That's a statement so profoundly wrong that I'm not sure quite where to begin.
I never labeled a system of beliefs "logic". A logical argument is and always has been a logical argument.
may well drastically change in 100-200 years
If the argument is valid, the only things which can change over time is the premises. The argument itself remains the same.
Sorry to be so blunt, but are you sure you understand what logic is?
you nor I know how "life" not human life but "life" started.
Actually, we have some very good ideas. Google abiogenesis, look it up on TalkOrigins, or I'll get you a quick YouTube video which explains one very simple theory of abiogenesis in about ten minutes.
Because you do not posses the faculties to comprehend a creator
Are you asserting that I don't, or do you think I've said that somewhere?
I can imagine a creator doing this, sure. I can also imagine fairies or unicorns. The question is whether or not a belief is true, not whether or not it can be understood.
not make saying something had to make it and something had to make that and because of that pattern you can't discern a clear starting point a valid argument...
Well, I've assumed you don't endorse the position of infinite regress, where you accept that each creator had to itself have a creator -- that it's turtles all the way down.
Is that the position you're taking?
I can't picture an end to the universe either and there is no proof to say that it does end,
There's a lot of evidence to suggest that the universe will end, at least, by any livable measure. Aside from the heat-death, there's also the point at which the space between atoms itself expands fast enough to rip them apart.
I've flat-out skipped a few of your sentences, as they were run-on and just painful to read -- and most importantly, because I actually can't figure out what you're trying to say. Take a writing class, dude.
I came from somewhere and so did you,
Yes. I came from my parents.
if you tell me two particles collided and that's why we are here
Which I won't. Never have.
I will ask where those particles came from
If you mean particles in general, we know exactly where they came from -- larger particles were formed in stars. Smaller ones, like protons, neutrons, and electrons, were formed a few fractions of a second after the Big Bang.
much the same way you ask who created the creator...
The difference is that we have verifiable evidence for the existence of particles, and we can say with some confidence what the big picture was right up to a few fractions of a second after the Big Bang. We can also say, on a smaller scale, most of what evolution was doing, right back to single-celled organisms, and we have some good ideas about how single-celled organisms formed, through pure chemistry, out of organic molecules which were plentiful on the planet at that time.
The only gap, if you can call it that, is the beginning of the universe, at which point we can say, we know the Big Bang happened, we know what the Universe looked like these fractions of a second after, but we don't know what caused it, or if causality even applies.
In other words, unlike you, we actually have the humility to say "We don't know."
You, on the other hand, have run into a gap, and you've thrown God in there. Yet it doesn't really explain anything, because you don't know where God came from.
So we both have an infinity of unknowns. The difference is that you've made up a being and decided that this being has to go into one of those unknowns.
First, one of the biggest flaws in the computer science programs I've seen is that they don't always teach programming. People don't always know what they want to be by the time they get to college.
Second, because a well-rounded education helps in general, not just with the programming. For instance, one thing any programmer should be able to do is write good documentation. Another thing it would be useful for every programmer to be able to do is deal with users and specs.
And third, three languages "fluently", I wouldn't call a valuable skill. Knowing many languages decently is good, but more than one or two fluently is probably not incredibly useful, depending on the field. I would say I know Ruby and Javascript fluently, and SQL barely, and that's what I need for web development. More than that might be occasionally useful (C, for some fast extension) -- but this is actually on the job. And you want three languages before you even apply -- sorry, no.
I think what would make more sense is a standardized certification, but that has its own problems...
That's one reason I'm trying to get back into a four-year school right now. I was on the job, and doing what I still think is good work, for the better part of a year without understanding what O() notation even was. I still don't actually know what "NP-complete" means.
I think I'm still a decent programmer, and many of the classic algorithms and data structures can be abstracted away with modern tools. But I can see the holes in my knowledge.
just because it doesn't make sense to you and you do not understand the purpose doesn't make it not so.
I didn't say anything about purpose in what you're quoting here. What I said does make perfect sense as an argument against your god, and your only response is that I "don't understand".
Substitute anything else for "god" and you might begin to see why this isn't a good argument. If you said "Santa Claus Exists!" and I said "No he doesn't. Look, it's physically impossible for one man to visit every chimney in a single night. He'd at least be breaking the sound barrier -- do you hear a sonic boom?"
Would it be a valid response to say "Just because you don't understand, doesn't mean Santa doesn't exist!"
I have the humility to say..I don't know..
Bullshit. You said, and I quote: "Until then I'm gonna have to believe we were designed like we were on purpose." If you really and truly didn't know, why would you believe that?
It might surprise you, but most atheists actually do say we don't know. Atheist means, simply, lack of belief in a god. I don't know with certainty that unicorns don't exist, but I don't believe in unicorns. I have the humility to say I don't know, but I have the balls to say, "Probably not."
You think walking around on your two feet and talking to people puts you on par with some sort of ancient mystical power?
I'll PayPal you $5 right now if you can find me saying those words.
Oh, you can't? Then please don't put words in my mouth.
Your whole argument is based on the assumption that complex and beautiful things need a designer. Unless you wish to change that argument (laid out so clearly in your original post), logically, any explanation you provide for a complex and beautiful thing (God) which doesn't need a designer would show that your original argument is flawed.
Now, if you believe we need a designer and God doesn't, please explain again why we need a designer, and also why the same argument doesn't apply to God.
all your logic is, is arrogance.
You've completely misinterpreted everything I said so far. You've put words in my mouth, and you've blatantly assumed that everyone who doesn't believe is being arrogant, without bothering to explore why it is they don't believe, or what their attitude actually is.
So who is really being arrogant here?
when you make an organic computer
Please explain why it must be organic. I was talking about improving on the original design -- why do you assume that an organic brain is the best kind?
with free will
Please explain what free will is, and prove that humans have it. I actually have some serious doubts that free will exists at all.
and power it from something as simple as food and water
Food and water is far from simple -- if you dispute this, I dare you to try to consume a food as simple as hydrogen or electricity, both of which can be used to power a computer.
you missed my point that our ability to improve our own designs is a built in perk...
Actually, you never made that point until now.
But your entire point is that we are so elegantly designed that we must have been created. When I point out that we really aren't that elegantly designed, and that anyone with even a rudimentary understanding of biology can improve on the designs, you say that obviously, it's a gift (from our creator) that we can improve on the designs.
You really don't see that this is circular reasoning?
