---Seriously, since the Industrial Revolution there has not been a single example of a scientific discovery that affected human life more than superficially.---
That's the most ridiculous statement I've ever heard. In medicine alone...
Organized religion is an important part of many people's lives. Like ANY major cultural factor that is incredibly diverse accross theory and execution, it has been used for both good and bad things.
It's just plain ridiculous to make statements about what "religion" does. All organized religion fosters intolerance? Were you even alive in the 60s, when black churches were spearheading civil rights? People are good and bad. Some people in both categories are religious. Look at almost ANY major debate in american culture, and you're going to find that the majority of people on BOTH sides of the debate are religious.
"Believing in" is a lot different from "believing are possible." A true scientist doesn't believe IN things until they have good evidence to support that theory. They keep an open mind about everything else, but an open mind != provisional belief IN every possibility suggested to you.
The AMA and the bar aren't exactly unions in a meaningful sense. Their purpose is to protect professional standards, not negotiate with employers for bonuses or go on strike. And their primary control over hires/fires is to kick people OUT of their organizations when they violate those standards, not keep incompetant people in.
What they do hold in common with unions (in a way most people probably don't want to consider) is that they are basically monopolies. They limit the number of people who can be lawyers and doctors at all via certification standards, which of course serves to keep salaries high (of coruse, those high salaries are also part of the huge cost of time and money to get the required education), though they would claim that the purpose is to make sure that those people calling themselves "doctors" or "lawyers" are specially qualified to do those jobs. However, getting into the organization is all about competitive merit, not collective bargaining. And lawyers and doctors both have quite special social protections and responsiblities that society wouldn't want to grant to just anyone (for instance, if you aren't a doctor, doing a surgery is considered to be assault, or legally protected confidentiality).
---bargaining collectively gets you a better contract than any of you could get individually.---
But less contracts overall. Is it better for more people to work for less, or fewer people to work for more? I'm not sure which is better, but I do know how silly it is to pretend that "better contracts" are all upside for every worker in the market. Just because the harm is less conspicuous than the benefit doesn't mean that it isn't real.
Actually, there is another incredible fact about the Vents (and the "Cold Seeps" found soon after): they represent an ecosystem that functions without the sun's energy starting everything off. That's pretty darn unique. Instead, the bottom of the food chain is sulfur and methane, respectively, which are "eaten" by specialized bacteria, who are eaten, and so on.
---But I feel I should mention that individuals can and do pass on their genes without procreating. They do that by helping others (usually relatives) with similar genes procreate.---
Actually, this is just what I was reffering to. E.O. Wilson put this idea forward in his Sociobiology book: that homosexuality might actually be a useful trait to have in a line that expresses itself occasionally. Of course, Wilson makes the argument that homosexuals might on average be more altruistic than heterosexuals, but as far as I know there is no support for this claim being a genetic factor, as opposed to merely a cultural one.
---The purpose (think about that word before jerking knee) of sex is procreation.---
Taking purposeful direction from the way nature is the genetic fallacy: turning is into ought. Our genetic makeup is not the result of any purposeful intention that homosexuality is somehow thwarting.
---If that mechanism is somehow switched around so that we are attracted to the same sex, obviously that doesn't bode well for continuing the species.---
So far, having a minority of the population be homosexual doesn't seem to have hurt our species, or other species that have homosexuals. Plenty of species actually benefit from having certain members of a cooperative group specialize in breeding, and other non-breeding members play other roles (ants, for instance). It's not necessary for every individual to strive to pass on its genes: sometimes genes survive best via having strong kin groups which support the next generation.
---If a function of the brain is not operating in the way it was intended (i.e., attraction to the same sex), then it's a defect. Note that there is no moral component to this: it's simply factual.---
No. Calling it a defect implies that there was something "intending" humans to be a certain way, and homosexuality is a deviation from that intention. But evolution does not have intentions. There is no "correct" configuration for a human being. You may not mean any moral component to attach, but your reasoning is just as flawed as if there was. What you are doing is trying to argue "purpose" or "defect" as if these were objcetive terms. They are not: they both simply compare the state of an example to an pre-specified ideal. But the selection of the particular ideal is subjective, not objective.
---If evolution truly favored homosexuality, then it would make sense that societies would tend to evolve toward accepting the benefits of it.---
This claim is nonsense. Evolution does not have foresight, intention, or even a permanent direction, and the "evolution" of culture is not necessarily in any way related to biological "evolution."
---I'm willing to accept the possibility that there might be some subtle purpose to the attraction mechanism getting switched around, but at this point that seems more political "happy science" than real science.---
There is no simple "attraction mechanism." Animal life, including humans, show a full range of sexual behaviors. Maybe this is good for survival, maybe it is not. Neither you nor I really know, certainly not for each and every case. But trying to pretend that survival is the only "objective" end is just nonsense.
