going to see one antilope or ape kill another for no reason and they don't subscribe to any explicit moral code at all.
The "linkage" isn't what is significant.
Well, since it can be shown that atrocities were committed in the name of the Christian God, then according to your logic, the Christian ideology is evil. In fact, the bible outlines various scenarios in which killing is allowed or even mandatory. Today, such actions are highly illegal.
Actually, in the case of evolution, anything is acceptable, because there is no standard for right or wrong.
That's exactly what I've been trying to clear up: evolution is not an ideology, it describes the mechanism by which nature works. Most of us take part in this process by mating with people with whom we have "chemistry" (i.e. estimated chance of fertility is high). It would be quite an insulting strawman fallacy to claim that people who accept evolution theory have no philosophies or ideologies at all other than "law of the jungle".
In order to save lives, we have to understand how biology works and for that, evolution theory describes and predicts really well. This is what you're going to need if you want to make medicine to cure people. This is the reason most people go to hospitals instead of to faith healers. This is why I think it's far superior to any non-scientific or pseudo-scientific theory, but only within the confines of biology. I much prefer my personal philosophies and ideologies if I want to find purpose in my existence.
It brings up an interesting question of what right anyone has to tell someone else that they have to obey a law, and more so, punish them for not doing so.
Very simple: you choose to live in their territory and you do not have the military capability to defeat them in a confrontation. In exchange for your productivity, you get protection and certain limited levels of freedom. Territories with reasonable levels of freedom usually have higher wealth and power than those without. It makes sense.
If the core values and ideology is true, the true followers will be able exist in truth.
Ideology has nothing to do with evolution and evolution doesn't dictate that you should not be religious, hence people who believe in "theistic evolution" (i.e. evolution as a tool of God). It seems that the ones who dislike evolution hold it in higher regard as a moral standard than those who don't.
The very thing that brought us to be, is something we should not favor?
... Hitler ...
No, for three reasons:
1. Evolution is slow and clumsy, even if you control the matching. Example: you can enhance desirable attributes in pets and plants by selective breeding, but it takes a long time. If you employ genetic manipulation, it's a much faster process. The fastest way to build custom-designed super-beings is through this route. Whether this is ethically or morally desirable is another question.
2. Caring for other beings in the group and loyalty are important for survival in groups of individuals where each individual is too weak to survive on its own. It's our binding strength, not our weakness. Even belief (or the desire to believe in) in higher beings appears to be hard-wired in our brains.
3. I don't want "higher" being to replace me, because I want to keep living! Thus, knowingly blocking the future existence of such beings makes a lot of sense to our own survival.
Darwin himself admitted he didn't even buy some of his own claims,
Well, lots of rumours have been spread about Darwin, even that he converted to Christianity on his death bed. Medical science and biology have since then shown the scientific merit of his theory. As for Hitler, it has also been claimed that he was very Catholic and that the Catholic Church supported eradication of Jews, etc. He was also supposedly a vegetarian and wasn't a womanizer. It's rather fallacious for three reasons:
1. Just because we don't like what we consider a painful reality, doesn't make it less true. This leads to letting wishful thinking arbitrate truth and that's an obstacle to finding actual truth.
2. I don't consider evolution a philosophy on its own, for mostly the same reasons I don't consider it religious. We can look under microscopes at how cells interact with one another and find out how organism A is related to organism B and so on... which philosophies does that give us? If "raw" biology is the sole basis of your philosophies, you're going to end up quite depressed and nihilistic.
3. Oppression has been linked to "leaderships" of all sorts of religious and philosophical backgrounds. In some environments, "survival of the fittest" may mean "survival of the most religious".
Other stronger organisms are part of the habitat. Surviving predatory behavior is certainly part of successful survival in any habitat.
Yes, but... there are numerous ways in which an organism can gain the ability to not be eaten, for example by being able to fly, by being able to outrun the predator, by being untasty, by being greater in numbers, etc. A fly is physically weaker than almost any being, yet thrives everywhere.
No, this argument can't be made.
I agree: just like your argument cannot be made regarding a humanist point of view.
Seems a like a bit of a double-standard, no?
The double standard is yours because you extract a goal from nature's mechanism to create well-adapted living beings and then claim that this goal belongs to the humans who resulted from this mechanism. Just because evolution is nature's favoured way doesn't mean it has to be our favoured way. Thus, interestingly, non-evolutionary biological processes result from evolutionary processes.
You might want to actually read up on Darwin's groundbreaking work and more recent literature from biologists. Survival of the "fittest" means those who are best adjusted to their habitat, not the physically strongest.
Similarly, one could argue that it makes no sense for a believer in an afterlife to cherish life. After all: the best part of their existence is after death, right? Thus, your argument dictates that any/most life-extending science is futile.