In fact, you've effectively countered your original argument. Your original argument was this:
When you can make... a computer as complex as the human brain you can be as arrogant as yo
I think this is my point: God is always outside the realm of science, by definition. This is exactly why we can never expect science to provide any evidence about his (non-)existence.
The problem is that he's also not falsifiable. If he were put into testable, falsifiable terms, he could be proven to exist or not. But my point is this:
You rightly say that evidence that prayers are answered, if any existed, would not be evidence of the existence of God, just evidence that something answers prayers.
But so far, all the evidence we have points to nothing answering prayers. And this is true for pretty much every study of this kind. Very occasionally, we find something we can't explain, and later, we explain it. We pretty much never find evidence that would even support the existence of a god, even if it wouldn't be "proof" (or strong evidence).
If there was a real god who really did interact with the world, answer prayers and such, wouldn't you expect that we'd have found something?
That's my point. Science doesn't prove or disprove anything, but we can find evidence for or against a deity, even if that evidence isn't conclusive. So far, all the evidence that says anything about the subject would suggest that there is no deity.
The bible is a fiction story with a message, it tells parables, fictional stories that relay a truth or an important thing. They aren't to be believed literally.
I can accept that, though I would say that the truths and important things in the Bible are much more easily found elsewhere, and without being muddled by the kind of actual scripture which supports lunatics like Fred Phelps.
That is: It's not a case of alternate interpretations. If you read Leviticus, the God of the bible really does tell us to kill homosexuals. "God Hates Fags" isn't that far from what you actually find in scripture.
So, with all due respect, if you are wanting a story with a moral, you're probably better off with Aesop's Fables.
I do actually agree with most of what you say, and I think the world would be better of if more people understood it -- though I think you're stretching a bit to make the metaphor work:
Johna didn't get swallowed by "a really big fish" it's a story that says be patient and you will get what you want.
I thought the reason he got swallowed by the fish was that he wouldn't go preach? I don't remember it having anything to do with patience.
But you're probably right in that, where things weren't outright invented or borrowed (December 25th, for instance), they were probably a story that got exaggerated along the way.
let's turn that around, and use the evolutionist's argument against him.
Fail #1: "evolutionist" isn't a word.
The appendix has no function that we know of, so it must have evolved away.
I don't believe I've ever claimed that.
The point is, rather, that it makes sense as a vestigal organ. Look it up.
That is: Evolution actually can explain the appendix, easily, without the handwaving you've just accused us of. Watchmaker arguments, as yet, cannot.
This is, by the way, why there's no such word as "evolutionist" -- those who reject evolution tend not to have a very good understanding of it.
Recent studies, as already pointed out in this thread, have begun to hint at current functions of the appendix. So, all of a sudden, the "proves evolution because it evolved away" becomes "proves evolution because it's so useful."
I don't think I've ever said that, either. In fact, I'll PayPal you $5 if you can find me saying that, ever.
So no matter what you come up with, and whatever things change, it's _always_ taken as proof for evolution.
Actually, there's one very obvious thing you could do to disprove Evolution:
I'm sure you can think of something yourself. Fact is, there's an overwhelming amount of evidence for evolution, and there are all kinds of falsifiable predictions it makes -- meaning, there are specific ways you could prove them wrong, if they were wrong.
On the contrary, many Christians profess unshakable faith. Several, when I have asked them point-blank, claim that nothing could shake their faith -- that faith is thus un-falsifiable.
It was a rhetorical question. If you are claiming that we must have been designed because we work so well, and you are assuming that we were designed by a god, wouldn't you say the god who designed us is more complex, more intricate, and works better?
If so, your god fits the same logical criteria you've given for why humans must be designed. Therefore, your god must've been designed, and his designer must be infinitely more complex, more intricate, smarter, etc, than him.
And so on.
If you say that God needs no designer, why is that? Whatever reason you give will certainly apply to us, too.
everything we discover or make works becuase of rules here long before us.
And?
If by "rules", you mean physical laws, I don't get your point. If your point is that an intelligence must've created those laws, well, why?
how long till we augment our brains with that power,
I'm not sure why that's relevant. This was a direct response to your statement here:
When you can make... a computer as complex as the human brain you can be as arrogant as you want.
In a few years, I'll probably be able to. Can I be arrogant then?
In a word: pwned.
But let's follow your speculation: If we create a cyborg brain, over half of which is engineered by humans, and the other half perhaps genetically engineered, I think we can take a little credit for creating a better brain than God supposedly did. Even if we leave the biological part alone, we've still improved on the original "design".
why the fuck are you asking me this?
Because you were making a watchmaker argument.
Evolution has little to do with this -- I was merely pointing out that since you claimed we were designed on purpose, please explain why the designer gave us an appendix.
Another reply has actually provided me with an explanation of that, so you get a bonus question: Since design-ists love to point to the structure of the eye, why don't we have eyes in our fingers? It'd sure have been useful the last time I was trying to replace a hard drive in my server, and couldn't quite see where my fingers were...
The person who wrote the volume of books titled: "The Rules of Evidence" would differ with you.
Lawyers are not scientists, and we've had this discussion before.
This man, named Simon Greenleaf, was one of the founders of Harvard Law School. I think he knew a little bit more about evidence and its presentation than you do.
You have a habit of making several logical fallacies per argument, at least one every two paragraphs, the last time we debated here. Do you recognize this one? It's called "Appeal to authority."
Please point out why my argument is wrong, rather than simply asserting that there's someone who's smarter than me who knows why I'm wrong.
When eyewitnesses testify, it is assumed in any court of law, that these witnesses are telling the TRUTH. It is incumbent upon the opposing party to bring forth evidence why the witnesses should be doubted.
Then I ask you: Has Hume's rule ever been tested in a court of law?
That is, has an eyewitness ever made a claim which was so miraculous that it would be much more believable for the testimony to be faulty?
First: I suspect this has happened, probably many times. Eyewitnesses can be shown to be lying, and one way is through inconsistencies, which we do see in the gospels. It can also be assumed that an eyewitness is either lying or deluded when they make a claim that is, as far as anyone knows, impossible -- has a court of law ever recognized any supernatural explanation, given only eyewitness testimony?
And second: We are not talking about legal evidence, but scientific evidence. And law is a poor guide for what should be -- do you agree with the DMCA, that it should be illegal to play a DVD with open source software? Please explain why I should assume that these eyewitnesses are telling the truth.
It is incumbent upon the opposing party to bring forth evidence why the witnesses should be doubted.