What pisses me off about sports shows is the way they drag them out at the end and with mindless commentary. Sports commentary generally amounts to "hey, they played a great game! Hey, they played a terrible game! If only the other team had scored more points, they might have won! This puts their average at 3.5 for the 4th quarter 6 with a personal average of 8 career starter 8. But So and so really pulled together and played a good game and scored some points! Remember that compound fracture? Ow! That's GOTTA hurt!" And I simply don't see why this sort of drivel requires an extra 15 to 30 minutes at the end of a game, cutting out programing in which stuff actually happens.
But then, I've never understood why anyone would watch sports instead of playing sports. Ooo: other people having fun that I'm too lazy to have!
The main problem is that they are recycling jokes. How many times can they play off things like "oh, homer is fat! Ha ha, the chair broke cus he's fat!" They used to come up with creative sight gags, but now they're pedestrian and predictable. This is the problem with having basically two-note characters: after 12 seasons, and an inability to develop as characters, it just becomes a cycle of endless "what crazy thing will they get involved with next! Who's our big celebrity walk on?!"
And the great social commentary? Gone gone gone...
---A child of four does not have the right to vote but certainly has the right to life and an invalid may not ethically or legally responsible for their own actions but they have the right to be free from torture.---
Yes: but they have those rights for REASONS, just like the reason they don't have the right to vote or self-determination is for a reason as well. You seem to want to pretend that rights are not founded on anything other than an arbitrary distinction like "human." But they're not: they're founded on relevant characteristics of the being in question.
---As I commented elsewhere it is the inate genetic disposition to the creation of human behavior and therefore a human mind inherent in the embryo that is important to understand and in my opinion neccesary to respect.---
But this "inherent" human has yet to develop: and purely by natural chance it might not. It is no different than having the genetic information stored on a computer disk: is it wrong to destroy the disk, and thus the information? No. To be considered for moral rights, the potential characteristics have to actually come into being. Why should a thing have rights before it even exists? Should you have the right to vote just because one day you'll be old enough to vote? It doesn't work like that. If you could explain what difference conception makes in morally relevant characteristics vs. just before conception makes, go ahead.
---I'm certain there are numerous drugs and treatments that could temporarily render a human mentally inept to the level of an ape or dog. Do you think such a killing would be morally equivelent to killing a dog?---
No, it would be much worse, because A) the drugging itself is a tremendous moral wrong and B) the human ALREADY exists and has desires and expectations that are foiled by its drugging and death. No such situation is present with the embryo or early fetus. That fact that you can't see why is only testiment to your failure to think this through.
---If you really see no difference in killing a shrimp or a fetus consider this: A man does not want a child and slips his pregnant girlfriend RU-486, she aborts. Whose rights have been broken and what were they.---
Assuming we are talking early on in the pregnancy: the woman's rights. The drug counts as a dangerous assualt upon her body. She is also denied the ability to carry the child to term, if that was her intention. But the _child_ itself does not have interests in being carried to term, not until it, at the very least, develops a working nervous system. It is no different than if the man's drug had killed off a section of tissue elsewhere in her body: which ALSO has no moral capacities. How can you claim that a fetus has any capacities or interests before it even has the relevant equipment for HAVING any sort of interests at all? The only way you can do it is simply by arbitrarily inventing moral rights that you are unable to ground in any account of interests.
You "replied" by copying and pasting the same lines you always copy and paste. Are you really claiming that you haven't posted that exact same information several times before? Each and every time, someone refutes the relevance of those arguments. Each and every time you go and post it again as if nothing happened, forcing people to waste their time yet again responding to your propaganda.
---Any law, dogma, dictum that relies on dehumanizing one person so another is fit to judge them by making them appear more ethically or morally superior is bankrupt on principle.---
But this only begs the question of why "human" is a meaningful category to base moral principles on. If we discovered intelligent aliens, would we feel justified in killing them just because they were not "human?" The ultimate question here is if different entities with different characteristics (fetuses vs. adults) should have the same sorts of rights. Everyone ALREADY agrees on some cases in which they don't (voting, responsbility for own actions, etc.). Personally, I cannot see why someone can find the killing of fetuses worse than the killing of live dogs. Early fetuses, looked at obejctively as entities, are about as mentally complex as brine shrimp. I can see a case for being morally against the killing of either, but the position that it is okay to kill one but not the other seems incoherent: it can only be sustained by an appeal to some sort of magical taboo difference between "human" and "shrimp" that isn't reflected in the actual characteristics of the beings being considered.
Well, I think ultimately the real debate on abortion is not about the viability issue, but about what sort of beings we grant what sorts of moral status. Many pro-choice people don't take the viability issue seriously: some even deny that it has any relevance. Ultimately, what matters is if you think a fetus should be granted the same moral status as a full human being or not, and thus what sorts of treatment of it (including killing) are ethical under what circumstances.
