Creationists want everything to start and stop with the idea of god, which isn't even a hypothesis (it's totally untestable!). How a creationist can be happy with such a non-answer as 'god' is astounding to me, personally. The concept of god answers no questions, and encourages us to stop looking for answers.
Your claims to personal omniscience aside (how do you know X "answers no questions", where X is anything whatsoever?), it would be nice if you qualified your statement to correspond to reality--that is, that it is at most (presumably you know the future of the whole scope of science, as part of your omniscience), "untestable" by the terms of -your methodological preference-.
I have tested it, and verified it for myself by the methods provided as relevant. Perhaps, God is not that interested in your perception that He must be discoverable by -your- preferred means.
Really, you want no means by which that could happen, anyway.
Mostly this idea came about recently by the semantic twisting brought about by the stuggle to keep ID a special-case, by whatever means necessary.
Inferences from tested empirical knowns, themselves not testable, have always been unproblematically accepted as in the domain of a "scientific theory".
Always has been that way, is today, and always will be--in terms of actual fact and practice. "Science" would either be inoperable (or reduced in scope to a tiny fraction of what it is presently) were it otherwise.
What's with all the overly-hopeful anthropomorphization lately on Slashdot? I thought this place was more geared toward IT professionals than those likely to be impressed with hype targeting the general public.
Nah, that's completely fallacious. It's exactly the same argument as saying that for someone without a background in engineering, gaining understanding how the car is built by the factory disproves the pre-existing experience of the car. It expands the individual's conceptual content around "car", but does not alter the questions relevant to theism, such as origination of the car. The only thing "moving" here is your focus from one complex entity (e.g. man), to another complex process, while you choose to deny that either is notable.
One usage will be dead in 20 years, the other won't--along with the notation "Believe" in my one-out-of-a-billion Burger-King soda cups. Seriously, if I were serriptitiously -trying- to create a viral marketing campaign for theism, I doubt I could have done better.
Morality or helping the poor is only a facade/marketing trick.
As opposed to you seeking Slashdot karma by just simply outright lying.
Firstly, how about scoping this--does this apply to martyrs as well, or just a particular subset you have in mind? You know, beyond the absurd universal you have to express, even though you yourself know it's false as you say it.
Secondly, I'd like to compare hard numbers between churches' charitable giving, corporations, and you personally. The first two I can get--and relatively speaking, churches compare positively. As for the last, I suppose we'll have wait on that--unless you care to volunteer it.
What's to stop the company which is engaging in the exclusionary patenting from running exactly the same algorithm and patenting every viable permutation of "thing X" it "evolves"?
I still think improvement in the patent system still has to be made on the level of scoping patentability, in the long run.
BTW, I accelerated the production of this post by using Intelligent Design instead.:p
That's actually an interesting assertion, which I gave short-shrift to because I think you misread how I was using the term. I was using the term to refer to the logical fallacy, not for denying the perspective that they are entirely different domains. It his, however, my view that it is a "false dichotomy" in that, the two are rhetorically presented as "the" two alternatives, both in opposition to each other (exclusive "or") and as the sole alternatives. Both of those must be the case for the standard science vs. religion rap of Dawkins et al, hence that's how its usually... parroted.
Now, whether there is conceptual overlap, that'd be an interesting discussion. I would agree there is -little- overlap, but I don't think I'd agree there is none. I think there's some intersecting conceptual content in terms of methodology, such as in archaeology discerning whether a particular artifact is of simple natural origin or not. I also think both overlap in various ways on the level of metaphysics and epistemology. Whether you'd agree with any of the premises of any creationists is a subtly different question from the base question of whether they overlap at all, and I think we need to avoid the mistake of simply defining "science" in such a way as they they are by arbitrary definition exclusive. If there is no overlap at all, they could not be see as in opposition by anyone, being entirely discrete domains.
Anyway, that's beyond the scope of the issue at hand, but I wanted to clarify my initial response.