Exhibit A: All of our current scientific knowledge, which is based upon far more eyewitness testimony and repeated (and re-repeated, exhaustively repeated ad-nauseum) experiments, offers no plausible explanation for most of the miracles of Jesus. Last time we discussed this, you attempted (and failed) to explain them -- yes, I know an omnipotent being could easily do these things, but we also have no scientific evidence that an omnipotent being is even possible, let alone that one exists.
Exhibit B: People get eyewitness testimony wrong. Do you remember what you had for dinner last night? Do you remember what color tie your best man wore at your wedding? We can screw up stories of things that only happened a few days ago, and we tend to embellish. Now imagine something re-told several decades after the fact, and I am being generous in assuming all the original eyewitnesses are alive for this.
Exhibit C: People sometimes deliberately lie, in order to support a point of view. Martin Luther is quoted as saying, "What would it matter if, for the sake of the Christian Church, one were to tell a big lie?" Whether or not that quote is accurate, many people do, in fact, believe this.
Conclusion: It is not only possible, but likely, that these eyewitness accounts are faulty.
Again, if you take away that assumption that these people are telling the truth, and start to wonder what it would mean if the account were faulty -- in what way it might be faulty, and what that would imply -- then come back and talk, and it might be an interesting discussion. You seem to be unwilling to make that leap:
Peter was not talking about hearsay or secondhand information, but is testifying to what he actually saw and heard really happening.
You are assuming:
That your translation has no errors.
That the work you've translated has not been modified or edited.
That the original version of this work was actually transcribed b
As you so eloquently put it: citation, please. That story, which you have taken from a propaganda film,
That was where I found it, but the story is from the Egyptian Book of the Dead. There's your citation.
However, your link seems accurate. The three disputed points, I don't really care about, as those are three points out of, from the same website, 36 similar points, including the baptizer who was beheaded, various names (Lazarus, etc), walked on water...
The point was to give a quick summary. You don't have to dig very deep to find such comparisons -- also mentioned are Mithra and Krishna. It's widely accepted, for instance, that December 25th was not Jesus' birth.
The fact that so many features of the story show up in other stories which are known to be older (and which we have independent verification are older) suggests that at least some of the Jesus story is fictional, adapted to fit the popular religions of the time. Among intelligent Christians, Genesis is generally accepted to be metaphor or pure fiction. It all leads us back to the same problem -- if the Bible can be metaphor or pure fiction in some places, how do we know which places are fiction, and which aren't?
The obvious answer would be independent verification, but we don't really have much in the way of independent verification of Jesus' miracles, so I don't accept those as evidence for a god.
Unlike Christianity, there is evidence that it works, and good reasons for believing it.
It's quite simple: The number of revolutionary things we'll discover are tiny compared to the number of everyday things we'll discover, and this has historically been the case. We even apply this on a small, individual basis -- say you think you hear something go bump in the night. When you check it out, and find nothing, do you assume it was your imagination, or do you assume it was a ghost?
I would argue it's an essential part of the scientific method. Consider the opposite, for a moment: Should we take the strangest, most complicated explanation possible? Whether or not they ended up being true, our explanations would certainly be so complex and meandering, and most of them (true or not) would be invented, that it wouldn't really be an advance of knowledge at all, merely speculation.
So even if it's not a terribly good reason, there is at least one solid, entirely selfish reason for applying Occam's Razor: It tends towards a simpler, more easily understood view of the world. If additional evidence proves it to be wrong, fine, but for the moment, it has the advantage of being no less accurate, but much more easily understood.
And again, through repeated application of this rule, we can see that the simplest explanations are more often. So there is a good reason to apply Occam's Razor even if it didn't work, and there's evidence that it does work.
Christianity, however, has no evidence beyond faulty testimony from a single source, and no good reason I know of to believe it.
As for myself, I apply an additional philosophy, which supports Occam's Razor: Practicality. If I know what equations describe physical motion, it makes absolutely no difference to me whether these equations describe real, actual motion, or merely state changes in a gigantic simulation. The effect is the same, so to avoid spending my life pondering a meaningless question, I largely ignore the more complex "simulation" explanation, and focus on the material explanation.
"what are the ramifications if the earth goes 'round the sun"
Yes, and last time they asked that question, they decided the ramifications were so terrible that to suggest the idea was blasphemy, and that anyone who so blasphemed would be put to death.
I suppose what's hilarious to me is that it took so long for the church to start to look at this.
Of course, I am also an atheist, so I also find it quite amusing the contortions the Church has to go through to absorb new information, and to change their own religion to accommodate it. But at least they are starting to get a sense of perspective. The real, observable universe is so much grander, so much more awe-inspiring to me than the wildest dreams of a tribe of desert nomads, whose religion seems so petty and small by comparison.
The fact that I can't personally do something doesn't mean it must've been a deity. If you examine it a bit further, ask yourself: Who designed God? If your answer is nothing, why not skip a step and say nothing designed the universe?
Oh, and current estimates are that a supercomputer will surpass the computational power of the human brain in only a few years.
Finally, please explain how elegant the human appendix is, what divine purpose it was put here to fulfill? It's a lot harder to explain that one with religion -- yet it makes perfect sense from the standpoint of evolutionary biology.
AlpineR gave a nice summary of the First Cause argument. Yes, it was all covered by Aquinas, and has also been countered for centuries. All I have to add is that to the best of our knowledge, the Big Bang was the beginning of time itself. But we don't actually know that -- we only know what happened up to a tiny fraction of a second before the Big Bang. For all we know, there could be an immensity of time, perhaps infinite, before that.
I fail to see how science and Catholicism disagree.
Really? You can't imagine how?
I'll give you a hint: According to all known physical laws, it is impossible for someone to be dead for three days and then come back to life. It is also impossible for someone to walk on liquid water, or for water to become wine, or for that little cracker to become the flesh of a god.
Also if Copernicus (a Polish cleric), Galileo, and Newton can believe in God, I don't see why I can't.
Appeal to authority. If you really want to play that game, watch this. (Even if you don't, watch it anyway. It's worth watching.)
Otherwise, you have to ask why they believed, and whether their reasons were good ones.
It is up to you to prove that the combined witness of many is false.
By the combined witness of many, Aragorn, the newly-crowned king, led a desperate charge on the gates of Mordor.
Can you disprove it?
Think about how you know that is false -- or, at the very least, how it is that you don't know it to be true. The same is true of the Bible.
Similarly in a court of law if hundreds of people claim your client committed a murder it is up to you to prove that he didn't and that the witnesses are lying.
