Regardless of what you learned from Behe's book, he has religious motives for taking his position.
And, I assume you aren't saying this is relevant to whether or not what he says is -true-, because that'd be textbook Genetic Fallacy.
he goes a step further and claims not just that science hasn't explained all the mechanisms of evolution
The cases haven't even been exhaustively enumerated--how would one do anything else than accurately note science hasn't explained them all? If you say it will before even defining the scope of proposable IC cases, well, sure, but that's simply untestable psychic assertion. More "hope" than science.
He then goes on to suggest that supernatural explanations should be considered since naturalistic ones are not up to the task.
Explanations outside the default context, and avoiding "naturalistic" as just being a tautological substitution for "what I think is natural", sure. Same as how someone might encounter a fluorescent cat, and wonder how we might explain that, and then investigate it to accurately conclude what is correct--design. In this case, design as fact, rather than design as hypothesis, but the only distinction really is if you like the time period we happen to be discussing being applied.
Of course, other scientists went on to prove him wrong about irreducible complexity,
Odd, people in biochem here don't even seem to be able to do that with -me- here. I'll need something way more definitive being presented on that claim with respect to Behe. Especially since claiming "proof" is anathema to claiming to be staying in the domain of science for all topics, for theist and atheist alike.
The common aspect of ID and creationism both is that they distrust established mainstream science, for reasons that don't really have anything to do with the science itself. The motives are political and religious. Neither contributes anything to scientific research or literature.
Okay, continue to claim this. It will likewise continue to be directly false. If -nothing else-, Darwin's Black Box contributed significantly to my knowledge of the several-hundred-item causal chains of immune response on a specific biochem level. If -nothing else-, it has necessitated closer specification of testability within propositional claims. And, naturally, it is wholly inappropriate to dismiss a priori a viewpoint which is backed in the respects it is, not backed in the respects it is not (with quite candid assessment of this by Behe et al), and open to further refinement. The Theory of Relativity would have been gone in the 1920's if it were a hundredth as stridently suppressed. Of course, it wasn't, despite being quite nascent itself in terms of testability--and we both know exactly why, and that those motivations have nothing to do with concern for the advancement of science.
You haven't even used the term "ID" in your demonstration of what "ID" supposedly is.
Typical.
Let me put it to you succinctly. "Creationism", as you use it, and imply it -must- be used, is an erroneously-constructed concept that includes two totally disparate concepts--the notion that the world was created thousands of years ago, and the notion there is a God. There is no necessary relationship between those two premises. "Creationism", as it is used typically, is simply presented so that this fallacious concept-formation can be embedded in a word and the demand to accept it in totality (both premises) or reject it in totality (both premises) can be presented.
Per Aristotle, who knew how to construct -proper- concepts, "Creationism" means -one thing only-, the premise that the universe was created by an intelligent being, irrespective of its age. Anyone hearing it used as an accretion of multiple premises should stop, realize they are dealing with someone so dishonest and irrational that these traits are embedded all the way down in their psyche to the very way they use words, and walk away.
One can believe the universe was created, and believe it is millions of years old. Period. This is a valid use of the term "Creationism", and any particular content beyond this requires specific qualification. Accreting it with any other premise as a definitional characteristic (again, per Aristotle) is just bullshit. Unfortunately, theists often don't realize the purpose of the term (though they should--embedding fallacies in individual words is par for the course in politics), and some actually adopt this usage. After that, no argument can be viable using the loaded word--which was the intent all along.
So, so much for "Creationism". As for the term I actually used, "ID", this is a view that overlaps, but is not synonymous, with Young Earth Creationism and Old Earth Creationism (and "designed by aliens", for that matter), and the overwhelming majority of people -supporting ID-, including the "founders", are Old Earth Creationists. I know they need to be definitionally the same for your argument you are parroting from Dawkins et al for the millionth time. Sorry, even though it's obviously useful and necessary for you to claim they are, they still aren't, and your premise is still false, the millionth-and-first time.
I trust you can work something so simple out without needed to bring in a Venn Diagram.
That's one of the great things about science: it's possible to test everything like this.
Ah, no, completely false. Did you even think to propose that a test to differentiate this finding from a one-off birth defect was necessary, as a hypothesis? I'm betting no, because this was presented as "science"--the general appearance of being so is generally immediately sufficient for most as long as the thing proposed being something they already want to agree with.
The reality is, the majority of propositions in the range of sciences are not testable, and propositions are held as supported by strength of inference from "knowns". This is particularly true in anthropology (give me that test that shows this pottery is from Culture X, just because it's of a style, material composition, and physical location of Culture X known to have been there--those are all "merely" inferential support), and becomes even more so as we move into "softer" sciences, such as psychology.
Even in the "hardest" of "hard sciences", physics, we still can't test whether the Copenhagen or Everett interpretation is true, after a century. Why are these proposals accepted as science? Because they have great inferential support from knowns, and, from your testable-only perspective, because it says it's science, and says something you like. That's good enough for 99% of the population. Only reason to object, really, is the simple fact that a scientist or science teacher, who, encountering a proposition he/she doesn't like, decides to exclude it based on testability criteria, is just a hypocrite with respect to the rest of his professional career, who is actively damaging science and people's understanding of science, for the momentary benefit of dismissing a particular personally-disliked proposition. If you actually value science, understand that this is actually quite a bit more nuanced than you suggest, and is an area where Philosophy of Science can be quite informative.