That was -precisely- the implication of TFS/tags. That this finding disproves "creationists" (an intentionally-misleading term on the level of "Islamofascists", integrating wholly-unalike premises into one term, but that's another discussion), which, one would have to assume, is inclusive of all people whose stance is that the universe was created as an intentional act.
Now, if we were to take the 15 seconds it would take to sort our terminology to have a useful discussion beyond the "science"/"creationism" false dichotomy, that would be another thing, but that seems unlikely to happen...
Second-century sources suggest that he'd be more concerned about the impact on bystanders in your hypothetical...
Jesus said, "When you see your likeness, you rejoice. But when you see your images which came into being before you, and which neither die not become manifest, how much you will have to bear!" --Gospel of Thomas
...or the allusive...
Jesus said, "Blessed is the lion which becomes man when consumed by man; and cursed is the man whom the lion consumes, and the lion becomes man."
But probably wouldn't make general note of it until after Darwin, by, say, making the comment destined for some obscure, controversial extracanonical document, to be unearthed sometime after a basic under of the issue was comprehensible to mankind in general, many centuries later...
It isn't even mildly challenging to determine what is, and isn't, in the scope of science and therefore amenable to scientific method.
You may as well say that if one thinks a particular type of music is "best", he wildly discards all science due to this view's unprovability, and hence is not merely personally incapable of science or engineering, but likely is contributing to the collapse of society.
Simple fact is, religion is -not- the sole "source" of opinion regarding an issue apart from a scientific investigation of a domain. We have quite unremarkably just -known less detail- about certain topics historically. If this seems unclear, feel free to explain why Native Americans didn't have fusion reactors in the 1300's, completely isolated from any "harmful" influence of the Catholic Church. This is, of course, ignoring the whole scope of things that quite unarguably exist (aesthetics, ethics, politics, etc., etc.) and fall into neither the domain of "religion" or "science".
Another false dichotomy from the same mindset that declares things "unscientific", and equivocates the meaning of that term to be both "not in the domain of science" or "disproven by science" according to their rhetorical purposes--irrationally. I'm lookin' at you, Dawkins.
Revelation 8 10 The third angel sounded his trumpet, and a great star, blazing like a torch, fell from the sky on a third of the rivers and on the springs of water-- 11 the name of the star is Wormwood. A third of the waters turned bitter, and many people died from the waters that had become bitter.
No, I'm not going to follow-up to spontaneous demands to debate Christianity, eschatology, or the narrative form of Revelation. Nor do I think its directly applicable or predictive--just personally somewhat intriguing.
And for good reason. "Services" produces no significant value multiplier to time. Money (actual monetary value, not fiat paper) comes from value multipliers to time.
Nation of industry = wealth, nation of services = bankruptcy.
In brief (and I tend to be brief nowadays since I realized simply by waiting I automatically win)...
As stated, your "Since Thomas didn't write... the same is true..." is simply a direct, blatant, lie. There is no possible way you could -know- this as the case, in particular with respect to Thomas. In fact, this book tends to cause some consternation within the mainline Christian churches, as it is quite difficult to counter the scholarly consensus of first-or-second-century provenance, and many find it doctrinally objectionable. In other words, to remove some perceived bias from the discussion, though many Christians themselves would like your statement to be known as true regarding Thomas, that simply isn't the case. Naturally, you're going well beyond what any serious scholar would state regarding a 2000-year-old document, and going ahead and stating that you personally know for a certain fact it was not written by Thomas, nor anyone who knew him. Not merely that, but somehow you know this as a fact regarding -all- New Testament books. Unfortunately for you, that claim is absurd on its face.
But let's say you are correct--in that case, it still wouldn't matter. "The Gospel According to X" does not assert that "X" wrote the document, simply. If I collected, say, statements of Yoko Ono regarding John Lennon, which were provided verbally and/or second hand, it is still perfectly acceptable and reasonable to state that my document is "John Lennon According To Yoko Ono". You may choose to not believe that my claim that Yoko Ono said something is factually true, but the mere title does not get you to that conclusion. Somehow, I expect you already realized this, some time while you were wishing it was logically coherent that attacking your personal expectations of authorship would invalidate the content.