Only if those hundreds of people actually testify. You can't win a case by saying to the judge, "Your Honor, there are hundreds of people who saw the murder happen!" The judge will rightly ask, "Great! Where are they?"
Now, if you're talking about those who claim today to have seen this deity, the problem is that they can't even agree when they claim to have seen the same deity, and many claim to have seen other deities. If you show up in a court of law with hundreds (thousands!) of conflicting "eyewitness testimonies" of the murder, you're not very likely to get a conviction.
This claims in essence the science of belief, the science of the church.
To call that science is to rob the word "science" of any meaning, and to insult those who do real, hard science.
There is no proof necessary - on purpose.
In other words, there is faith, and that's enough?
Ok, fine, can't argue with that... but why do you believe one thing and not another? For example, why are you Christian and not Muslim, or Hindu, or Scientologist? None of these require proof, only faith. Why should your religion be special?
Science and religion must both exist based on humanity's current knowledge of the universe.
Why?
The true question is... does infinity exist? As far as we know, it hasn't been determined.
Actually, it has, in two respects:
We know that the observable universe has definite limits. It is large, but not infinite, either in space or in its history of time. Perhaps future observations will show an end to time, just as there is a beginning, or perhaps future observations will show an infinite history before the Big Bang, but for now, that doesn't exist.
The same can be said for the infinitely small -- look up Planck.
On the other hand, infinity does exist as a concept, and is very useful as such. Calculus is based on the idea of finding the limit of some expression as a variable approaches infinity -- thus, anyone who uses calculus uses the idea of infinity every day, though it's often hidden behind easier constructs like derivatives and integrals.
Infinity does exist in that it's all over my homework, and it works.
Perhaps you meant infinity in some deeper, spiritual sense, such as: Does an infinite being exist? In that case, you should've been clearer about what you meant.
As God is said to be a supernatural and transcendent being, it follows that no science can ever tell us anything about either his existence or non-existence.
Yet God is also said to interact with the natural world, and as such, there should be solid evidence for his existence. The fact that there isn't suggests that either he doesn't interact with the natural world (the Deist position), or that he doesn't exist. Between those two positions, Occam's Razor tends to reject Deism.
there is no scientific proof nor disproof of God's existence
Correct, because there is no scientific proof nor disproof of anything. There can, however, be evidence for and against a claim.
For example, if you claim that God answers prayers, there have been scientific studies done which show that prayer has no measurable effect. Now again, it's possible these studies were incomplete, and that a future study will show a very definite effect, but given the current evidence, the sane default position is that prayer has no effect.
And again: If science were to show that prayer had an effect, that wouldn't be "proof" of an omniscient, omnipotent, transcendent being. It would, however, be evidence to suggest that there is something which answers prayers, and it would be more evidence than exists to date for a god's existence.
Please give an example of accurately predicting the future.
As for the other claims, L. Ron Hubbard made them all. Simply making a claim isn't evidence of anything, or you would be a Scientologist, or something much stranger.
Please explain how someone would "prove" anything that happened 2000 years ago without relying on the books that were written at the time.
You're both wrong -- you wouldn't prove it, in that you can't prove anything.
But your evidence is entirely within the pages of a single flawed book. Compare this to the evidence for other historical figures, like Julius Caesar, for example.
And IrquiM is right in that it is up to you to provide evidence, if you want your claims to be taken seriously. Otherwise, the correct default position is nonbelief -- not disbelief, simply nonbelief.
the bible is a compilation of the best preserved writings from that time,
Mostly because they are the writings religion wanted to preserve. Just look at the writings which were rejected by the Council of Nicaea.
That, and the fact that someone felt the need to forge an entry by Josephus doesn't exactly help your case.
generally accepted from a HISTORICAL pov as accurate.
Citation, please. From a historical perspective, the Bible is a work of fiction which borrows heavily from other traditions. The Jesus story in particular is borrowed from all kinds of stories repeated through the ages, and is almost a complete ripoff of the story of Horus. Here's a quick summary of Horus, stolen from the movie Religulous:
Written in 1280 BC, the Egyptian Book of the Dead describes a god, Horus, the son of the god Osiris, born to a virgin mother. He was baptized in a river by Anup the Baptizer, who was later beheaded. Like Jesus, Horus was tempted while alone in the desert, healed the sick, the blind, cast out demons, and walked on water. He raised Asar from the dead -- "Asar" translates to "Lazarus". Oh yeah, he also had 12 disciples. Yes, Horus was crucified first, and after 3 days, two women announced that Horus, the savior of humanity, had been resurrected.
Ignoring that, it's certainly one of the more self-contradictory accounts, and you have yet to answer Hume's challenge -- in order for testimony of a miracle to be believed, you must show that it would be more miraculous for the testimony to be wrong than for the event to have actually occurred.
Now, which seems more miraculous: That a man rose from the dead, or that the testimony was mistaken? Which seems more likely?
There are actually reasons why the computer simulation seems unlikely, just as most definitions of a god seem unlikely.
However, the simplest answer to this is Occam's Razor. Which seems simpler: A universe with a god frantically hiding evidence of his existence, for some perverse reason? A universe running in a simulation? Or a universe which is simply material, in which there is no god?
First: Science doesn't "prove" anything. The fact that you would suggest that it can tells me you don't have a very good understanding of science.
But it's also irrelevant. Just because there is something science doesn't understand or explain, doesn't mean "God did it" is an acceptable response. There have been a lot of things that couldn't be explained by science, which were understood to be acts of God -- lightning, for example -- which have since been explained by science.
If we are to assume something which we don't know, however, Occam's Razor suggests that "no deity exists" is by far the simplest and cleanest answer. If it's not a good answer, we should eventually find some evidence to suggest a deity.
There's a solution to those kinds of questions, also:
I do still occasionally have questions, but I very much take a "teach a man to fish" approach. I don't know about you, but I find it harder to remember the exact sequence of steps, by rote, the way most people seem to. But I've now got most of my family trained to at least try right-clicking and looking through the menus before they ask for help.
Now, granted, I still switch them to Linux where it makes sense. It usually doesn't, but that's mostly because there's something specific they need Windows for.
Slashdot Mirror
Thanks. I don't actually have a cover letter, but that's definitely something I should put there.
In other words, the curriculum would teach you everything except programming syntax?
Actually, that's starting to sound like an SE degree.
the system of beliefs which you label "logic"
That's a statement so profoundly wrong that I'm not sure quite where to begin.