When you see your likeness, you are pleased. But when you see your images which came into existence before you, which neither die nor become manifest, how much you will have to bear!
--Darwin, concisely summarizing his Natural Selection theory, and the personal and social challenges accepting our pre-existing forms is likely to be, circa 1800
...oh wait, that was actually...
--Jesus, saying the same thing, a couple thousand years earlier
Seems pretty consistent over that time to me.
By the way, you may want to familiarize yourself with what a Bare Assertion Fallacy is.
ID in no way specifies a thousands-of-years-old Earth, as few theists per se do, but carry on with the boilerplate YEC Straw Man / outright deliberate lie, while you can.
So, just irrelevant relative distinctions regarding brain size, for which there are animal examples both less and greater than humans which you also don't ascribe rights to, rather than something which could justify it other than as a non-sequitur.
I'm already familiar with the other positions you mention. They also are philosophically incoherent in having no objective justification even offered for their purely subjective stances.
Probably innate. Slashdot is largely pro-atheism, and subconsciously, if not consciously, the average subscriber knows they need to deal with the "human" versus "animal" differentiation issue at some point, as naturalism gives them no basis to create a distinction.
Naturally, failure to have a justification for differentiation has tremendous ethical implications, of which sexual behavior is one. A nagging pull toward an issue that would be unremarkable except for one's own psychological inconsistencies is a natural result.
For some of us, i.e. those of us of a rather Gnostic outlook, we may as well just sit back and... ahem... let nature take its course.
Otherwise, the rantings of nearly dead people shouldn't be given any more credibility than the rantings of other people with defective brain activity
Well, I take it then, that you are not in the computer field, as otherwise you'd be aware this simply makes it much stronger evidence, as the idea that a particular compelling, structured, three-dimensional, auditory, representative simulation would be produced by any system while in a failure mode is absurdly unlikely. Try shorting out your PC (or, writing random bytes to memory), and see if this produces anything similar to, not a clear non-functioning of your currently-running applications, but something -entirely else- that has the nature of clearly being coherent, complex, and convincing (as the study I provided shows it is), but for in an entirely different context. You are telling me that Word failing should magically flip all the bits in memory necessary to play Quake, even when never installed. No.
As far as schizophrenia goes, well, you are simply factually wrong on your characterization that they "all hear voices", but your erroneous knowledge of psychiatry followed by your indirect ad hominem fallacy aside... yes, if someone heard voices and they did not exhibit other instances of erroneous thinking, and the experiences corresponded without contradiction to the expected content, yes, that would be evidence as well. Perhaps not evidence for -you-, but certainly evidence for -them- which, all your attempts to redirect and derail the point at hand aside, places it comfortably in the definition of "evidence".
As long as the prophecy does not provide the details needed to disprove it, typically a specific time reference, it can stand forever until proven.
Which, indeed they do, in the majority of cases, by multiple means. If a prophecy is made regarding culture/city X, we can consider it disproven if that culture/city goes out of existence without the prophecy being fulfilled. There are certainly boundary conditions. Again, you can thrash around with anecdotal objections as much as you like, but, at base, those would apply to a very fixed percentage of the prophecies, and I would need, say, two total to demonstrate it as evidence. Sure, you can hope that raising an objection to a premise in set X would refute all the premises in that set, even when it explicitly doesn't by reference to the particular case, but just be clear that has nothing to do with rational thought on your part.
There is no evidence GREATER THAN SOMEONE'S ASSERTION that god exists.
Well, I doubt you actually believe this, if you, say, read The Lancet study above, but in case you do, handily, it's actually provably epistemologically invalid for you to claim this. It is a claim to psychic powers on your part, that you know the particular evidence experienced or known by all people on Earth, and can make your claim by referring to them all in their own brains and noting the absence of anything stronger than your characterization. Whether this entails a claim to psychic powers on your part, or omniscience, or you're simply irrational--the claim is demonstrably false. This is basic epistemology.
But of course, no thinking person would ever do that, because there is no evidence any thinking person should accept as even approaching the bar required for credulity, much less proof.
Nice attempt to go for the summary win with "You're wrong because anybody who knows anything knows you're wrong", but, no. When you're capable of a coherent, non-fallacious argument, let's talk, and I'll give you the evidence I not only can think, but do it quite well both professionally and with respect to the officially-recognized objective metrics for this.
Well, arguing which elements are "flashbacks" would be an interesting discussion, but outside of my immediate purposes here on Slashdot.;)
Though, it does seem like an opportune moment to quote this...
Jesus saw infants being suckled. He said to his disciples, "These infants being suckled are like those who enter the kingdom."
They said to him, "Shall we then, as children, enter the kingdom?"
Jesus said to them, "When you make the two one, and when you make the inside like the outside and the outside like the inside, and the above like the below, and when you make the male and the female one and the same, so that the male not be male nor the female female; and when you fashion eyes in the place of an eye, and a hand in place of a hand, and a foot in place of a foot, and a likeness in place of a likeness; then will you enter the kingdom."
You obviously don't understand what "evidence" is.
Yes, I do.
the ramblings of people near death is not "evidence". those are called "anecdotes".