All the more reason to have a real system of rights based on actual, relevant, moral characteristics (like the capacity to care about your destiny, about your life, to feel pain, etc.) instead of ever-changeable cultural mores and superstition. If we protect people's rights based upon the ACTUAL things we care about in human beings, then people won't be able to weasel around it so easily.
---You're still avoiding my point. If you have a viable alternative to either evolution or creation, I'd love to hear it.---
There's no point to be made. Offering a false dilemna is not a point. Even if, against all evidence to the contrary, evolution is found to be false, that doesn't demonstrate that creation is true, or vice-versa. And anyway, at the very least, it could simply be that while all the conditions that creationism says are true (no evolution, just life forms appearing) and yet there was an entirely material (non-intelligent) cause. Since we do not know the ultimate characteristics of the universe, or have any examples of other universes to measure ours against, we wouldn't have any real way to test or refute this hypothesis: but it's no more or less plausible than the creation theory.
---Your French/Alien theory is a creation theory. (The aliens created us.)---
Good grief, it's not MY theory! Now you're getting pretty lax with words: Raelianism may involve intelligent meddling in life's creation, but not by al-poerful supernatural gods. That makes it quite different than either theory.
---I've yet to hear what the other alternative is.---
Again, there doesn't need to be. Some atheists are skeptical of evolution period. They do not need to offer an alternative to think it's bunk. That's not how science or the burden of proof work.
---Show me the experimental evidence that proved this. Please introduce me to the person who performed the experiment so they can repeat it for me and satisfy my curiosity.---
You know as well as I do where to find this information. You simply discount all of it offhand. Which is your right, and I doubt your life will be made any less because you'll have no truck with the theory of evolution. But there's no reason to pretend that you're being sensible about it.
---but for the sake of this argument "God" includes any creator being, as I implied several posts ago. In this sense, "God" would include your French Aliens. Either we were created by [insert favorite Creator here], or we evolved in some way from lesser forms, or we got here by [???].---
Boy did you just give the game away: you stated pretty precisely exactlyu the false dilemna you're engaging in. Do you even know what the theory of evolution is? It is not an origins of life theory. It's a theory for how less complex organisms can become more complex. Nothing about it rules out a god creating life in the first place. In fact, that's precisely what the majority of Christians think happened.
---since the majority of people who believe in evolution are not atheists anyway.---They are theistic evolutionists, then? ---
Bingo.
And your reading of what a Christian is just fine: belief in the salvation of Christ. As long as this includes Catholics, you're toast.
---If you've examined everything to the point that you're satisfied in what you believe, and you're willing to bet your life on it, so be it.---
It's always amusing how religous salesmen always end their diatribes with a subtle threat of eternal violence, as if threats of potential damnation had anything to do with the truth, especially when the truth the existence of the being handing out the threats in the first place! Sorry, but in examining the universe and figuring out what I can and cannot believe, I am not "making a bet" in any sense. Matters of truth are not things I can just decide on as suits my fears or wishes. If your volcano god realy exists, and is monstrous enough to do violence to those that honestly never found reason to believe, I can't see that such a being would be worth anyone's worship anyway.
---Maybe it'll cause you or someone else to stop and think about the profound consequences if God does exist.---
The problem with this is that if you are willing to simply hypothesize consequences, you can make ANYTHING, any sort fo belief or behavior, profound or a "good bet." That's why Pascal's Wager is taught in logic classes as one of the most dishonest arguments around. So thinking about the "profound consequences if" accomplishes precisely nothing in the way of suggesting that god exists or even that it's a "good bet" to believe that god exists, just in case (as if truth were to be determined by hedonistic gambling, or threats!)
---You assume that the canopy theory is an attempt to rationalize a biblical story. The canopy theory was first proposed in 1874 by Isaac Vail---
But it WAS an attempt to rationalize the Biblical story! Explicitly! The man published phamphets about such things as Eve, the flaming sword, and other such things. He was interested not only in the Bible, however, but rather more broadly on finding scientific truth in myths from many traditions that supported the Biblical account. The fact that he was or was not a proponent of a then largely circumstantial and still nacesnt evolutionary theory is entirely beside the point: all that matters is that his theories, even under the best conditions, would put the temperature of the earth at a nice, comfortable 220 F
You talk about the value of science being it considers and refutes ideas. Well good: it refuted this one long long ago. You might have mentioned that when you first posted about it. Even most creationists don't hold with it any longer, because it doesn't stand up to either science or even most litteralist Biblical interpretations. The problem with this, endemic to creationism in general, is that even when something like this is roundly disproved, or even when most _creationists_ declare it verboten, at least in public, it STILL gets recycled again and again as a something "you should check out" because it proports to support the biblical account: even sometimes by the very same creationists who had publically said that it was crap. But for some reason, even universally agreed upon bad ideas are somehow okay to use, as long as they attack evolution and support creation accounts. As Paul said and Martin Luther concurred: (and I paraphrase) "hey, if I tell lies to sell the faith, what's the big deal as long as the faith is sold?"