The U.S. was one of the last countries to get into WW 2. Of course U.S. involvement was welcome, but without it, Germany would have fallen too. Their military was too stretched and their economy was getting worse. Except then, it would be to the Russians and the Cold War would have been even less pleasant for the U.S. In short: it would have been totally against U.S. interest to NOT get involved.
Uhm, the reason the U.S. doesn't do "crazy things like that" is because it would be tremendously stupid and amazingly harmful to the U.S.. Just look at how much time, money and trouble it's costing to invade even a third-world country like Iraq. Do you seriously believe that the U.S. can invade an entire continent that actually does have nuclear and military capability? This is the MAD principle (mutually assured destruction).
I don't you which "we" you are referring to, but for some reason I very seriously doubt that some slashdot kid called "breadboy21" has the authority to come even remotely close to the people and equipment to make choices on that magnitude. It would be more accurate for you to refer to "the guys who run the country I happen to live in".
On a more positive note, given the newer technology that's going in this project, I think it's very good for all parties (countries) involved. The U.S. has taken the initiative in this project and everyone profits... it's right for Europe to contribute as well.
The question was "what is ID?". The best people to answer those questions are the inventors of the concept, the people who wrote the textbooks, and principal proponents and the financial backers. During the proceding of the court case, Behe and others were found to be mistelling the truth. For example, he claimed there was no scientific research being done on e.g. the flagellum when there was. Thus, he was claiming non-existence of something when the existence is easily proven. What more proof do you need that these figures don't know what they're talking about? You can attribute it to ignorance or to malice, either way their credibility is worthless. Maybe you have different views on what the core of ID is, but I find Behe to be more of an authority figure on ID than you.
It has been proven that the ID textbooks started out as Creationism textbooks, but that the word "Creation" was simply literally replaced with "Intelligent Design". Where do legalities come into play here? It's rather a sore-loser attitude to blame the judge (who was appointed by G.W. Bush out of all people) for ID's shortcomings.
For some reason, when we talk about ID, you immediately start referring to the word "God", which indicates the Christian deity. I thought we were discussing ID here, which explicitly leaves open what this creative force is. It might be dozens of deities, it might be aliens from other planets, anything. Whenever ID/Creationism is discussed, the Christian God is right around the corner... why would that be?
The flaw throughout your argument is that you claim that falsifiable theories are somehow equivalent to non-falsifiable ones. The consequence of this argument is that the concept of "false" no longer exists as everything becomes true. Then you further undermine your own argument by actually choosing a position by drawing a line across religious lines. It makes much more sense to draw the line at falsifiable vs. non-falsifiable or observable vs. non-observable, visible vs. invisible or emotional vs. rational. These lines are much more visible and relevant in argumentations than believers vs. non-believers.
Thus, the second consequence of your argument is that religious scientists cannot possibly exist. Interestingly, the ones who claim something intangible must exist seem to require the tangible to not exist (like Behe).
I really wonder how you envision anything being non-true if everything is equivalent to eachother and rational debate is impossible. We have 2500 deities in recorded human history... they must all be true then. After all, anyone who claims otherwise is biased from their pre-existing view. You could claim that the Easter Bunny doesn't exist, but that's just because you fall in the anti-Bunny camp.
The only way to accept your argument as entirely valid is by being forced to also accept a whole range of other obviously ridiculous possibilities and equating the objective with the subjective.
As has been shown in court, ID proponents are typically prone to rehashing the same old refuted material in the hope that if they rehash it enough, in the public opinion it'll be truthlike.
Sorry, but you're really using a big strawman here regarding scientists, as if they are the ones who uncritically and ignorantly make blind non-falsifiable assumptions. I guess you've never witnessed a real scientific debate. The existence or non-existence of a deity falls outside the scope of science as it cannot be proven nor disproven. It can be said that no falsifiable claims exist by which to measure whether the deity exists (or interacts with) the physical world. Emperical evidence shows that this deity prefers a very constant and consistent universe.
or subscribe to intelligent design (which by the way is not Creationism, and in probably the most important way is more like evolution than creation)
Nope, it has been proven in court that ID == Creationism == religion. Feel free to read the testimony of the leading ID proponents and authors.
Regardless which side of the debate anyone falls on, these issues have never been, nor will ever be, about so-called "science"
The same can be said about Astrology vs. Science or a Witch Doctor vs. Surgeon. One side has non-falsifiable theories, the other has. Just because there is disagreement doesn't mean both sides are equally right. The crux of ID arguments is ignorance and by rigging the angles through which something can have happened. Behe has clearly shown his own ignorance by being unaware of dozens of articles being written on the flagellum, yet claiming for a fact they did not exist (prior to having them plopped down in front of him).