I never labeled a system of beliefs "logic". A logical argument is and always has been a logical argument.
may well drastically change in 100-200 years
If the argument is valid, the only things which can change over time is the premises. The argument itself remains the same.
Sorry to be so blunt, but are you sure you understand what logic is?
you nor I know how "life" not human life but "life" started.
Actually, we have some very good ideas. Google abiogenesis, look it up on TalkOrigins, or I'll get you a quick YouTube video which explains one very simple theory of abiogenesis in about ten minutes.
Because you do not posses the faculties to comprehend a creator
Are you asserting that I don't, or do you think I've said that somewhere?
I can imagine a creator doing this, sure. I can also imagine fairies or unicorns. The question is whether or not a belief is true, not whether or not it can be understood.
not make saying something had to make it and something had to make that and because of that pattern you can't discern a clear starting point a valid argument...
Well, I've assumed you don't endorse the position of infinite regress, where you accept that each creator had to itself have a creator -- that it's turtles all the way down.
Is that the position you're taking?
I can't picture an end to the universe either and there is no proof to say that it does end,
There's a lot of evidence to suggest that the universe will end, at least, by any livable measure. Aside from the heat-death, there's also the point at which the space between atoms itself expands fast enough to rip them apart.
I've flat-out skipped a few of your sentences, as they were run-on and just painful to read -- and most importantly, because I actually can't figure out what you're trying to say. Take a writing class, dude.
I came from somewhere and so did you,
Yes. I came from my parents.
if you tell me two particles collided and that's why we are here
Which I won't. Never have.
I will ask where those particles came from
If you mean particles in general, we know exactly where they came from -- larger particles were formed in stars. Smaller ones, like protons, neutrons, and electrons, were formed a few fractions of a second after the Big Bang.
much the same way you ask who created the creator...
The difference is that we have verifiable evidence for the existence of particles, and we can say with some confidence what the big picture was right up to a few fractions of a second after the Big Bang. We can also say, on a smaller scale, most of what evolution was doing, right back to single-celled organisms, and we have some good ideas about how single-celled organisms formed, through pure chemistry, out of organic molecules which were plentiful on the planet at that time.
The only gap, if you can call it that, is the beginning of the universe, at which point we can say, we know the Big Bang happened, we know what the Universe looked like these fractions of a second after, but we don't know what caused it, or if causality even applies.
In other words, unlike you, we actually have the humility to say "We don't know."
You, on the other hand, have run into a gap, and you've thrown God in there. Yet it doesn't really explain anything, because you don't know where God came from.
So we both have an infinity of unknowns. The difference is that you've made up a being and decided that this being has to go into one of those unknowns.
I can say I don't know and still believe because
That's pretty stupid, for three reasons:
First, one of the biggest flaws in the computer science programs I've seen is that they don't always teach programming. People don't always know what they want to be by the time they get to college.
Second, because a well-rounded education helps in general, not just with the programming. For instance, one thing any programmer should be able to do is write good documentation. Another thing it would be useful for every programmer to be able to do is deal with users and specs.
And third, three languages "fluently", I wouldn't call a valuable skill. Knowing many languages decently is good, but more than one or two fluently is probably not incredibly useful, depending on the field. I would say I know Ruby and Javascript fluently, and SQL barely, and that's what I need for web development. More than that might be occasionally useful (C, for some fast extension) -- but this is actually on the job. And you want three languages before you even apply -- sorry, no.
I think what would make more sense is a standardized certification, but that has its own problems...
That's one reason I'm trying to get back into a four-year school right now. I was on the job, and doing what I still think is good work, for the better part of a year without understanding what O() notation even was. I still don't actually know what "NP-complete" means.
I think I'm still a decent programmer, and many of the classic algorithms and data structures can be abstracted away with modern tools. But I can see the holes in my knowledge.
your logic doesn't mean anything,
And your belief does?
just because it doesn't make sense to you and you do not understand the purpose doesn't make it not so.
I didn't say anything about purpose in what you're quoting here. What I said does make perfect sense as an argument against your god, and your only response is that I "don't understand".
Substitute anything else for "god" and you might begin to see why this isn't a good argument. If you said "Santa Claus Exists!" and I said "No he doesn't. Look, it's physically impossible for one man to visit every chimney in a single night. He'd at least be breaking the sound barrier -- do you hear a sonic boom?"
Would it be a valid response to say "Just because you don't understand, doesn't mean Santa doesn't exist!"
I have the humility to say..I don't know..
Bullshit. You said, and I quote: "Until then I'm gonna have to believe we were designed like we were on purpose." If you really and truly didn't know, why would you believe that?
It might surprise you, but most atheists actually do say we don't know. Atheist means, simply, lack of belief in a god. I don't know with certainty that unicorns don't exist, but I don't believe in unicorns. I have the humility to say I don't know, but I have the balls to say, "Probably not."
You think walking around on your two feet and talking to people puts you on par with some sort of ancient mystical power?
I'll PayPal you $5 right now if you can find me saying those words.
Oh, you can't? Then please don't put words in my mouth.
Your whole argument is based on the assumption that complex and beautiful things need a designer. Unless you wish to change that argument (laid out so clearly in your original post), logically, any explanation you provide for a complex and beautiful thing (God) which doesn't need a designer would show that your original argument is flawed.
Now, if you believe we need a designer and God doesn't, please explain again why we need a designer, and also why the same argument doesn't apply to God.
all your logic is, is arrogance.
You've completely misinterpreted everything I said so far. You've put words in my mouth, and you've blatantly assumed that everyone who doesn't believe is being arrogant, without bothering to explore why it is they don't believe, or what their attitude actually is.
So who is really being arrogant here?
when you make an organic computer
Please explain why it must be organic. I was talking about improving on the original design -- why do you assume that an organic brain is the best kind?
with free will
Please explain what free will is, and prove that humans have it. I actually have some serious doubts that free will exists at all.
and power it from something as simple as food and water
Food and water is far from simple -- if you dispute this, I dare you to try to consume a food as simple as hydrogen or electricity, both of which can be used to power a computer.
you missed my point that our ability to improve our own designs is a built in perk...
Actually, you never made that point until now.
But your entire point is that we are so elegantly designed that we must have been created. When I point out that we really aren't that elegantly designed, and that anyone with even a rudimentary understanding of biology can improve on the designs, you say that obviously, it's a gift (from our creator) that we can improve on the designs.