What I like about that site is that when I LEFT click, a javascript window pops up and says "sorry, you don't have permission to right click." This is presumably to protect them from the easy theft of their images. But unfortunately, right clicking (and the "save image as") works just fine. This may be because of Opera, but I still found it to be kinda funny.
I also found it odd that these comic books are "dedicated to those teachers and students that have lost their lives on the public school grounds of America," as if public school was some sort of deadly warzone. And this just the best: after facing down a psycho with a gun, Tommy gets an idea about smuggling Bibles into the school, utterly oblivious to the fact that many of his friends have been shot and killed, and one is even fighting for life in the background. Kinda lets you know what the priorities are in the minds of the people who write these things.
--- Also, your definition of Christian and mine may differ. Someone can call him/herself a Christian and not be. It is common for entire groups of people to be classified as Christian, but the qualification isn't by birth or association; it's a personal decision.---
And that pretty much gives the game away: the True Scotsman fallacy to the nonce. Presumably if I mention "Catholics" you'll just retort "oh, but they're not REALLY Christians!" Tell me, what is your measure for if someone is "really" a Christian? It wouldn't have anything to do with a litteral interpretation of the Bible would it (also a minority opinion within Christianity)?
--- So unless there are other options than evolution or creation, disbelief in God implies belief in evolution.---
No it doesn't. Belief is a positive step. It's quite possible to be an atheist and to be critical of evolution, or to simply not know where the world came from (what do you think atheists did before anyone had even heard of evolution?). Plus, there's a whole freaking religion in France based around aliens creating life on earth.
---So, unless you've got a better argument, if God does not exist, then evolution (or some other natural means??) must be true.---
No, that just doesn't follow. Evolution is true only if it is demonstrated that it is, in fact, true. And it has. But this tells us nothing about the existence of God. Your convoluted attempts to draw one conclusion out of the other are doomed to failure, largely because you seem not to recognize that the particular kind of God you envision is not the only possible God one can envision. Evolution might rule out the litteral truth of one literal interpretation of one story about God. But that's about it.
---Therefore athiests are biased in the argument of creation vs evolution.---
I don't see why: what material reason would atheists in general have to be biased about it? We can think of one for CERTAIN theists: it contradicts the tales they tell that are central to other parts of their sales pitch. This is certainly true for the ICR. But it's not true of theists in general. And atheists in general are not even selling any sort of view about the world at all. What purpose would that serve? What do you think an "atheist" is anyway? Most atheists don't even care about being atheists, much less gods or defending evolution.
And anyway, it hardly matters, since the majority of people who believe in evolution are not atheists anyway. Even if atheists as a group were biased somehow: they still make up a tiny majority of those who support and have supported evolution. This is because they are a tiny fraction of the world's population to begin with.
---They were in the ark for over a year. It rained for 40 days and 40 nights. The water still had to dry up after the rain stopped.---
I love how someone can say something entirely screwy, and then try to reason from it, and scold others for not reasoning properly. Tell me, where was your good sense about what "had to" happen to all the water when it was back in the sentence before, imagining 40 days/nights worth of rain suddenly flooding the entire world? Where did all the water come from? If the answer is "god made it," then suddenly there's no reason to bother reasoning about what anything "had to" do anymore.
----As I guessed people have misunderstood and misinterpreted what I have said. Later, if it's worth it, I'll come respond to some of what has been said.---
Some of them are pretty over the top. But this post does a pretty fair job of responding to you, so I'll hold off on that score.
---Anyone who says that creation is unscientific has not considered the issues properly.---
You just got through saying that it WASN'T science... But anyway, I think I have. Creationism rarely tries to present any actual evidence in accordance with its own theory: mostly it simply tries to knock down evolution. Which is fine, but the problem is that evolutionary scientists seem to do a much better job at pointing out (and correcting) flaws in evolution than do creationists, whose arguments generally seem based on misconceptions, either willful or deliberate, and a whole host of just plain bad science. Evolution is science: it does all the things science is supposed to do. I don't know what else we could say on the subject: your position is just so left field from what any philosophy of science person would tell you that I doubt it will do any good to argue with it. Creationism COULD be a science, but there seems to be only a pitful lack of evidence to support it's wildly diverse theories and predictions, so it would have a hard time of things.
---We all know that in a computer program a small random change is far more likely to cause an error than it is to improve a program.---
Unfortunately, genetic code is not like program code. Program code is more like a blueprint, while genetic code is more like a recipe. Changing a line of program code could break your program, since that directly affects its functioning. But this is not quite so in genetics, where DNA codes for more general and redudant _mechanisms_ to construct an organism, not piece by piece the actual organism itself.
Slashdot Mirror
---Seriously, since the Industrial Revolution there has not been a single example of a scientific discovery that affected human life more than superficially.---
That's the most ridiculous statement I've ever heard. In medicine alone...