The issue with ID is not that they present a theory which is unpleasant (lots of scientists are religious), but that they are intellectually and politically dishonest. Now they are openly making political threats against the judge. So much for neutrality...
It has been proven clearly and thoroughly that high-ranking ID proponents lie. Behe claimed that his work was thoroughly peer-reviewed when it was not, he claimed that there was no scientific progress made when dozens of books and journal articles were written (of which he has read none). All of them try to hide the link to creationism, when ID is clearly just a reformulation. They hide religious motivation when there clearly is one. And so on, and so on. Either they are ignorant and thus not credible or intentionally dishonest.
Now they even have the audacity to claim it was an activist court when everything points to an activist school board (i.e. NOT supported by voters). That's the problem with fighting these people: they resort to lies and tricks to get their points across. Instead of using sound and consistent science (i.e. free of Behe-style fraud), they attempt to sway public opinion, when clearly the majority of the public has no understanding of what constitutes good science.
No, this is a big win because it demonstrates that in a neutral court (judge appointed by G. W. Bush!) that ID is rubbish. It provides a lot of material and gems for any future court case. A court case is the worst thing for these people, because it's a more-or-less controlled environment where they can't get away as easily with fallacies and lies.
I don't see it as a win against religion, but rather as a win for both the religious and non-religious among us. It's to everyone's advantage to have deceitful people unmasked.
It's my opinion that this alleged God figure condemns ID. They are doing a disservice to the religion by trying to make it jump through hoops to make it science-like to the unbelievers. You could probably use the bible to as a basis for that opinion.
I agree with your first reply (regarding Astrology, etc) so I won't comment on that.
As for atheism... you have to distinguish between "weak" and "strong" atheism. The first is closer to agnosticism and the second closer to what you might consider religion. I would consider that a lousy religion though as it gives you no afterlife, no central holy book, no rituals, no prayer and no church system. It misses all the traditional characteristics of religion, so it seems like more of a philosophical than a religious position.
I myself don't tend to make claims about the non-existence of deities because it's logically impossible to prove a negative. Of course, one or more deities can exist, but does a specific religion make the right claims about them... I doubt it. Through a "reductio ad absurdum" we can see that when the existence of so many deities (we have 2500 of them) cannot be disproven, the most likely scenario becomes that none of them exist.
As Oscar Wilde put it (more or less): "If atheism is a religion, then not collecting stamps is a hobby". The only thing that binds atheists is that they do not subscribe to a theist-centric philosophy. That's like saying that everyone not from the US is from the same country.
I find it as insulting that my personal philosophies and beliefs are dumped in the category "unbeliever" as you find it insulting that you are dumped in the "non-rational ID looney" camp.
Also, following your argument, belief in Astrology would be equivalent to belief in e.g. the supernatural powers of Jesus. Can you prove Astrology to be false? Or the FSM?
Just my thoughts on this matter...
It's not too different from how women are (from the male perspective): once she gets used to being bought expensive stuff, try dropping down to 40% of your old level and see if she won't think you're a cheap jerk.
I guess that's why some male readers have trouble understanding this...
I understand from the article that the guy got approx. 15k clicks for $1 per click. That means that he paid $15k for that experiment, which seems quite unlikely to me.
The article is a little shaky. It's not clear what happened with the first site: how were those click-throughs changed from day 1 to 2? Certainly, the "market" for that word isn't large enough to sustain two identical campaigns with two identical sites?
So the best strategy would then be to start low at $0.05 and then very gradually increase it to $0.10? On the other hand, the system could then give lower click-throughs to encourage the advertiser to keep raising the price.
I would challenge those of you who have a problem with what the bible says to actually sit down and read a few chapters. You might find the story to be a bit different than you perceived it to be.
Actually, I have read various portions of the bible. It makes no sense to dismiss claims one hasn't bothered to study. However, the more I read, the more obvious it is how anecdotal any of the evidence is and how prone even this evidence is to translation errors, e.g. Jesus walking ON water of NEAR water may be written the same in the original language.
In this day and age, modern DNA techniques would prove conclusively Jesus was the bastard child of Joseph and no "angels" or whatever were involved. In a sense, it's because of science that a Jesus figure has trouble coming back.
As for the alleged resurrection, one of THE most important happenings in Christianity, how much evidence is there really? The different gospels don't even align on who was present at the cave or what happened afterwards. There's a LOT of wishful thinking involved to take such evidence seriously. However, churches seem to encourage a lot of selective reading that focuses on a message of hope (i.e. wishful thinking) and discourages critical observation.
Knowing the process by which the bible is generally studied, the psychological effects, study of the texts themselves and placing it in the context of other mythologies helps in being able to dismiss it without doubt or fear of divine punishment.