You really don't see that this is circular reasoning?
In fact, you've effectively countered your original argument. Your original argument was this:
When you can make... a computer as complex as the human brain you can be as arrogant as yo
I think this is my point: God is always outside the realm of science, by definition. This is exactly why we can never expect science to provide any evidence about his (non-)existence.
The problem is that he's also not falsifiable. If he were put into testable, falsifiable terms, he could be proven to exist or not. But my point is this:
You rightly say that evidence that prayers are answered, if any existed, would not be evidence of the existence of God, just evidence that something answers prayers.
But so far, all the evidence we have points to nothing answering prayers. And this is true for pretty much every study of this kind. Very occasionally, we find something we can't explain, and later, we explain it. We pretty much never find evidence that would even support the existence of a god, even if it wouldn't be "proof" (or strong evidence).
If there was a real god who really did interact with the world, answer prayers and such, wouldn't you expect that we'd have found something?
That's my point. Science doesn't prove or disprove anything, but we can find evidence for or against a deity, even if that evidence isn't conclusive. So far, all the evidence that says anything about the subject would suggest that there is no deity.
The bible is a fiction story with a message, it tells parables, fictional stories that relay a truth or an important thing. They aren't to be believed literally.
I can accept that, though I would say that the truths and important things in the Bible are much more easily found elsewhere, and without being muddled by the kind of actual scripture which supports lunatics like Fred Phelps.
That is: It's not a case of alternate interpretations. If you read Leviticus, the God of the bible really does tell us to kill homosexuals. "God Hates Fags" isn't that far from what you actually find in scripture.
So, with all due respect, if you are wanting a story with a moral, you're probably better off with Aesop's Fables.
I do actually agree with most of what you say, and I think the world would be better of if more people understood it -- though I think you're stretching a bit to make the metaphor work:
Johna didn't get swallowed by "a really big fish" it's a story that says be patient and you will get what you want.
I thought the reason he got swallowed by the fish was that he wouldn't go preach? I don't remember it having anything to do with patience.
But you're probably right in that, where things weren't outright invented or borrowed (December 25th, for instance), they were probably a story that got exaggerated along the way.
let's turn that around, and use the evolutionist's argument against him.
Fail #1: "evolutionist" isn't a word.
The appendix has no function that we know of, so it must have evolved away.
I don't believe I've ever claimed that.
The point is, rather, that it makes sense as a vestigal organ. Look it up.
That is: Evolution actually can explain the appendix, easily, without the handwaving you've just accused us of. Watchmaker arguments, as yet, cannot.
This is, by the way, why there's no such word as "evolutionist" -- those who reject evolution tend not to have a very good understanding of it.
Recent studies, as already pointed out in this thread, have begun to hint at current functions of the appendix. So, all of a sudden, the "proves evolution because it evolved away" becomes "proves evolution because it's so useful."
I don't think I've ever said that, either. In fact, I'll PayPal you $5 if you can find me saying that, ever.
So no matter what you come up with, and whatever things change, it's _always_ taken as proof for evolution.
Actually, there's one very obvious thing you could do to disprove Evolution:
Bunnies in the Cambrian!
I'm sure you can think of something yourself. Fact is, there's an overwhelming amount of evidence for evolution, and there are all kinds of falsifiable predictions it makes -- meaning, there are specific ways you could prove them wrong, if they were wrong.
On the contrary, many Christians profess unshakable faith. Several, when I have asked them point-blank, claim that nothing could shake their faith -- that faith is thus un-falsifiable.
I have no idea and neither do you,
It was a rhetorical question. If you are claiming that we must have been designed because we work so well, and you are assuming that we were designed by a god, wouldn't you say the god who designed us is more complex, more intricate, and works better?
If so, your god fits the same logical criteria you've given for why humans must be designed. Therefore, your god must've been designed, and his designer must be infinitely more complex, more intricate, smarter, etc, than him.
And so on.
If you say that God needs no designer, why is that? Whatever reason you give will certainly apply to us, too.
everything we discover or make works becuase of rules here long before us.
And?
If by "rules", you mean physical laws, I don't get your point. If your point is that an intelligence must've created those laws, well, why?
how long till we augment our brains with that power,
I'm not sure why that's relevant. This was a direct response to your statement here:
When you can make... a computer as complex as the human brain you can be as arrogant as you want.
In a few years, I'll probably be able to. Can I be arrogant then?
In a word: pwned.
But let's follow your speculation: If we create a cyborg brain, over half of which is engineered by humans, and the other half perhaps genetically engineered, I think we can take a little credit for creating a better brain than God supposedly did. Even if we leave the biological part alone, we've still improved on the original "design".
why the fuck are you asking me this?
Because you were making a watchmaker argument.
Evolution has little to do with this -- I was merely pointing out that since you claimed we were designed on purpose, please explain why the designer gave us an appendix.
Another reply has actually provided me with an explanation of that, so you get a bonus question: Since design-ists love to point to the structure of the eye, why don't we have eyes in our fingers? It'd sure have been useful the last time I was trying to replace a hard drive in my server, and couldn't quite see where my fingers were...
The person who wrote the volume of books titled: "The Rules of Evidence" would differ with you.
Lawyers are not scientists, and we've had this discussion before.
This man, named Simon Greenleaf, was one of the founders of Harvard Law School. I think he knew a little bit more about evidence and its presentation than you do.
You have a habit of making several logical fallacies per argument, at least one every two paragraphs, the last time we debated here. Do you recognize this one? It's called "Appeal to authority."
Please point out why my argument is wrong, rather than simply asserting that there's someone who's smarter than me who knows why I'm wrong.
When eyewitnesses testify, it is assumed in any court of law, that these witnesses are telling the TRUTH. It is incumbent upon the opposing party to bring forth evidence why the witnesses should be doubted.
Then I ask you: Has Hume's rule ever been tested in a court of law?
That is, has an eyewitness ever made a claim which was so miraculous that it would be much more believable for the testimony to be faulty?
First: I suspect this has happened, probably many times. Eyewitnesses can be shown to be lying, and one way is through inconsistencies, which we do see in the gospels. It can also be assumed that an eyewitness is either lying or deluded when they make a claim that is, as far as anyone knows, impossible -- has a court of law ever recognized any supernatural explanation, given only eyewitness testimony?
And second: We are not talking about legal evidence, but scientific evidence. And law is a poor guide for what should be -- do you agree with the DMCA, that it should be illegal to play a DVD with open source software? Please explain why I should assume that these eyewitnesses are telling the truth.