Yes, it is. If I have experienced something, my recounting of it in detail is evidence I have experienced it. I do not have to re-create the experience for you, for it to remain evidence. If you saw your girlfriend cheating on you, would your inability to prove that you did to me, mean it is no longer evidence that she did, that you may wish to act upon as evidence? No.
As for "anecdotes", a peer-reviewed study systematically characterizing the experiences (by one of the most prestigious medical journals in Europe, by the way), takes us out of the realm of mere anecdotal information. Here is a link, should you wish to review:
When your brain is DYING it's not surprising that there are certain effects that may be similar among people.
It is, however, extraordinary that those similar experiences happen to correspond to a complex, interactive experience that happens to "coincidentally" correspond directly with a particular metaphysical viewpoint, as perceived by those both believing in, and not believing in, that viewpoint.
We don't need some magic sky fairy or land of the dead to explain it.
Try to stick to the subject at hand, and not hand-wave and redirect. It makes you look desperate. I have not claimed we -need- my conclusion, merely that the experience is evidence for my conclusion--as it simply is. A piece of evidence need not lead to only one of several possibilities for it to be evidence of those possibilities, individually. That's just how it is and how evidence works, everywhere. As for "magic sky fairy"... I'm curious, why not simply use the standard terminology here, with the confidence that saying, say, "God" would lead to equal derision in the reader? Well, probably because you want to claim equivalence, while knowing there is not equivalence, which is the very reason you use this phrase instead, in a wholly logically-invalid manner. Yes, your intellectual dishonesty is that deep and automatic, down to the very verbal level, but, to be fair, you are not unique in this.
Prophecy fulfillment is simply ridiculous. Very few of them even make date range estimates, so the probability of something resembling any prophecy on a long enough timeline is nearly guaranteed, more so the more vague the prophecy
No, it is not. Accurate prediction of the maximum lifespan of man out into an unspecified future, which has held accurate, or specific description of a means of capital punishment which did not exist as of the time of writing, is not ridiculous. These are two of hundreds of examples I could forward. Claim it is "ridiculous" again, your claim will still will be exactly as false as it was this time.
As I stipulated, if we eliminate all possible cases of a self-fulfilling prophecy or an "overly vague" prophecy, it will still be greater that improbable to a degree >.5. It will in fact, be -vastly- more improbable, but discussing the individual merits of individual prophecies to consider them in or out of scope, tends to take far longer than an on-line forum facilitates. If you wish to investigate further, please do. That is is -evidence-, my base claim, is demonstrated, merely by the aggregate probabilities being less than even odds. I'll demonstrate the "vastly less" at a more opportune time and context.
"willing martyrdom"?? what is that supposed to mean? The level of delusion of the people around me is evidence of god? really?
Sure, go ahead with the Bare Assertion Fallacy, but once you move beyond that, yes, for someone to be willing to die rather than disclaim the occurrence, or non-occurrence, of events he was witness to, is absolutely evidence.
You really should share your facts with your local university's Philosophy department, as virtually the entirety of Western Philosophy was created and foundationally defined by those "retarded religious believers".
I think probably the quickest question one can pose to make clear that the bible does not say Adam and Eve were the first humans to such a "super fundie" would be to ask "Was Eve created inside, or outside, the garden?"
To claim people didn't pre-exist Eve would cause major problems with the time and event sequence of the narrative of the "days" per your Genesis 1:26 reference, as well as give us the significant problem of God giving Adam and Eve the unfulfillable-by-them command of "Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it"--as they were intended, per the narrative, to remain in the garden, and were ejected only due to their later sin.
Thing is, there is a "shred of evidence", and more.
NDE's, the probability of prophecy fulfillment even if interpreted/vetted to a degree outlandishly biased in favor of atheism being >.5, willing martyrdom of contemporaries...
And this is leaving aside personal experience.
Yes, when you conflate "evidence" with "proof", as is the automatic response here, it will remain evidence.
When you question the evidence, and thereby challenge the -strength- of the evidence (and implicitly admit it is evidence per se), it will remain what it is--evidence.
When the next thousand atheists parrot this same line, whether expressing it with "not a shred of evidence", "not a shred of proof" (you realize that not even the most vetted scientific theory has "proof", right"), "100% lacking evidence"......the evidence will still be there, being evidence, by virtue of it being evidence.
Clearly too much closed-minded ignorance for me to begin to fix here, but with respect to the relevant point at hand as it relates to the issues overlapping science...
Yes, there is a test. The fact you refuse a priori to perform the test by the required methodology does not change this. The results of the test will be as clear as, and suggesting as much evidentiary basis in supporting the premise, as you give to the most convincing evidence provided by means of any of your senses, that is, all your evidence of anything whatsoever.
That the evidence resulting from the test isn't produced by a methodology you are willing to try, and does not lead to arbitrarily-communicable evidence, in no way affects the reality it is, in fact, evidence.
Clearly and obviously Adam and Eve never existed and this should be taught to any young person as truth is always preferable to falsehoods, but what about someone promoting a falsehood?
Clearly and obviously how? Genetically engineering a particular male and female human and sticking them in an enclosed area with vegetation is barely a challenge for a genetic engineer today, much less a stipulated being of the abilities of God.
What clearly and obviously -is- the case is that Adam and Eve would not have been the first humans, for which, handily, we find that the bible directly says they were not.