For any readers who would be interested in historical analysis that is actually serious regarding these books, by actual Christian -and- secular historians, I suggest http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/ .
Ah well, I'll just note that stating "enlightened self-interest" doesn't specify any particular behavior, other than generalizations given a particular social context, which is in itself rare in the overall context of history, and your particular derivation from that is pretty subjective. Without the quasi-religious implication of "enlightened", it just means one should do what's in their best interests, which is very often at odds with others.
See above. Your statement is fine presuming you have a theistic metaphysics to give it authority/objectivity, wholly unsufficient alone otherwise. Firstly, there's the problem of why it isn't just another subjective moral assertion; secondly, we'd be left wondering why "Do unto others as maximizes the survival likelihood of your genes" wouldn't be preferable...
Slashdot Mirror
Creationists want everything to start and stop with the idea of god, which isn't even a hypothesis (it's totally untestable!). How a creationist can be happy with such a non-answer as 'god' is astounding to me, personally. The concept of god answers no questions, and encourages us to stop looking for answers.
Your claims to personal omniscience aside (how do you know X "answers no questions", where X is anything whatsoever?), it would be nice if you qualified your statement to correspond to reality--that is, that it is at most (presumably you know the future of the whole scope of science, as part of your omniscience), "untestable" by the terms of -your methodological preference-.
I have tested it, and verified it for myself by the methods provided as relevant. Perhaps, God is not that interested in your perception that He must be discoverable by -your- preferred means.
Really, you want no means by which that could happen, anyway.
Mostly this idea came about recently by the semantic twisting brought about by the stuggle to keep ID a special-case, by whatever means necessary.
Inferences from tested empirical knowns, themselves not testable, have always been unproblematically accepted as in the domain of a "scientific theory".
Always has been that way, is today, and always will be--in terms of actual fact and practice. "Science" would either be inoperable (or reduced in scope to a tiny fraction of what it is presently) were it otherwise.
Kuhn is a good person to read on this.
Further reading
Hmm...
"Perversion", I would have to assume, would imply a minority from the norm...
http://marriage.about.com/cs/masturbation/f/masturbatfaq3.htm
Oddly, this may be many Slashdot readers' first data point as to what a "Protestant" is...
...identify, classify and quantify...
...
...
if ((sensor1 > 25)&&(sensor2 > 75))
{
substance1detected = TRUE;
}
if (substance1detected)
{
substancearray[1]++;
}
call DumpSubtanceList(substancearray);
What's with all the overly-hopeful anthropomorphization lately on Slashdot? I thought this place was more geared toward IT professionals than those likely to be impressed with hype targeting the general public.
I think you may be confusing when Genesis indicates Adam was created, with when it indicates bipedal clothes-wearing animals came into existence.
:p
The latter category often do that.
Nah, that's completely fallacious. It's exactly the same argument as saying that for someone without a background in engineering, gaining understanding how the car is built by the factory disproves the pre-existing experience of the car. It expands the individual's conceptual content around "car", but does not alter the questions relevant to theism, such as origination of the car. The only thing "moving" here is your focus from one complex entity (e.g. man), to another complex process, while you choose to deny that either is notable.
Well, "gloss over" might be a bit of an inference of other people's motivations...
For, "Not all true things are to be said to all men."
--Clement of Alexandria
One usage will be dead in 20 years, the other won't--along with the notation "Believe" in my one-out-of-a-billion Burger-King soda cups. Seriously, if I were serriptitiously -trying- to create a viral marketing campaign for theism, I doubt I could have done better.
Mankind works in mysterious ways. (Nightwish)
Morality or helping the poor is only a facade/marketing trick.
As opposed to you seeking Slashdot karma by just simply outright lying.
Firstly, how about scoping this--does this apply to martyrs as well, or just a particular subset you have in mind? You know, beyond the absurd universal you have to express, even though you yourself know it's false as you say it.
Secondly, I'd like to compare hard numbers between churches' charitable giving, corporations, and you personally. The first two I can get--and relatively speaking, churches compare positively. As for the last, I suppose we'll have wait on that--unless you care to volunteer it.
