What is the thing God is trying to achieve, in your estimation? How do you KNOW that a perfect being could achieve the exact same thing without doing it? How do you KNOW what the purpose is- when none of the rest of us do?
Just a thought experiment, drawn on one of my favorite science fiction stories from one of my favorite authors- let's say, for the sake of argument, that time itself is circular; that the begining of our universe, the "teacup of ultimate density" that was before the big bang, is also the death of our universe, what happens when entropy finally runs down. God could, in that situation, be indeed our descendant- and therefore, his purpose would be to create himself. The ONLY way he knows how to do this is the way that happened before- for however infinitely many cycles this has been going on.
Under those circumstances- wouldn't God be constrained, no matter how all powerfull he was in THIS universe- by time itself? One insane diety by the five billionth cycle, but still constrained.
Funny though- you reject God on the same basis that I require a God- because the universe as revealed by science is way more amazing than any one religion, any process lacking a creator, could possibly create.
Hmmm- there's another thought entirely that could explain it all- God is not only all three omnis, he's a fourth omni as well- omniinsane.
Why must you burn wood to get lye? It's a part of the process- the process that he set up.
Is it because he wants to? No, he is all-loving.
Of course it is because he wants to, ever hear of touch love where you hurt a kid to get him to stop doing something bad, or for that matter electroshock therapy?
Is it because he has to?
This question is more interesting- he's set up the rules so that he has to, why would you expect him to go outside the rules?
No, he is all-knowing and all-powerful. A tri-omni God must achieve its goal without causing harm.
What makes you so sure that it really is harm? Just because it feels like harm to you and me- does that make it so? I suppose you're the type of parent who claims they will never spank their kid either. Or say no to them. Or do anything that could cause them "harm". The same religious tradition that claims the three omnis (omniscience, omnibenevolence, omnipotence) for God also claims that God is first and foremost a *FATHER*. Not a Mother, coddling with love, but a Father, a disciplinarian. And how does a disciplinarian show love? With authoritarian dictates and an iron fist of punishment. Worse yet- he doesn't even let us know EXPLICITLY what those dictates are (a few thousand people over a few thousand years got together and wrote a book on what they thought those dictates were- but ended up with so many contradictions that you have to take their cultures into account to read it)- rather he punishes us in ways that seem quite mysterious at the time, pushing us towards a goal that we're not allowed (or maybe even able) to know. And for that- you would reject Him. You don't even know what the goal is- all you can see is your own pain, and you reject him on that alone.
A tri-omni God MUST cause harm- because to not cause harm would be to not be benevolent in the long run, you do more harm by being permissive with a child than by setting boundaries and rules. So therefore your basic premise is at it's root wrong- because a permissive parent is anything other than benevolent, therefore a permissive God is not benevolent.
Agreed. Though I know of at least one optometrist that claims that this is happening on a small scale even within the eyeball itself for individuals- claims to have a method which slowly reduces the need for glasses through eye exercises. I've yet to research that claim, however.
The Christian God, some believe, is purely benevolent, all-loving. How could unnecessary harm be justified by such a being?
It can't be- but neither can any given harm to a finite being be unnecessary from the point of view of an infinite being. You don't know the whole plan- assuming that there is one, personaly I think it's a huge experiment and not even God knows how it will turn out in the end- therefore you don't know what harm is necessary and which is not.
No, that's exactly my point: why would an omniscient, omnipotent God use evolution, which necessarily harms certain individuals, rather than something else which does not?
Because it is necessary to the plan, whatever that plan is. Personally- I think it goes a step further down- I think God's created an experiment to recreate himself. After all, what more would an infinite being need than a companion?
[1] I don't doubt scientific evidence for global warming. I do doubt that human beings are powerful enough to cause it singlehandedly. And I do doubt that it's a catastrophic event unseen in the history of the planet. In fact, it seems pretty normal. We've just had a nice period of calm for the last thousand years.