This seems to be a point of confusion among, in particular, Evangelicals, but if you want to hold someone responsible for promoting falsehood, I suggest criticizing a) yourself and b) whoever told you that the bible says they were the first. It does not. It says the direct opposite.
Oddly, though not Jewish, I have never met one who is confused on this point--that Adam and Eve were not the first humans, and what they were actually the first of. Perhaps it is the requirement for in-depth study of the actual content that makes the difference from whoever "taught" you about Christianity.
Religious belief is 100% completely unprovable and relies on "faith" and good feelings as confirmation instead of tests and observation. (I would be wrong but is there a "god test" that can be performed to prove the existence?)
Obviously, I was not unaware of the contrary model, as I directly stated it in my post, something generally considered difficult to do when unaware of what one is typing.
I understand you have a PDF citing an academic position.
Quoting that, as a characterizing example:
"Accordingly, it seems most probable that so far as the physical nature of the sky is concerned, the Hebrews, as a typical scientifically naive people, believed the raqia was solid."
You may also wish to check the paper's concluding paragraph.
"Most probable" does not lead to a -necessitated- interpretation, and a -necessitated- interpretation would be necessary for refutation by a counterexample.
This has worked extremely well up till now, whereas the successive religious claims of uniqueness, beginning with the Earth at the centre of the universe, have all been exploded.
How so? In order for this to be the case, it would seem there would be two conditions, applying to any premise, for the "successive" claims (of which you have provided two highly-dubious "examples")...
1. Such a claim was unequivocally made
2. It has been demonstrated false
I understand there have been historical interpretation of the Earth as the center of the universe, but this was not universally held even within Catholicism even at the time of Galileo--Copernican heliocentrism was a "minority view". And as far as the original sources go, we have such notations as the Earth "hanging on nothing" (re: Job 26:7) which is a notably-accurate description rather arguing against the notion of the Earth being specified as fixed. "An" interpretation does not equate to "the" interpretation for the purposes of demonstrating an overall view has been refuted.
As it stands, it seems this is the sum total of the "successive religious claims" you have "exploded"...
A. Uniqueness of life existing only on Earth
1. Not claimed by religion
2. Life elsewhere not demonstrated (certainly not sentient life)
Required for your position: Both shown true. Actuality: Neither shown true.
B. Earth as center of universe
1. Not definitively claimed by religion
2. There is, in fact, no "center" and reference frames are arbitrary
Required for your position: Both shown true. Actuality: Neither shown true.
I found it rather astonishing while watching CNN a week or so back to hear them reporting that the DoD was indicating the U.S. had been subject to a large-scale hacking attack by a sovereign state, but -they weren't releasing which one it was-.
I couldn't help thinking about this stance as it would be applied to, say, Pearl Harbor. "Yes, the United States is under attack. No, you as an American citizen and taxpayer aren't entitled to know who is attacking you, from your own defense agencies. We're prioritizing the interests of Said Foreign Power, including any right-to-know you may feel you have, ahead of our citizenry."
This is an incredible stance to take, and the fact it was a "cyber-attack" seems be pretty irrelevant to the basic questions regarding representative government this raises. Yet, CNN doesn't even blink an eye flatly reporting this without noting any objection.
I'm basing that claim on the fact it's actually quite difficult to justify one's ethics in terms of their metaphysics, and the fact that on the face of it the contrary stance to mine doesn't have such a justification to demonstrate, by the very nature of a naturalist metaphysics. The claim is further supported by the fact you, and the poster I was replying to, were directly asked to provide yours, and didn't. Feel free to remove this support by justifying your stance, rather than evading the question.
I know a fair number of forms of attempt to provide a functional basis for one's ethics outside of theism, and a fair number of the issues with them. I'd like to know if you have something better, or anything at all.
Of course, I would argue that my metaphysical basis for rights isn't "made up", and we can go there if you like, but the core point here is it doesn't matter for the argument at hand. Any arguable basis is better than nothing at all, as having nothing at all is tantamount to just denying you have any such thing as "rights" or other core ethical attributes. I'd actually prefer you to say you have not the slightest idea what provides you with rights, but you acknowledge some justification is needed even if you aren't going to provide it, than just completely defaulting on the question.
Whether or not you think my basis is "made up", this at best, if you were correct, would mean that -neither- of us have any justification for claiming rights, or forming any useful consensus, because then one's ethics would be entirely subjective and arbitrary. If so, well, then back to my original question--if they are subjective, how would my subjective choice to be overtly hostile toward you be in any way demonstrably less-correct than the default of me not being, which you've learned to expect, and probably require, solely because a cultural ethics you benefit from by default, while you do nothing to support them, when not actively attacking the only basis for them that's "on the table"?
Neat. Not even the slightest attempt to show correlation, much less start to address actual causation.
And, remarkably, Slashdot mods you up. Guess the single topic most beaten to death here is immediately dropped as long as something anti-theistic is stated.
Slashdot Mirror
Regardless of what you learned from Behe's book, he has religious motives for taking his position.
And, I assume you aren't saying this is relevant to whether or not what he says is -true-, because that'd be textbook Genetic Fallacy.
he goes a step further and claims not just that science hasn't explained all the mechanisms of evolution
The cases haven't even been exhaustively enumerated--how would one do anything else than accurately note science hasn't explained them all? If you say it will before even defining the scope of proposable IC cases, well, sure, but that's simply untestable psychic assertion. More "hope" than science.