It is incumbent upon the opposing party to bring forth evidence why the witnesses should be doubted.
Exhibit A: All of our current scientific knowledge, which is based upon far more eyewitness testimony and repeated (and re-repeated, exhaustively repeated ad-nauseum) experiments, offers no plausible explanation for most of the miracles of Jesus. Last time we discussed this, you attempted (and failed) to explain them -- yes, I know an omnipotent being could easily do these things, but we also have no scientific evidence that an omnipotent being is even possible, let alone that one exists.
Exhibit B: People get eyewitness testimony wrong. Do you remember what you had for dinner last night? Do you remember what color tie your best man wore at your wedding? We can screw up stories of things that only happened a few days ago, and we tend to embellish. Now imagine something re-told several decades after the fact, and I am being generous in assuming all the original eyewitnesses are alive for this.
Exhibit C: People sometimes deliberately lie, in order to support a point of view. Martin Luther is quoted as saying, "What would it matter if, for the sake of the Christian Church, one were to tell a big lie?" Whether or not that quote is accurate, many people do, in fact, believe this.
Conclusion: It is not only possible, but likely, that these eyewitness accounts are faulty.
Again, if you take away that assumption that these people are telling the truth, and start to wonder what it would mean if the account were faulty -- in what way it might be faulty, and what that would imply -- then come back and talk, and it might be an interesting discussion. You seem to be unwilling to make that leap:
Peter was not talking about hearsay or secondhand information, but is testifying to what he actually saw and heard really happening.
You are assuming:
You mean the Council of Trent [wikipedia.org].
No, I mean the Council of Nicaea.
As you so eloquently put it: citation, please. That story, which you have taken from a propaganda film,
That was where I found it, but the story is from the Egyptian Book of the Dead. There's your citation.
However, your link seems accurate. The three disputed points, I don't really care about, as those are three points out of, from the same website, 36 similar points, including the baptizer who was beheaded, various names (Lazarus, etc), walked on water...
The point was to give a quick summary. You don't have to dig very deep to find such comparisons -- also mentioned are Mithra and Krishna. It's widely accepted, for instance, that December 25th was not Jesus' birth.
The fact that so many features of the story show up in other stories which are known to be older (and which we have independent verification are older) suggests that at least some of the Jesus story is fictional, adapted to fit the popular religions of the time. Among intelligent Christians, Genesis is generally accepted to be metaphor or pure fiction. It all leads us back to the same problem -- if the Bible can be metaphor or pure fiction in some places, how do we know which places are fiction, and which aren't?
The obvious answer would be independent verification, but we don't really have much in the way of independent verification of Jesus' miracles, so I don't accept those as evidence for a god.
Unlike Christianity, there is evidence that it works, and good reasons for believing it.
It's quite simple: The number of revolutionary things we'll discover are tiny compared to the number of everyday things we'll discover, and this has historically been the case. We even apply this on a small, individual basis -- say you think you hear something go bump in the night. When you check it out, and find nothing, do you assume it was your imagination, or do you assume it was a ghost?
I would argue it's an essential part of the scientific method. Consider the opposite, for a moment: Should we take the strangest, most complicated explanation possible? Whether or not they ended up being true, our explanations would certainly be so complex and meandering, and most of them (true or not) would be invented, that it wouldn't really be an advance of knowledge at all, merely speculation.
So even if it's not a terribly good reason, there is at least one solid, entirely selfish reason for applying Occam's Razor: It tends towards a simpler, more easily understood view of the world. If additional evidence proves it to be wrong, fine, but for the moment, it has the advantage of being no less accurate, but much more easily understood.
And again, through repeated application of this rule, we can see that the simplest explanations are more often. So there is a good reason to apply Occam's Razor even if it didn't work, and there's evidence that it does work.
Christianity, however, has no evidence beyond faulty testimony from a single source, and no good reason I know of to believe it.
As for myself, I apply an additional philosophy, which supports Occam's Razor: Practicality. If I know what equations describe physical motion, it makes absolutely no difference to me whether these equations describe real, actual motion, or merely state changes in a gigantic simulation. The effect is the same, so to avoid spending my life pondering a meaningless question, I largely ignore the more complex "simulation" explanation, and focus on the material explanation.
Actually, I doubt that. It seems to me that religion is on the decline, and that it's the insanity of the fundamentalists that's on the increase.
"what are the ramifications if the earth goes 'round the sun"
Yes, and last time they asked that question, they decided the ramifications were so terrible that to suggest the idea was blasphemy, and that anyone who so blasphemed would be put to death.
I suppose what's hilarious to me is that it took so long for the church to start to look at this.
Of course, I am also an atheist, so I also find it quite amusing the contortions the Church has to go through to absorb new information, and to change their own religion to accommodate it. But at least they are starting to get a sense of perspective. The real, observable universe is so much grander, so much more awe-inspiring to me than the wildest dreams of a tribe of desert nomads, whose religion seems so petty and small by comparison.
The fact that I can't personally do something doesn't mean it must've been a deity. If you examine it a bit further, ask yourself: Who designed God? If your answer is nothing, why not skip a step and say nothing designed the universe?
Oh, and current estimates are that a supercomputer will surpass the computational power of the human brain in only a few years.
Finally, please explain how elegant the human appendix is, what divine purpose it was put here to fulfill? It's a lot harder to explain that one with religion -- yet it makes perfect sense from the standpoint of evolutionary biology.
AlpineR gave a nice summary of the First Cause argument. Yes, it was all covered by Aquinas, and has also been countered for centuries. All I have to add is that to the best of our knowledge, the Big Bang was the beginning of time itself. But we don't actually know that -- we only know what happened up to a tiny fraction of a second before the Big Bang. For all we know, there could be an immensity of time, perhaps infinite, before that.
I fail to see how science and Catholicism disagree.
Really? You can't imagine how?
I'll give you a hint: According to all known physical laws, it is impossible for someone to be dead for three days and then come back to life. It is also impossible for someone to walk on liquid water, or for water to become wine, or for that little cracker to become the flesh of a god.
Also if Copernicus (a Polish cleric), Galileo, and Newton can believe in God, I don't see why I can't.
Appeal to authority. If you really want to play that game, watch this. (Even if you don't, watch it anyway. It's worth watching.)
Otherwise, you have to ask why they believed, and whether their reasons were good ones.
It is up to you to prove that the combined witness of many is false.