Where I don't doubt we could cause it singlehandedly- chances are by the time we noticed it we were already too late to do anything about it. And it most certainly is NOT unseen in the history of the planet- our calm has only lasted about 600 years BTW- since the 1400s. Previous to that we had a global warming severe enough that raising Oranges in England was not unheard of, for about 200 years (which also cause a huge increase in the mosquito, flea, and rat populations- which brought us the Black Death and the destruction of 1/3rd the human population of Europe- yet still the human race survived).
No one ever mentioned a personal god- neither a personal God or an utter lack of any God fits the current facts as we know them. Which is why I said what I originally said in the way that I said it- both the people who think evolution is bunk because their vision of a God wouldn't do things that way, and those who think that God is bunk because they believe in Evolution and a "personal God" would never just set the rules and wait to see how the experiment turns out on it's own, are equally insane.
Very good- and like in your mastermind example, is it reasable to presume that the randomness of the explosion that created the big bang would lead to such a refined technique? Or is it more reasonable to assume that there's a good player out there, who defined the rules for the technique, to let it go and watch it run? (note, missing third option which is totally silly, that of a bad player cheating and making it look like there is a technique when there really isn't one- that way leads to what the early Christians called Gnosticism).
I can't help wonder though, if it's the Chritian omni-God whom you propose could've used evolution to create species. If so, it brings us to the Problem of Evil:
If God is all-knowing and all-powerful, he can create species any damn way he pleases.
If God is benevolent, he would never cause unnecessary harm.
How would one who acknowledges that evolution is not "nice" reconcile this?
I never said that- personally for me God is a mathematical abstract that kicked off the big bang and put some very interesting, and non-rational, constants to the universe. Thus, while he would be all-knowing, he would not be all powerfull- plus being benevolent does not neccessarily mean never causing unecessary harm, and the problems with evolution for self-centered and selfish individuals would be NECESSARY harm anyway to the greater good of survival of the fitest genome, so your agrument fails on that as well.
Worse yet- by the time you know that the climate change WILL be major- it's likely too late to do anything about it as well- so why worry?
There's the old story from America's wild west days about the cowboy who got mad at the local tribe's medicine man. Kidnapped him, took him into town, and hung him by his ankles out of the window of the tallest building in town, and told him "Now, you old Indian, you have a problem". The Medicine Man replied- "No, it is you who has the problem. If you drop me, I die, and it is a good day to die. If you don't drop me, I live, and it is also a good day to live. Either way is fine by me.". That's the attitude we need to have towards any sort of FUD- whether it's computers or climate change.
Because it seems to be widespread knowledge that third party candidates can never be elected. It's WRONG widespread knowledge- but the two party system is strong enough to give that impression.
I'd say that the best way for a third party to have a chance in the United States would be a massive effort just before the primary season to sign up new voters- and get old ones to switch. And by massive, I mean having at least 100 million people switch parties just before the primary season. THAT would give a third party candidate enough legs to have a chance.
No- in fact, I'm just an individual in a hive. My own survival doesn't matter half as much as the survival of the genome- IF it is fit to survive. That's the ultimate lesson of evolution.
Whether you believe that lesson or not shows how much you believe in the theory of evolution. The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few- or does the needs of the one outweigh the needs of the many? Are you a Vulcan or a Randroid?
1. God, using the process of evolution which he set up himself in the time before the planck constant, follows his own logical rules and ends up creating humanity.
2. Totally by accident some rules were written which had to be followed and ended up creating humanity.
And you blame people who believe in God for being illogical and irrational? Replacing the word "God" with "random accident" doesn't help the matter any- it's equally as illogical and irrational.
Darwin's old fashioned- Gould's theory of evolutionary spurts claims that a beneficial mutation can appear in as little as a single generation- though it takes multiple generations of that mutation being successfull in the environment to survive. With a significantly large population, minor mutations happen all the time; and by killing off competitive phenotypes, the new phenotype is more likely to survive after a rapid major climate change.
The key words are "life as we know it"- which doesn't exclude "life as we currently don't know it".
The larger the population, the greater the chance that a suitable phenotype will find a way to survive, just as in the article algae phenotype C dying off gave algae phenotype D a chance to colonize the newfound coral reefs. Phenotype D already existed; probably for many years; but as long as phenotype C survived, it could not take over.