Organized religion is an important part of many people's lives. Like ANY major cultural factor that is incredibly diverse accross theory and execution, it has been used for both good and bad things.
It's just plain ridiculous to make statements about what "religion" does. All organized religion fosters intolerance? Were you even alive in the 60s, when black churches were spearheading civil rights? People are good and bad. Some people in both categories are religious. Look at almost ANY major debate in american culture, and you're going to find that the majority of people on BOTH sides of the debate are religious.
"Believing in" is a lot different from "believing are possible." A true scientist doesn't believe IN things until they have good evidence to support that theory. They keep an open mind about everything else, but an open mind != provisional belief IN every possibility suggested to you.
The AMA and the bar aren't exactly unions in a meaningful sense. Their purpose is to protect professional standards, not negotiate with employers for bonuses or go on strike. And their primary control over hires/fires is to kick people OUT of their organizations when they violate those standards, not keep incompetant people in.
What they do hold in common with unions (in a way most people probably don't want to consider) is that they are basically monopolies. They limit the number of people who can be lawyers and doctors at all via certification standards, which of course serves to keep salaries high (of coruse, those high salaries are also part of the huge cost of time and money to get the required education), though they would claim that the purpose is to make sure that those people calling themselves "doctors" or "lawyers" are specially qualified to do those jobs. However, getting into the organization is all about competitive merit, not collective bargaining. And lawyers and doctors both have quite special social protections and responsiblities that society wouldn't want to grant to just anyone (for instance, if you aren't a doctor, doing a surgery is considered to be assault, or legally protected confidentiality).
---bargaining collectively gets you a better contract than any of you could get individually.---
But less contracts overall. Is it better for more people to work for less, or fewer people to work for more? I'm not sure which is better, but I do know how silly it is to pretend that "better contracts" are all upside for every worker in the market. Just because the harm is less conspicuous than the benefit doesn't mean that it isn't real.
Actually, there is another incredible fact about the Vents (and the "Cold Seeps" found soon after): they represent an ecosystem that functions without the sun's energy starting everything off. That's pretty darn unique. Instead, the bottom of the food chain is sulfur and methane, respectively, which are "eaten" by specialized bacteria, who are eaten, and so on.
---But I feel I should mention that individuals can and do pass on their genes without procreating. They do that by helping others (usually relatives) with similar genes procreate.---
Actually, this is just what I was reffering to. E.O. Wilson put this idea forward in his Sociobiology book: that homosexuality might actually be a useful trait to have in a line that expresses itself occasionally. Of course, Wilson makes the argument that homosexuals might on average be more altruistic than heterosexuals, but as far as I know there is no support for this claim being a genetic factor, as opposed to merely a cultural one.
---The purpose (think about that word before jerking knee) of sex is procreation.---
Taking purposeful direction from the way nature is the genetic fallacy: turning is into ought. Our genetic makeup is not the result of any purposeful intention that homosexuality is somehow thwarting.
---If that mechanism is somehow switched around so that we are attracted to the same sex, obviously that doesn't bode well for continuing the species.---
So far, having a minority of the population be homosexual doesn't seem to have hurt our species, or other species that have homosexuals. Plenty of species actually benefit from having certain members of a cooperative group specialize in breeding, and other non-breeding members play other roles (ants, for instance). It's not necessary for every individual to strive to pass on its genes: sometimes genes survive best via having strong kin groups which support the next generation.
---If a function of the brain is not operating in the way it was intended (i.e., attraction to the same sex), then it's a defect. Note that there is no moral component to this: it's simply factual.---
No. Calling it a defect implies that there was something "intending" humans to be a certain way, and homosexuality is a deviation from that intention. But evolution does not have intentions. There is no "correct" configuration for a human being. You may not mean any moral component to attach, but your reasoning is just as flawed as if there was.
What you are doing is trying to argue "purpose" or "defect" as if these were objcetive terms. They are not: they both simply compare the state of an example to an pre-specified ideal. But the selection of the particular ideal is subjective, not objective.
---If evolution truly favored homosexuality, then it would make sense that societies would tend to evolve toward accepting the benefits of it.---
This claim is nonsense. Evolution does not have foresight, intention, or even a permanent direction, and the "evolution" of culture is not necessarily in any way related to biological "evolution."
---I'm willing to accept the possibility that there might be some subtle purpose to the attraction mechanism getting switched around, but at this point that seems more political "happy science" than real science.---
There is no simple "attraction mechanism." Animal life, including humans, show a full range of sexual behaviors. Maybe this is good for survival, maybe it is not. Neither you nor I really know, certainly not for each and every case. But trying to pretend that survival is the only "objective" end is just nonsense.