By the combined witness of many, Aragorn, the newly-crowned king, led a desperate charge on the gates of Mordor.
Can you disprove it?
Think about how you know that is false -- or, at the very least, how it is that you don't know it to be true. The same is true of the Bible.
Similarly in a court of law if hundreds of people claim your client committed a murder it is up to you to prove that he didn't and that the witnesses are lying.
Only if those hundreds of people actually testify. You can't win a case by saying to the judge, "Your Honor, there are hundreds of people who saw the murder happen!" The judge will rightly ask, "Great! Where are they?"
Now, if you're talking about those who claim today to have seen this deity, the problem is that they can't even agree when they claim to have seen the same deity, and many claim to have seen other deities. If you show up in a court of law with hundreds (thousands!) of conflicting "eyewitness testimonies" of the murder, you're not very likely to get a conviction.
This claims in essence the science of belief, the science of the church.
To call that science is to rob the word "science" of any meaning, and to insult those who do real, hard science.
There is no proof necessary - on purpose.
In other words, there is faith, and that's enough?
Ok, fine, can't argue with that... but why do you believe one thing and not another? For example, why are you Christian and not Muslim, or Hindu, or Scientologist? None of these require proof, only faith. Why should your religion be special?
Science and religion must both exist based on humanity's current knowledge of the universe.
Why?
The true question is... does infinity exist? As far as we know, it hasn't been determined.
Actually, it has, in two respects:
We know that the observable universe has definite limits. It is large, but not infinite, either in space or in its history of time. Perhaps future observations will show an end to time, just as there is a beginning, or perhaps future observations will show an infinite history before the Big Bang, but for now, that doesn't exist.
The same can be said for the infinitely small -- look up Planck.
On the other hand, infinity does exist as a concept, and is very useful as such. Calculus is based on the idea of finding the limit of some expression as a variable approaches infinity -- thus, anyone who uses calculus uses the idea of infinity every day, though it's often hidden behind easier constructs like derivatives and integrals.
Infinity does exist in that it's all over my homework, and it works.
Perhaps you meant infinity in some deeper, spiritual sense, such as: Does an infinite being exist? In that case, you should've been clearer about what you meant.
As God is said to be a supernatural and transcendent being, it follows that no science can ever tell us anything about either his existence or non-existence.
Yet God is also said to interact with the natural world, and as such, there should be solid evidence for his existence. The fact that there isn't suggests that either he doesn't interact with the natural world (the Deist position), or that he doesn't exist. Between those two positions, Occam's Razor tends to reject Deism.
there is no scientific proof nor disproof of God's existence
Correct, because there is no scientific proof nor disproof of anything. There can, however, be evidence for and against a claim.
For example, if you claim that God answers prayers, there have been scientific studies done which show that prayer has no measurable effect. Now again, it's possible these studies were incomplete, and that a future study will show a very definite effect, but given the current evidence, the sane default position is that prayer has no effect.
And again: If science were to show that prayer had an effect, that wouldn't be "proof" of an omniscient, omnipotent, transcendent being. It would, however, be evidence to suggest that there is something which answers prayers, and it would be more evidence than exists to date for a god's existence.
Please give an example of accurately predicting the future.
As for the other claims, L. Ron Hubbard made them all. Simply making a claim isn't evidence of anything, or you would be a Scientologist, or something much stranger.
Please explain how someone would "prove" anything that happened 2000 years ago without relying on the books that were written at the time.
You're both wrong -- you wouldn't prove it, in that you can't prove anything.
But your evidence is entirely within the pages of a single flawed book. Compare this to the evidence for other historical figures, like Julius Caesar, for example.
And IrquiM is right in that it is up to you to provide evidence, if you want your claims to be taken seriously. Otherwise, the correct default position is nonbelief -- not disbelief, simply nonbelief.
the bible is a compilation of the best preserved writings from that time,
Mostly because they are the writings religion wanted to preserve. Just look at the writings which were rejected by the Council of Nicaea.
That, and the fact that someone felt the need to forge an entry by Josephus doesn't exactly help your case.
generally accepted from a HISTORICAL pov as accurate.
Citation, please. From a historical perspective, the Bible is a work of fiction which borrows heavily from other traditions. The Jesus story in particular is borrowed from all kinds of stories repeated through the ages, and is almost a complete ripoff of the story of Horus. Here's a quick summary of Horus, stolen from the movie Religulous:
Written in 1280 BC, the Egyptian Book of the Dead describes a god, Horus, the son of the god Osiris, born to a virgin mother. He was baptized in a river by Anup the Baptizer, who was later beheaded. Like Jesus, Horus was tempted while alone in the desert, healed the sick, the blind, cast out demons, and walked on water. He raised Asar from the dead -- "Asar" translates to "Lazarus". Oh yeah, he also had 12 disciples. Yes, Horus was crucified first, and after 3 days, two women announced that Horus, the savior of humanity, had been resurrected.
Ignoring that, it's certainly one of the more self-contradictory accounts, and you have yet to answer Hume's challenge -- in order for testimony of a miracle to be believed, you must show that it would be more miraculous for the testimony to be wrong than for the event to have actually occurred.
Now, which seems more miraculous: That a man rose from the dead, or that the testimony was mistaken? Which seems more likely?
There are actually reasons why the computer simulation seems unlikely, just as most definitions of a god seem unlikely.
However, the simplest answer to this is Occam's Razor. Which seems simpler: A universe with a god frantically hiding evidence of his existence, for some perverse reason? A universe running in a simulation? Or a universe which is simply material, in which there is no god?
First: Science doesn't "prove" anything. The fact that you would suggest that it can tells me you don't have a very good understanding of science.
But it's also irrelevant. Just because there is something science doesn't understand or explain, doesn't mean "God did it" is an acceptable response. There have been a lot of things that couldn't be explained by science, which were understood to be acts of God -- lightning, for example -- which have since been explained by science.
If we are to assume something which we don't know, however, Occam's Razor suggests that "no deity exists" is by far the simplest and cleanest answer. If it's not a good answer, we should eventually find some evidence to suggest a deity.
There's a solution to those kinds of questions, also:
I do still occasionally have questions, but I very much take a "teach a man to fish" approach. I don't know about you, but I find it harder to remember the exact sequence of steps, by rote, the way most people seem to. But I've now got most of my family trained to at least try right-clicking and looking through the menus before they ask for help.
Now, granted, I still switch them to Linux where it makes sense. It usually doesn't, but that's mostly because there's something specific they need Windows for.