Absolutely true- that's exactly the same thing AOL is doing. The only difference is WHY they're doing it- to make profit. Where government just wants more undereducated voters to decide between the hypocritical rich white christian running for president and the hypocritical rich white christian running for president.
It always amazes me how many people believe in evolution, yet still believe major climate change must spell disaster. Almost as bad are the number of people who claim that God couldn't possibly have used evolution to create the species.
You misunderstand the evolutionary niche the AOL parasites occupy- their purpose is specifically designed to lower the IQ of the net by reducing the digital divide- this is simply the next logical step and I'm surprised they didn't do it earlier (like about 5 years ago when EMachines and PeoplePC did.....)
50 GB hard drive to run AOL?
on
You've Got PC
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· Score: 3, Funny
I know that their connection software is bloatware- but isn't this a bit on the ridiculous side? Then again- it's been a while since I priced hard drives- perhaps the 10GB models are no longer available?
Yep- that would be good. West of the Cascades too. But that would be a bit harder- since there's a mountain range in between the Cascades and the ocean....
The only honest politician is the ONE THAT STAYS BOUGHT. Didn't you ever hear that cliche before?
And the answer to your second question is- because there's nobody else to vote for, at least yet. Eventually there will be- I'm involved in the process of a new political party based on middle class morals and middle class finances- but our website won't be out until November (and our maximum donation limit is $10 per person, $500,000 total for our Presidential Campaign, just to show that we aren't bought and we know how to use money better than the major parties do).
At any rate- if I was them I'd do anything not to get arrested again- which should drive his recidivism rate down (at least, being arrested in the same county). The fact that it isn't- what kind of idiot, guilty or innocent, allows themselves to be arrested by this man twice?
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For a queen ant to get from Argentinia to Australia. Oh, you mean humans helped them get there? Stupid humans, genetic manipulation is for Q...
What is the thing God is trying to achieve, in your estimation? How do you KNOW that a perfect being could achieve the exact same thing without doing it? How do you KNOW what the purpose is- when none of the rest of us do?
Just a thought experiment, drawn on one of my favorite science fiction stories from one of my favorite authors- let's say, for the sake of argument, that time itself is circular; that the begining of our universe, the "teacup of ultimate density" that was before the big bang, is also the death of our universe, what happens when entropy finally runs down. God could, in that situation, be indeed our descendant- and therefore, his purpose would be to create himself. The ONLY way he knows how to do this is the way that happened before- for however infinitely many cycles this has been going on.
Under those circumstances- wouldn't God be constrained, no matter how all powerfull he was in THIS universe- by time itself? One insane diety by the five billionth cycle, but still constrained.
Funny though- you reject God on the same basis that I require a God- because the universe as revealed by science is way more amazing than any one religion, any process lacking a creator, could possibly create.
Hmmm- there's another thought entirely that could explain it all- God is not only all three omnis, he's a fourth omni as well- omniinsane.
Why must God harm something to achieve his goal?
Why must you burn wood to get lye? It's a part of the process- the process that he set up.
Is it because he wants to? No, he is all-loving.
Of course it is because he wants to, ever hear of touch love where you hurt a kid to get him to stop doing something bad, or for that matter electroshock therapy?
Is it because he has to?
This question is more interesting- he's set up the rules so that he has to, why would you expect him to go outside the rules?
No, he is all-knowing and all-powerful. A tri-omni God must achieve its goal without causing harm.
What makes you so sure that it really is harm? Just because it feels like harm to you and me- does that make it so? I suppose you're the type of parent who claims they will never spank their kid either. Or say no to them. Or do anything that could cause them "harm". The same religious tradition that claims the three omnis (omniscience, omnibenevolence, omnipotence) for God also claims that God is first and foremost a *FATHER*. Not a Mother, coddling with love, but a Father, a disciplinarian. And how does a disciplinarian show love? With authoritarian dictates and an iron fist of punishment. Worse yet- he doesn't even let us know EXPLICITLY what those dictates are (a few thousand people over a few thousand years got together and wrote a book on what they thought those dictates were- but ended up with so many contradictions that you have to take their cultures into account to read it)- rather he punishes us in ways that seem quite mysterious at the time, pushing us towards a goal that we're not allowed (or maybe even able) to know. And for that- you would reject Him. You don't even know what the goal is- all you can see is your own pain, and you reject him on that alone.