What pisses me off about sports shows is the way they drag them out at the end and with mindless commentary. Sports commentary generally amounts to "hey, they played a great game! Hey, they played a terrible game! If only the other team had scored more points, they might have won! This puts their average at 3.5 for the 4th quarter 6 with a personal average of 8 career starter 8. But So and so really pulled together and played a good game and scored some points! Remember that compound fracture? Ow! That's GOTTA hurt!" And I simply don't see why this sort of drivel requires an extra 15 to 30 minutes at the end of a game, cutting out programing in which stuff actually happens.
But then, I've never understood why anyone would watch sports instead of playing sports. Ooo: other people having fun that I'm too lazy to have!
The main problem is that they are recycling jokes. How many times can they play off things like "oh, homer is fat! Ha ha, the chair broke cus he's fat!" They used to come up with creative sight gags, but now they're pedestrian and predictable. This is the problem with having basically two-note characters: after 12 seasons, and an inability to develop as characters, it just becomes a cycle of endless "what crazy thing will they get involved with next! Who's our big celebrity walk on?!"
And the great social commentary? Gone gone gone...
---A child of four does not have the right to vote but certainly has the right to life and an invalid may not ethically or legally responsible for their own actions but they have the right to be free from torture.---
Yes: but they have those rights for REASONS, just like the reason they don't have the right to vote or self-determination is for a reason as well. You seem to want to pretend that rights are not founded on anything other than an arbitrary distinction like "human." But they're not: they're founded on relevant characteristics of the being in question.
---As I commented elsewhere it is the inate genetic disposition to the creation of human behavior and therefore a human mind inherent in the embryo that is important to understand and in my opinion neccesary to respect.---
But this "inherent" human has yet to develop: and purely by natural chance it might not. It is no different than having the genetic information stored on a computer disk: is it wrong to destroy the disk, and thus the information? No. To be considered for moral rights, the potential characteristics have to actually come into being. Why should a thing have rights before it even exists? Should you have the right to vote just because one day you'll be old enough to vote? It doesn't work like that. If you could explain what difference conception makes in morally relevant characteristics vs. just before conception makes, go ahead.
---I'm certain there are numerous drugs and treatments that could temporarily render a human mentally inept to the level of an ape or dog. Do you think such a killing would be morally equivelent to killing a dog?---
No, it would be much worse, because A) the drugging itself is a tremendous moral wrong and B) the human ALREADY exists and has desires and expectations that are foiled by its drugging and death. No such situation is present with the embryo or early fetus. That fact that you can't see why is only testiment to your failure to think this through.
---If you really see no difference in killing a shrimp or a fetus consider this: A man does not want a child and slips his pregnant girlfriend RU-486, she aborts. Whose rights have been broken and what were they.---
Assuming we are talking early on in the pregnancy: the woman's rights. The drug counts as a dangerous assualt upon her body. She is also denied the ability to carry the child to term, if that was her intention. But the _child_ itself does not have interests in being carried to term, not until it, at the very least, develops a working nervous system. It is no different than if the man's drug had killed off a section of tissue elsewhere in her body: which ALSO has no moral capacities. How can you claim that a fetus has any capacities or interests before it even has the relevant equipment for HAVING any sort of interests at all? The only way you can do it is simply by arbitrarily inventing moral rights that you are unable to ground in any account of interests.
You "replied" by copying and pasting the same lines you always copy and paste. Are you really claiming that you haven't posted that exact same information several times before? Each and every time, someone refutes the relevance of those arguments. Each and every time you go and post it again as if nothing happened, forcing people to waste their time yet again responding to your propaganda.
---Any law, dogma, dictum that relies on dehumanizing one person so another is fit to judge them by making them appear more ethically or morally superior is bankrupt on principle.---
But this only begs the question of why "human" is a meaningful category to base moral principles on. If we discovered intelligent aliens, would we feel justified in killing them just because they were not "human?" The ultimate question here is if different entities with different characteristics (fetuses vs. adults) should have the same sorts of rights. Everyone ALREADY agrees on some cases in which they don't (voting, responsbility for own actions, etc.). Personally, I cannot see why someone can find the killing of fetuses worse than the killing of live dogs. Early fetuses, looked at obejctively as entities, are about as mentally complex as brine shrimp. I can see a case for being morally against the killing of either, but the position that it is okay to kill one but not the other seems incoherent: it can only be sustained by an appeal to some sort of magical taboo difference between "human" and "shrimp" that isn't reflected in the actual characteristics of the beings being considered.
Well, I think ultimately the real debate on abortion is not about the viability issue, but about what sort of beings we grant what sorts of moral status. Many pro-choice people don't take the viability issue seriously: some even deny that it has any relevance. Ultimately, what matters is if you think a fetus should be granted the same moral status as a full human being or not, and thus what sorts of treatment of it (including killing) are ethical under what circumstances.
Don't worry, he posts that exact same post, almost word for word, to anyone who mentions abortion.