He then goes on to suggest that supernatural explanations should be considered since naturalistic ones are not up to the task.
Explanations outside the default context, and avoiding "naturalistic" as just being a tautological substitution for "what I think is natural", sure. Same as how someone might encounter a fluorescent cat, and wonder how we might explain that, and then investigate it to accurately conclude what is correct--design. In this case, design as fact, rather than design as hypothesis, but the only distinction really is if you like the time period we happen to be discussing being applied.
Of course, other scientists went on to prove him wrong about irreducible complexity,
Odd, people in biochem here don't even seem to be able to do that with -me- here. I'll need something way more definitive being presented on that claim with respect to Behe. Especially since claiming "proof" is anathema to claiming to be staying in the domain of science for all topics, for theist and atheist alike.
The common aspect of ID and creationism both is that they distrust established mainstream science, for reasons that don't really have anything to do with the science itself. The motives are political and religious. Neither contributes anything to scientific research or literature.
Okay, continue to claim this. It will likewise continue to be directly false. If -nothing else-, Darwin's Black Box contributed significantly to my knowledge of the several-hundred-item causal chains of immune response on a specific biochem level. If -nothing else-, it has necessitated closer specification of testability within propositional claims. And, naturally, it is wholly inappropriate to dismiss a priori a viewpoint which is backed in the respects it is, not backed in the respects it is not (with quite candid assessment of this by Behe et al), and open to further refinement. The Theory of Relativity would have been gone in the 1920's if it were a hundredth as stridently suppressed. Of course, it wasn't, despite being quite nascent itself in terms of testability--and we both know exactly why, and that those motivations have nothing to do with concern for the advancement of science.
You haven't even used the term "ID" in your demonstration of what "ID" supposedly is.
Typical.
Let me put it to you succinctly. "Creationism", as you use it, and imply it -must- be used, is an erroneously-constructed concept that includes two totally disparate concepts--the notion that the world was created thousands of years ago, and the notion there is a God. There is no necessary relationship between those two premises. "Creationism", as it is used typically, is simply presented so that this fallacious concept-formation can be embedded in a word and the demand to accept it in totality (both premises) or reject it in totality (both premises) can be presented.
Per Aristotle, who knew how to construct -proper- concepts, "Creationism" means -one thing only-, the premise that the universe was created by an intelligent being, irrespective of its age. Anyone hearing it used as an accretion of multiple premises should stop, realize they are dealing with someone so dishonest and irrational that these traits are embedded all the way down in their psyche to the very way they use words, and walk away.
One can believe the universe was created, and believe it is millions of years old. Period. This is a valid use of the term "Creationism", and any particular content beyond this requires specific qualification. Accreting it with any other premise as a definitional characteristic (again, per Aristotle) is just bullshit. Unfortunately, theists often don't realize the purpose of the term (though they should--embedding fallacies in individual words is par for the course in politics), and some actually adopt this usage. After that, no argument can be viable using the loaded word--which was the intent all along.
So, so much for "Creationism". As for the term I actually used, "ID", this is a view that overlaps, but is not synonymous, with Young Earth Creationism and Old Earth Creationism (and "designed by aliens", for that matter), and the overwhelming majority of people -supporting ID-, including the "founders", are Old Earth Creationists. I know they need to be definitionally the same for your argument you are parroting from Dawkins et al for the millionth time. Sorry, even though it's obviously useful and necessary for you to claim they are, they still aren't, and your premise is still false, the millionth-and-first time.
I trust you can work something so simple out without needed to bring in a Venn Diagram.
That's one of the great things about science: it's possible to test everything like this.
Ah, no, completely false. Did you even think to propose that a test to differentiate this finding from a one-off birth defect was necessary, as a hypothesis? I'm betting no, because this was presented as "science"--the general appearance of being so is generally immediately sufficient for most as long as the thing proposed being something they already want to agree with.
The reality is, the majority of propositions in the range of sciences are not testable, and propositions are held as supported by strength of inference from "knowns". This is particularly true in anthropology (give me that test that shows this pottery is from Culture X, just because it's of a style, material composition, and physical location of Culture X known to have been there--those are all "merely" inferential support), and becomes even more so as we move into "softer" sciences, such as psychology.
Even in the "hardest" of "hard sciences", physics, we still can't test whether the Copenhagen or Everett interpretation is true, after a century. Why are these proposals accepted as science? Because they have great inferential support from knowns, and, from your testable-only perspective, because it says it's science, and says something you like. That's good enough for 99% of the population. Only reason to object, really, is the simple fact that a scientist or science teacher, who, encountering a proposition he/she doesn't like, decides to exclude it based on testability criteria, is just a hypocrite with respect to the rest of his professional career, who is actively damaging science and people's understanding of science, for the momentary benefit of dismissing a particular personally-disliked proposition. If you actually value science, understand that this is actually quite a bit more nuanced than you suggest, and is an area where Philosophy of Science can be quite informative.
When you see your likeness, you are pleased. But when you see your images which came into existence before you, which neither die nor become manifest, how much you will have to bear!
...oh wait, that was actually...
--Darwin, concisely summarizing his Natural Selection theory, and the personal and social challenges accepting our pre-existing forms is likely to be, circa 1800
--Jesus, saying the same thing, a couple thousand years earlier
Seems pretty consistent over that time to me.