A tri-omni God MUST cause harm- because to not cause harm would be to not be benevolent in the long run, you do more harm by being permissive with a child than by setting boundaries and rules. So therefore your basic premise is at it's root wrong- because a permissive parent is anything other than benevolent, therefore a permissive God is not benevolent.
Agreed. Though I know of at least one optometrist that claims that this is happening on a small scale even within the eyeball itself for individuals- claims to have a method which slowly reduces the need for glasses through eye exercises. I've yet to research that claim, however.
The Christian God, some believe, is purely benevolent, all-loving. How could unnecessary harm be justified by such a being?
It can't be- but neither can any given harm to a finite being be unnecessary from the point of view of an infinite being. You don't know the whole plan- assuming that there is one, personaly I think it's a huge experiment and not even God knows how it will turn out in the end- therefore you don't know what harm is necessary and which is not.
No, that's exactly my point: why would an omniscient, omnipotent God use evolution, which necessarily harms certain individuals, rather than something else which does not?
Because it is necessary to the plan, whatever that plan is. Personally- I think it goes a step further down- I think God's created an experiment to recreate himself. After all, what more would an infinite being need than a companion?
[1] I don't doubt scientific evidence for global warming. I do doubt that human beings are powerful enough to cause it singlehandedly. And I do doubt that it's a catastrophic event unseen in the history of the planet. In fact, it seems pretty normal. We've just had a nice period of calm for the last thousand years.
Where I don't doubt we could cause it singlehandedly- chances are by the time we noticed it we were already too late to do anything about it. And it most certainly is NOT unseen in the history of the planet- our calm has only lasted about 600 years BTW- since the 1400s. Previous to that we had a global warming severe enough that raising Oranges in England was not unheard of, for about 200 years (which also cause a huge increase in the mosquito, flea, and rat populations- which brought us the Black Death and the destruction of 1/3rd the human population of Europe- yet still the human race survived).
No one ever mentioned a personal god- neither a personal God or an utter lack of any God fits the current facts as we know them. Which is why I said what I originally said in the way that I said it- both the people who think evolution is bunk because their vision of a God wouldn't do things that way, and those who think that God is bunk because they believe in Evolution and a "personal God" would never just set the rules and wait to see how the experiment turns out on it's own, are equally insane.
Very good- and like in your mastermind example, is it reasable to presume that the randomness of the explosion that created the big bang would lead to such a refined technique? Or is it more reasonable to assume that there's a good player out there, who defined the rules for the technique, to let it go and watch it run? (note, missing third option which is totally silly, that of a bad player cheating and making it look like there is a technique when there really isn't one- that way leads to what the early Christians called Gnosticism).
I can't help wonder though, if it's the Chritian omni-God whom you propose could've used evolution to create species. If so, it brings us to the Problem of Evil:
If God is all-knowing and all-powerful, he can create species any damn way he pleases. If God is benevolent, he would never cause unnecessary harm.
How would one who acknowledges that evolution is not "nice" reconcile this?
I never said that- personally for me God is a mathematical abstract that kicked off the big bang and put some very interesting, and non-rational, constants to the universe. Thus, while he would be all-knowing, he would not be all powerfull- plus being benevolent does not neccessarily mean never causing unecessary harm, and the problems with evolution for self-centered and selfish individuals would be NECESSARY harm anyway to the greater good of survival of the fitest genome, so your agrument fails on that as well.
Worse yet- by the time you know that the climate change WILL be major- it's likely too late to do anything about it as well- so why worry?
There's the old story from America's wild west days about the cowboy who got mad at the local tribe's medicine man. Kidnapped him, took him into town, and hung him by his ankles out of the window of the tallest building in town, and told him "Now, you old Indian, you have a problem". The Medicine Man replied- "No, it is you who has the problem. If you drop me, I die, and it is a good day to die. If you don't drop me, I live, and it is also a good day to live. Either way is fine by me.". That's the attitude we need to have towards any sort of FUD- whether it's computers or climate change.