All the more reason to have a real system of rights based on actual, relevant, moral characteristics (like the capacity to care about your destiny, about your life, to feel pain, etc.) instead of ever-changeable cultural mores and superstition. If we protect people's rights based upon the ACTUAL things we care about in human beings, then people won't be able to weasel around it so easily.
---You're still avoiding my point. If you have a viable alternative to either evolution or creation, I'd love to hear it.---
There's no point to be made. Offering a false dilemna is not a point. Even if, against all evidence to the contrary, evolution is found to be false, that doesn't demonstrate that creation is true, or vice-versa. And anyway, at the very least, it could simply be that while all the conditions that creationism says are true (no evolution, just life forms appearing) and yet there was an entirely material (non-intelligent) cause. Since we do not know the ultimate characteristics of the universe, or have any examples of other universes to measure ours against, we wouldn't have any real way to test or refute this hypothesis: but it's no more or less plausible than the creation theory.
---Your French/Alien theory is a creation theory. (The aliens created us.)---
Good grief, it's not MY theory! Now you're getting pretty lax with words: Raelianism may involve intelligent meddling in life's creation, but not by al-poerful supernatural gods. That makes it quite different than either theory.
---I've yet to hear what the other alternative is.---
Again, there doesn't need to be. Some atheists are skeptical of evolution period. They do not need to offer an alternative to think it's bunk. That's not how science or the burden of proof work.
---Show me the experimental evidence that proved this. Please introduce me to the person who performed the experiment so they can repeat it for me and satisfy my curiosity.---
You know as well as I do where to find this information. You simply discount all of it offhand. Which is your right, and I doubt your life will be made any less because you'll have no truck with the theory of evolution. But there's no reason to pretend that you're being sensible about it.
---but for the sake of this argument "God" includes any creator being, as I implied several posts ago. In this sense, "God" would include your French Aliens. Either we were created by [insert favorite Creator here], or we evolved in some way from lesser forms, or we got here by [???].---
Boy did you just give the game away: you stated pretty precisely exactlyu the false dilemna you're engaging in. Do you even know what the theory of evolution is? It is not an origins of life theory. It's a theory for how less complex organisms can become more complex. Nothing about it rules out a god creating life in the first place. In fact, that's precisely what the majority of Christians think happened.
---since the majority of people who believe in evolution are not atheists anyway.---They are theistic evolutionists, then? ---
Bingo.
And your reading of what a Christian is just fine: belief in the salvation of Christ. As long as this includes Catholics, you're toast.
---If you've examined everything to the point that you're satisfied in what you believe, and you're willing to bet your life on it, so be it.---
It's always amusing how religous salesmen always end their diatribes with a subtle threat of eternal violence, as if threats of potential damnation had anything to do with the truth, especially when the truth the existence of the being handing out the threats in the first place! Sorry, but in examining the universe and figuring out what I can and cannot believe, I am not "making a bet" in any sense. Matters of truth are not things I can just decide on as suits my fears or wishes. If your volcano god realy exists, and is monstrous enough to do violence to those that honestly never found reason to believe, I can't see that such a being would be worth anyone's worship anyway.
---Maybe it'll cause you or someone else to stop and think about the profound consequences if God does exist.---
The problem with this is that if you are willing to simply hypothesize consequences, you can make ANYTHING, any sort fo belief or behavior, profound or a "good bet." That's why Pascal's Wager is taught in logic classes as one of the most dishonest arguments around. So thinking about the "profound consequences if" accomplishes precisely nothing in the way of suggesting that god exists or even that it's a "good bet" to believe that god exists, just in case (as if truth were to be determined by hedonistic gambling, or threats!)
---You assume that the canopy theory is an attempt to rationalize a biblical story. The canopy theory was first proposed in 1874 by Isaac Vail---
But it WAS an attempt to rationalize the Biblical story! Explicitly! The man published phamphets about such things as Eve, the flaming sword, and other such things. He was interested not only in the Bible, however, but rather more broadly on finding scientific truth in myths from many traditions that supported the Biblical account. The fact that he was or was not a proponent of a then largely circumstantial and still nacesnt evolutionary theory is entirely beside the point: all that matters is that his theories, even under the best conditions, would put the temperature of the earth at a nice, comfortable 220 F
You talk about the value of science being it considers and refutes ideas. Well good: it refuted this one long long ago. You might have mentioned that when you first posted about it. Even most creationists don't hold with it any longer, because it doesn't stand up to either science or even most litteralist Biblical interpretations. The problem with this, endemic to creationism in general, is that even when something like this is roundly disproved, or even when most _creationists_ declare it verboten, at least in public, it STILL gets recycled again and again as a something "you should check out" because it proports to support the biblical account: even sometimes by the very same creationists who had publically said that it was crap. But for some reason, even universally agreed upon bad ideas are somehow okay to use, as long as they attack evolution and support creation accounts. As Paul said and Martin Luther concurred: (and I paraphrase) "hey, if I tell lies to sell the faith, what's the big deal as long as the faith is sold?"