The bible as a collection of interesting stories with insight in the historical mindset, sure... but taking it more seriously than that is just silly.
That's a "+5, Funny" well deserved :-)
and rejecting his greatest sacrifice on your behalf.
Without a priori belief in the deity and the belief that there is something inherently wrong with being human, the concept of the alleged sacrifice of the deity to itself is rather silly. It makes more sense to be grateful for the Sun God for shining each and every day. I'm not going to be grateful to your imaginary friend if you're not going to be grateful to mine!
I believe that real "salvation" comes from being able to tell yourself that you accept yourself for who and what you are. It is interesting that many of us have to use complicated structures involving imaginary friends to achieve this level, but it is obvious that it can be reached with various methods, including - but certainly not limited - Christian religion.
I consider the OP's question to be more rethorical than inquisitive.
The actual problem is with people like yourself who make absolute claims about deities and then that there must be something wrong with people who don't accept their mythology as fact. More troubling is the inability to conceive other points of view to the level that one cannot even imagine how another person's life and thoughts do not resolve around the same deity or a deity at all and that the person's motivations and logic can still be expressed in that deity.
It's all fine, but let's not forget that it's only one of the multiple popular mythologies of our present day. Once we start confusing mythology with reality, we run into trouble.
The important thing to remember is that just because a predator can kill another animal, doesn't mean that it will kill every animal until they're all dead. Doing so would be very much to the disadvantage of the predator because it needs prey in order to survive. It balances out.
You're not taking into account two key facts:
1. Predators generally don't kill more than they need for their survival. The fact that a predator is around who will always win in a 1 on 1 fight doesn't mean there will be 0% of prey left. There is an interdependency as predator needs prey for its own survival.
2. Conversely, the "prey" needs the predators to grow more resistant itself. Don't forget that predators aren't just lions and tigers.. it's also viruses.
We were fundamentally physically unequipped to survive in the wild 3.5M years ago.
And you really think that the folks 3.5M years ago were metrosexuals? The recurring flaw in your argument is that you're taking consuming-oriented modern-day humans and projecting their characteristics both on humans of then and the predators.
I mean a peacock can't do shit.
Actually, they can: their feathers make it them look menacing to would-be predators. Now you may not find it very scary, but then again, you probably don't run around naked eating raw meat either.
The theory of evolution is a start, but it IS flawed or in another sense incomplete.
Why "IS" it flawed? Genetic science sure seems to provide a lot of emperical support for evolution having taken place and still taking place. Aren't you familiar with antibiotics?
So threats made against your person are ok...
No, I don't think threats are okay, neither against a specific person, nor against a specific group of persons. At some point, you're going to have to draw the line and say "okay, this is legal speech and this is illegal speech". It doesn't make sense to argue that the U.S. has actual or better freedom of speech if you conveniently restrict the definition of free speech to the confines of U.S. laws. Yes, by its own definition it will be more free in some regards, but also less free in others.
And who gets to decide that they advocate eradicating people? What if they just advocated expelling the Jews?
The ideology of A. Hitler and the practical implications leave little room for interpretation.
Who gets to decide? Oh, that's right -- the current party that's in power and probably opposed to whatever it is that the illegal party is advocating.
If what you say is true, then the stable situation for most countries would be to end up with only 1 political party, yet the reality is that most E.U. countries have multiple parties that span a broader spectrum of ideologies, while the U.S. only has two major parties.
Now if we talk about illegal parties that may want to illegally fetch more power... the whole benefit of banning parties that are openly out to commit criminal activities (by the standards of established laws and human rights) or even already have roots in criminal circles is to prevent illegal parties from getting hold on power. Now you can ask who decides what is and what isn't criminal activity... well, that's the exact same courts that apparently defend freedom of speech within the limitations of the U.S. laws.
There are even laws in place that protect me from retaliation from certain types of non-Governmental agencies -- my employer for example can't legally ask me what political party I'm in.
Your employer can legally fire you and might be encouraged to do so if the secret service visit you in your workplace and grill you about your alleged assassination plans.
As far as it relates to individuals you need to have actual malice...
Okay, you can explain to me how the laws in the U.S. work, but you implicitly accept the limitations that those laws place on your free speech. The court's decisions are based on legislation, which is in turn decided by the people who define what malice is. Claims of Nazis are quite malicious in my view.
It's still not clear to me why I shouldn't be allowed to entertain myself and others with discussions about assassinations of political leaders. I'm quite harmless as I haven't even owned a gun or anything. I don't think that such harmless entertainment is morally inferior to joining a pro-genocide club.
It's unfortunate that you think that my passion for freedom and free speech is "empty circular rhetoric".
No, I only took issue with the closing sentence of your argument because it read like "if you don't agree with me, it's because you're wrong and don't get what freedom is". It's not a major point.