Because it seems to be widespread knowledge that third party candidates can never be elected. It's WRONG widespread knowledge- but the two party system is strong enough to give that impression.
I'd say that the best way for a third party to have a chance in the United States would be a massive effort just before the primary season to sign up new voters- and get old ones to switch. And by massive, I mean having at least 100 million people switch parties just before the primary season. THAT would give a third party candidate enough legs to have a chance.
No- in fact, I'm just an individual in a hive. My own survival doesn't matter half as much as the survival of the genome- IF it is fit to survive. That's the ultimate lesson of evolution.
Whether you believe that lesson or not shows how much you believe in the theory of evolution. The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few- or does the needs of the one outweigh the needs of the many? Are you a Vulcan or a Randroid?
Which is more logic and rational:
1. God, using the process of evolution which he set up himself in the time before the planck constant, follows his own logical rules and ends up creating humanity.
2. Totally by accident some rules were written which had to be followed and ended up creating humanity.
And you blame people who believe in God for being illogical and irrational? Replacing the word "God" with "random accident" doesn't help the matter any- it's equally as illogical and irrational.
And, of course, those able to live with 120 degree heat are largely unaffected by the power outages, and the reverse happens in cold countries.
Nobody ever said evolution was NICE.
But it's not going to kill off the entire species, now is it? In other words, that's an annoyance, not a disaster.
Darwin's old fashioned- Gould's theory of evolutionary spurts claims that a beneficial mutation can appear in as little as a single generation- though it takes multiple generations of that mutation being successfull in the environment to survive. With a significantly large population, minor mutations happen all the time; and by killing off competitive phenotypes, the new phenotype is more likely to survive after a rapid major climate change.
The key words are "life as we know it"- which doesn't exclude "life as we currently don't know it".
The larger the population, the greater the chance that a suitable phenotype will find a way to survive, just as in the article algae phenotype C dying off gave algae phenotype D a chance to colonize the newfound coral reefs. Phenotype D already existed; probably for many years; but as long as phenotype C survived, it could not take over.
Absolutely true- that's exactly the same thing AOL is doing. The only difference is WHY they're doing it- to make profit. Where government just wants more undereducated voters to decide between the hypocritical rich white christian running for president and the hypocritical rich white christian running for president.
It always amazes me how many people believe in evolution, yet still believe major climate change must spell disaster. Almost as bad are the number of people who claim that God couldn't possibly have used evolution to create the species.
You misunderstand the evolutionary niche the AOL parasites occupy- their purpose is specifically designed to lower the IQ of the net by reducing the digital divide- this is simply the next logical step and I'm surprised they didn't do it earlier (like about 5 years ago when EMachines and PeoplePC did.....)
I know that their connection software is bloatware- but isn't this a bit on the ridiculous side? Then again- it's been a while since I priced hard drives- perhaps the 10GB models are no longer available?
Yep- that would be good. West of the Cascades too. But that would be a bit harder- since there's a mountain range in between the Cascades and the ocean....
The only honest politician is the ONE THAT STAYS BOUGHT. Didn't you ever hear that cliche before?
And the answer to your second question is- because there's nobody else to vote for, at least yet. Eventually there will be- I'm involved in the process of a new political party based on middle class morals and middle class finances- but our website won't be out until November (and our maximum donation limit is $10 per person, $500,000 total for our Presidential Campaign, just to show that we aren't bought and we know how to use money better than the major parties do).
At any rate- if I was them I'd do anything not to get arrested again- which should drive his recidivism rate down (at least, being arrested in the same county). The fact that it isn't- what kind of idiot, guilty or innocent, allows themselves to be arrested by this man twice?
They're not idiots- they're just well paid and honest politicians. And we all know what passes for honesty in a politician...
Like I said- maybe the bugs were simple enough to do this- but given Microsoft's history- do you really believe that their bugs are that simple?