By the way, you may want to familiarize yourself with what a Bare Assertion Fallacy is.
ID in no way specifies a thousands-of-years-old Earth, as few theists per se do, but carry on with the boilerplate YEC Straw Man / outright deliberate lie, while you can.
So, just irrelevant relative distinctions regarding brain size, for which there are animal examples both less and greater than humans which you also don't ascribe rights to, rather than something which could justify it other than as a non-sequitur.
I'm already familiar with the other positions you mention. They also are philosophically incoherent in having no objective justification even offered for their purely subjective stances.
So, basically, same question. Again.
Have you eaten a steak, and still maintain you have "rights"?
Why you, and not the cow?
Materially-verifiable differentiating attributes only, please.
Probably innate. Slashdot is largely pro-atheism, and subconsciously, if not consciously, the average subscriber knows they need to deal with the "human" versus "animal" differentiation issue at some point, as naturalism gives them no basis to create a distinction.
Naturally, failure to have a justification for differentiation has tremendous ethical implications, of which sexual behavior is one. A nagging pull toward an issue that would be unremarkable except for one's own psychological inconsistencies is a natural result.
For some of us, i.e. those of us of a rather Gnostic outlook, we may as well just sit back and... ahem... let nature take its course.
Otherwise, the rantings of nearly dead people shouldn't be given any more credibility than the rantings of other people with defective brain activity
Well, I take it then, that you are not in the computer field, as otherwise you'd be aware this simply makes it much stronger evidence, as the idea that a particular compelling, structured, three-dimensional, auditory, representative simulation would be produced by any system while in a failure mode is absurdly unlikely. Try shorting out your PC (or, writing random bytes to memory), and see if this produces anything similar to, not a clear non-functioning of your currently-running applications, but something -entirely else- that has the nature of clearly being coherent, complex, and convincing (as the study I provided shows it is), but for in an entirely different context. You are telling me that Word failing should magically flip all the bits in memory necessary to play Quake, even when never installed. No.
As far as schizophrenia goes, well, you are simply factually wrong on your characterization that they "all hear voices", but your erroneous knowledge of psychiatry followed by your indirect ad hominem fallacy aside... yes, if someone heard voices and they did not exhibit other instances of erroneous thinking, and the experiences corresponded without contradiction to the expected content, yes, that would be evidence as well. Perhaps not evidence for -you-, but certainly evidence for -them- which, all your attempts to redirect and derail the point at hand aside, places it comfortably in the definition of "evidence".
As long as the prophecy does not provide the details needed to disprove it, typically a specific time reference, it can stand forever until proven.
Which, indeed they do, in the majority of cases, by multiple means. If a prophecy is made regarding culture/city X, we can consider it disproven if that culture/city goes out of existence without the prophecy being fulfilled. There are certainly boundary conditions. Again, you can thrash around with anecdotal objections as much as you like, but, at base, those would apply to a very fixed percentage of the prophecies, and I would need, say, two total to demonstrate it as evidence. Sure, you can hope that raising an objection to a premise in set X would refute all the premises in that set, even when it explicitly doesn't by reference to the particular case, but just be clear that has nothing to do with rational thought on your part.
There is no evidence GREATER THAN SOMEONE'S ASSERTION that god exists.
Well, I doubt you actually believe this, if you, say, read The Lancet study above, but in case you do, handily, it's actually provably epistemologically invalid for you to claim this. It is a claim to psychic powers on your part, that you know the particular evidence experienced or known by all people on Earth, and can make your claim by referring to them all in their own brains and noting the absence of anything stronger than your characterization. Whether this entails a claim to psychic powers on your part, or omniscience, or you're simply irrational--the claim is demonstrably false. This is basic epistemology.
But of course, no thinking person would ever do that, because there is no evidence any thinking person should accept as even approaching the bar required for credulity, much less proof.
Nice attempt to go for the summary win with "You're wrong because anybody who knows anything knows you're wrong", but, no. When you're capable of a coherent, non-fallacious argument, let's talk, and I'll give you the evidence I not only can think, but do it quite well both professionally and with respect to the officially-recognized objective metrics for this.
Until then... enjoy.
Well, arguing which elements are "flashbacks" would be an interesting discussion, but outside of my immediate purposes here on Slashdot. ;)
Though, it does seem like an opportune moment to quote this...
Jesus saw infants being suckled. He said to his disciples, "These infants being suckled are like those who enter the kingdom."
They said to him, "Shall we then, as children, enter the kingdom?"
Jesus said to them, "When you make the two one, and when you make the inside like the outside and the outside like the inside, and the above like the below, and when you make the male and the female one and the same, so that the male not be male nor the female female; and when you fashion eyes in the place of an eye, and a hand in place of a hand, and a foot in place of a foot, and a likeness in place of a likeness; then will you enter the kingdom."
--Thomas
That was a few days before worldwide human population.
Ah, no, the creation of male and female humans per se is in Genesis 1, and an entirely different, earlier, allegorical "day".
Such is my reading/interpretation, anyway. As for the rest, I probably agree more than you had anticipated, so will leave that aside for now.
You obviously don't understand what "evidence" is.
Yes, I do.
the ramblings of people near death is not "evidence". those are called "anecdotes".