What I like about that site is that when I LEFT click, a javascript window pops up and says "sorry, you don't have permission to right click." This is presumably to protect them from the easy theft of their images. But unfortunately, right clicking (and the "save image as") works just fine. This may be because of Opera, but I still found it to be kinda funny.
I also found it odd that these comic books are "dedicated to those teachers and students that have lost their lives on the public school grounds of America," as if public school was some sort of deadly warzone.
And this just the best: after facing down a psycho with a gun, Tommy gets an idea about smuggling Bibles into the school, utterly oblivious to the fact that many of his friends have been shot and killed, and one is even fighting for life in the background. Kinda lets you know what the priorities are in the minds of the people who write these things.
---Those seem like different sides of the same coin to me.---
Well, different sides of different coins, but with similar implications, you mean.
--- Also, your definition of Christian and mine may differ. Someone can call him/herself a Christian and not be. It is common for entire groups of people to be classified as Christian, but the qualification isn't by birth or association; it's a personal decision.---
And that pretty much gives the game away: the True Scotsman fallacy to the nonce. Presumably if I mention "Catholics" you'll just retort "oh, but they're not REALLY Christians!" Tell me, what is your measure for if someone is "really" a Christian? It wouldn't have anything to do with a litteral interpretation of the Bible would it (also a minority opinion within Christianity)?
--- So unless there are other options than evolution or creation, disbelief in God implies belief in evolution.---
No it doesn't. Belief is a positive step. It's quite possible to be an atheist and to be critical of evolution, or to simply not know where the world came from (what do you think atheists did before anyone had even heard of evolution?). Plus, there's a whole freaking religion in France based around aliens creating life on earth.
---So, unless you've got a better argument, if God does not exist, then evolution (or some other natural means??) must be true.---
No, that just doesn't follow. Evolution is true only if it is demonstrated that it is, in fact, true. And it has. But this tells us nothing about the existence of God. Your convoluted attempts to draw one conclusion out of the other are doomed to failure, largely because you seem not to recognize that the particular kind of God you envision is not the only possible God one can envision. Evolution might rule out the litteral truth of one literal interpretation of one story about God. But that's about it.
---Therefore athiests are biased in the argument of creation vs evolution.---
I don't see why: what material reason would atheists in general have to be biased about it? We can think of one for CERTAIN theists: it contradicts the tales they tell that are central to other parts of their sales pitch. This is certainly true for the ICR. But it's not true of theists in general. And atheists in general are not even selling any sort of view about the world at all. What purpose would that serve?
What do you think an "atheist" is anyway? Most atheists don't even care about being atheists, much less gods or defending evolution.
And anyway, it hardly matters, since the majority of people who believe in evolution are not atheists anyway. Even if atheists as a group were biased somehow: they still make up a tiny majority of those who support and have supported evolution. This is because they are a tiny fraction of the world's population to begin with.
---They were in the ark for over a year. It rained for 40 days and 40 nights. The water still had to dry up after the rain stopped.---
I love how someone can say something entirely screwy, and then try to reason from it, and scold others for not reasoning properly. Tell me, where was your good sense about what "had to" happen to all the water when it was back in the sentence before, imagining 40 days/nights worth of rain suddenly flooding the entire world? Where did all the water come from? If the answer is "god made it," then suddenly there's no reason to bother reasoning about what anything "had to" do anymore.
SHOOT! By "this post" I meant not my post, but one I tried to link to (and failed). The post was here: http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=27378&cid=2945 958
----As I guessed people have misunderstood and misinterpreted what I have said. Later, if it's worth it, I'll come respond to some of what has been said.---
Some of them are pretty over the top. But this post does a pretty fair job of responding to you, so I'll hold off on that score.
---Anyone who says that creation is unscientific has not considered the issues properly.---
You just got through saying that it WASN'T science... But anyway, I think I have. Creationism rarely tries to present any actual evidence in accordance with its own theory: mostly it simply tries to knock down evolution. Which is fine, but the problem is that evolutionary scientists seem to do a much better job at pointing out (and correcting) flaws in evolution than do creationists, whose arguments generally seem based on misconceptions, either willful or deliberate, and a whole host of just plain bad science. Evolution is science: it does all the things science is supposed to do. I don't know what else we could say on the subject: your position is just so left field from what any philosophy of science person would tell you that I doubt it will do any good to argue with it.
Creationism COULD be a science, but there seems to be only a pitful lack of evidence to support it's wildly diverse theories and predictions, so it would have a hard time of things.
---We all know that in a computer program a small random change is far more likely to cause an error than it is to improve a program.---
Unfortunately, genetic code is not like program code. Program code is more like a blueprint, while genetic code is more like a recipe. Changing a line of program code could break your program, since that directly affects its functioning. But this is not quite so in genetics, where DNA codes for more general and redudant _mechanisms_ to construct an organism, not piece by piece the actual organism itself.