Yes, it is. If I have experienced something, my recounting of it in detail is evidence I have experienced it. I do not have to re-create the experience for you, for it to remain evidence. If you saw your girlfriend cheating on you, would your inability to prove that you did to me, mean it is no longer evidence that she did, that you may wish to act upon as evidence? No.
As for "anecdotes", a peer-reviewed study systematically characterizing the experiences (by one of the most prestigious medical journals in Europe, by the way), takes us out of the realm of mere anecdotal information. Here is a link, should you wish to review:
http://profezie3m.altervista.org/archivio/TheLancet_NDE.htm
When your brain is DYING it's not surprising that there are certain effects that may be similar among people.
It is, however, extraordinary that those similar experiences happen to correspond to a complex, interactive experience that happens to "coincidentally" correspond directly with a particular metaphysical viewpoint, as perceived by those both believing in, and not believing in, that viewpoint.
We don't need some magic sky fairy or land of the dead to explain it.
Try to stick to the subject at hand, and not hand-wave and redirect. It makes you look desperate. I have not claimed we -need- my conclusion, merely that the experience is evidence for my conclusion--as it simply is. A piece of evidence need not lead to only one of several possibilities for it to be evidence of those possibilities, individually. That's just how it is and how evidence works, everywhere. As for "magic sky fairy"... I'm curious, why not simply use the standard terminology here, with the confidence that saying, say, "God" would lead to equal derision in the reader? Well, probably because you want to claim equivalence, while knowing there is not equivalence, which is the very reason you use this phrase instead, in a wholly logically-invalid manner. Yes, your intellectual dishonesty is that deep and automatic, down to the very verbal level, but, to be fair, you are not unique in this.
Prophecy fulfillment is simply ridiculous. Very few of them even make date range estimates, so the probability of something resembling any prophecy on a long enough timeline is nearly guaranteed, more so the more vague the prophecy
No, it is not. Accurate prediction of the maximum lifespan of man out into an unspecified future, which has held accurate, or specific description of a means of capital punishment which did not exist as of the time of writing, is not ridiculous. These are two of hundreds of examples I could forward. Claim it is "ridiculous" again, your claim will still will be exactly as false as it was this time.
As I stipulated, if we eliminate all possible cases of a self-fulfilling prophecy or an "overly vague" prophecy, it will still be greater that improbable to a degree >.5. It will in fact, be -vastly- more improbable, but discussing the individual merits of individual prophecies to consider them in or out of scope, tends to take far longer than an on-line forum facilitates. If you wish to investigate further, please do. That is is -evidence-, my base claim, is demonstrated, merely by the aggregate probabilities being less than even odds. I'll demonstrate the "vastly less" at a more opportune time and context.
"willing martyrdom"?? what is that supposed to mean? The level of delusion of the people around me is evidence of god? really?
Sure, go ahead with the Bare Assertion Fallacy, but once you move beyond that, yes, for someone to be willing to die rather than disclaim the occurrence, or non-occurrence, of events he was witness to, is absolutely evidence.
You really should share your facts with your local university's Philosophy department, as virtually the entirety of Western Philosophy was created and foundationally defined by those "retarded religious believers".
They just happened to be largely polytheistic.
Agreed.
I think probably the quickest question one can pose to make clear that the bible does not say Adam and Eve were the first humans to such a "super fundie" would be to ask "Was Eve created inside, or outside, the garden?"
To claim people didn't pre-exist Eve would cause major problems with the time and event sequence of the narrative of the "days" per your Genesis 1:26 reference, as well as give us the significant problem of God giving Adam and Eve the unfulfillable-by-them command of "Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it"--as they were intended, per the narrative, to remain in the garden, and were ejected only due to their later sin.
Thing is, there is a "shred of evidence", and more.
NDE's, the probability of prophecy fulfillment even if interpreted/vetted to a degree outlandishly biased in favor of atheism being >.5, willing martyrdom of contemporaries...
And this is leaving aside personal experience.
Yes, when you conflate "evidence" with "proof", as is the automatic response here, it will remain evidence.
When you question the evidence, and thereby challenge the -strength- of the evidence (and implicitly admit it is evidence per se), it will remain what it is--evidence.
When the next thousand atheists parrot this same line, whether expressing it with "not a shred of evidence", "not a shred of proof" (you realize that not even the most vetted scientific theory has "proof", right"), "100% lacking evidence"... ...the evidence will still be there, being evidence, by virtue of it being evidence.
Clearly too much closed-minded ignorance for me to begin to fix here, but with respect to the relevant point at hand as it relates to the issues overlapping science...
Yes, there is a test. The fact you refuse a priori to perform the test by the required methodology does not change this. The results of the test will be as clear as, and suggesting as much evidentiary basis in supporting the premise, as you give to the most convincing evidence provided by means of any of your senses, that is, all your evidence of anything whatsoever.
That the evidence resulting from the test isn't produced by a methodology you are willing to try, and does not lead to arbitrarily-communicable evidence, in no way affects the reality it is, in fact, evidence.
Clearly and obviously Adam and Eve never existed and this should be taught to any young person as truth is always preferable to falsehoods, but what about someone promoting a falsehood?
Clearly and obviously how? Genetically engineering a particular male and female human and sticking them in an enclosed area with vegetation is barely a challenge for a genetic engineer today, much less a stipulated being of the abilities of God.
What clearly and obviously -is- the case is that Adam and Eve would not have been the first humans, for which, handily, we find that the bible directly says they were not.
This seems to be a point of confusion among, in particular, Evangelicals, but if you want to hold someone responsible for promoting falsehood, I suggest criticizing a) yourself and b) whoever told you that the bible says they were the first. It does not. It says the direct opposite.
Oddly, though not Jewish, I have never met one who is confused on this point--that Adam and Eve were not the first humans, and what they were actually the first of. Perhaps it is the requirement for in-depth study of the actual content that makes the difference from whoever "taught" you about Christianity.
Religious belief is 100% completely unprovable and relies on "faith" and good feelings as confirmation instead of tests and observation. (I would be wrong but is there a "god test" that can be performed to prove the existence?)
Yes. And you are.
Obviously, I was not unaware of the contrary model, as I directly stated it in my post, something generally considered difficult to do when unaware of what one is typing.
I understand you have a PDF citing an academic position.
Quoting that, as a characterizing example:
"Accordingly, it seems most probable that so far as the physical nature of the sky is concerned, the Hebrews, as a typical scientifically naive people, believed the raqia was solid."
You may also wish to check the paper's concluding paragraph.
"Most probable" does not lead to a -necessitated- interpretation, and a -necessitated- interpretation would be necessary for refutation by a counterexample.
This has worked extremely well up till now, whereas the successive religious claims of uniqueness, beginning with the Earth at the centre of the universe, have all been exploded.
How so? In order for this to be the case, it would seem there would be two conditions, applying to any premise, for the "successive" claims (of which you have provided two highly-dubious "examples")...
1. Such a claim was unequivocally made
2. It has been demonstrated false
I understand there have been historical interpretation of the Earth as the center of the universe, but this was not universally held even within Catholicism even at the time of Galileo--Copernican heliocentrism was a "minority view". And as far as the original sources go, we have such notations as the Earth "hanging on nothing" (re: Job 26:7) which is a notably-accurate description rather arguing against the notion of the Earth being specified as fixed. "An" interpretation does not equate to "the" interpretation for the purposes of demonstrating an overall view has been refuted.
As it stands, it seems this is the sum total of the "successive religious claims" you have "exploded"...
A. Uniqueness of life existing only on Earth
1. Not claimed by religion
2. Life elsewhere not demonstrated (certainly not sentient life)
Required for your position: Both shown true. Actuality: Neither shown true.
B. Earth as center of universe
1. Not definitively claimed by religion
2. There is, in fact, no "center" and reference frames are arbitrary
Required for your position: Both shown true. Actuality: Neither shown true.
Can you clarify?
I found it rather astonishing while watching CNN a week or so back to hear them reporting that the DoD was indicating the U.S. had been subject to a large-scale hacking attack by a sovereign state, but -they weren't releasing which one it was-.
I couldn't help thinking about this stance as it would be applied to, say, Pearl Harbor. "Yes, the United States is under attack. No, you as an American citizen and taxpayer aren't entitled to know who is attacking you, from your own defense agencies. We're prioritizing the interests of Said Foreign Power, including any right-to-know you may feel you have, ahead of our citizenry."
This is an incredible stance to take, and the fact it was a "cyber-attack" seems be pretty irrelevant to the basic questions regarding representative government this raises. Yet, CNN doesn't even blink an eye flatly reporting this without noting any objection.
Strange Days.
I'm basing that claim on the fact it's actually quite difficult to justify one's ethics in terms of their metaphysics, and the fact that on the face of it the contrary stance to mine doesn't have such a justification to demonstrate, by the very nature of a naturalist metaphysics. The claim is further supported by the fact you, and the poster I was replying to, were directly asked to provide yours, and didn't. Feel free to remove this support by justifying your stance, rather than evading the question.
I know a fair number of forms of attempt to provide a functional basis for one's ethics outside of theism, and a fair number of the issues with them. I'd like to know if you have something better, or anything at all.
Of course, I would argue that my metaphysical basis for rights isn't "made up", and we can go there if you like, but the core point here is it doesn't matter for the argument at hand. Any arguable basis is better than nothing at all, as having nothing at all is tantamount to just denying you have any such thing as "rights" or other core ethical attributes. I'd actually prefer you to say you have not the slightest idea what provides you with rights, but you acknowledge some justification is needed even if you aren't going to provide it, than just completely defaulting on the question.
Whether or not you think my basis is "made up", this at best, if you were correct, would mean that -neither- of us have any justification for claiming rights, or forming any useful consensus, because then one's ethics would be entirely subjective and arbitrary. If so, well, then back to my original question--if they are subjective, how would my subjective choice to be overtly hostile toward you be in any way demonstrably less-correct than the default of me not being, which you've learned to expect, and probably require, solely because a cultural ethics you benefit from by default, while you do nothing to support them, when not actively attacking the only basis for them that's "on the table"?
Neat. Not even the slightest attempt to show correlation, much less start to address actual causation.
And, remarkably, Slashdot mods you up. Guess the single topic most beaten to death here is immediately dropped as long as something anti-theistic is stated.
I lack compassion by stating simple facts both you and I agree with?
Odd notion.
But no, things I have no control over have nothing to do with the degree of "compassion" I may or may not have. Same case everywhere, for everyone.