I'm fully in favor of genetic experimentation on genetic experimenters.
What's to stop the company which is engaging in the exclusionary patenting from running exactly the same algorithm and patenting every viable permutation of "thing X" it "evolves"?
:p
I still think improvement in the patent system still has to be made on the level of scoping patentability, in the long run.
BTW, I accelerated the production of this post by using Intelligent Design instead.
Rebooting appendixes and DHCP neurons?
Neat.
I'll go ahead and reply -twice- to your post. ;)
That's actually an interesting assertion, which I gave short-shrift to because I think you misread how I was using the term. I was using the term to refer to the logical fallacy, not for denying the perspective that they are entirely different domains. It his, however, my view that it is a "false dichotomy" in that, the two are rhetorically presented as "the" two alternatives, both in opposition to each other (exclusive "or") and as the sole alternatives. Both of those must be the case for the standard science vs. religion rap of Dawkins et al, hence that's how its usually... parroted.
Now, whether there is conceptual overlap, that'd be an interesting discussion. I would agree there is -little- overlap, but I don't think I'd agree there is none. I think there's some intersecting conceptual content in terms of methodology, such as in archaeology discerning whether a particular artifact is of simple natural origin or not. I also think both overlap in various ways on the level of metaphysics and epistemology. Whether you'd agree with any of the premises of any creationists is a subtly different question from the base question of whether they overlap at all, and I think we need to avoid the mistake of simply defining "science" in such a way as they they are by arbitrary definition exclusive. If there is no overlap at all, they could not be see as in opposition by anyone, being entirely discrete domains.
Anyway, that's beyond the scope of the issue at hand, but I wanted to clarify my initial response.
Here you go.
False dichotomy
Nope, no troll.
That was -precisely- the implication of TFS/tags. That this finding disproves "creationists" (an intentionally-misleading term on the level of "Islamofascists", integrating wholly-unalike premises into one term, but that's another discussion), which, one would have to assume, is inclusive of all people whose stance is that the universe was created as an intentional act.
Now, if we were to take the 15 seconds it would take to sort our terminology to have a useful discussion beyond the "science"/"creationism" false dichotomy, that would be another thing, but that seems unlikely to happen...
"Rate of Evolution Metrics Observed" -> (then a miracle of logic occurs) -> "proof, suckitcreationists"
What?
Oh, same process as...
"Evolution happens" -> (then a miracle of logic occurs) -> "evolution exhaustively explains origins and incidentally there is no God"
Nevermind.
Second-century sources suggest that he'd be more concerned about the impact on bystanders in your hypothetical...
...or the allusive...
...or something like that.
Jesus said, "When you see your likeness, you rejoice. But when you see your images which came into being before you, and which neither die not become manifest, how much you will have to bear!" --Gospel of Thomas
Jesus said, "Blessed is the lion which becomes man when consumed by man; and cursed is the man whom the lion consumes, and the lion becomes man."
But probably wouldn't make general note of it until after Darwin, by, say, making the comment destined for some obscure, controversial extracanonical document, to be unearthed sometime after a basic under of the issue was comprehensible to mankind in general, many centuries later...
It isn't even mildly challenging to determine what is, and isn't, in the scope of science and therefore amenable to scientific method.
You may as well say that if one thinks a particular type of music is "best", he wildly discards all science due to this view's unprovability, and hence is not merely personally incapable of science or engineering, but likely is contributing to the collapse of society.
Simple fact is, religion is -not- the sole "source" of opinion regarding an issue apart from a scientific investigation of a domain. We have quite unremarkably just -known less detail- about certain topics historically. If this seems unclear, feel free to explain why Native Americans didn't have fusion reactors in the 1300's, completely isolated from any "harmful" influence of the Catholic Church. This is, of course, ignoring the whole scope of things that quite unarguably exist (aesthetics, ethics, politics, etc., etc.) and fall into neither the domain of "religion" or "science".
Another false dichotomy from the same mindset that declares things "unscientific", and equivocates the meaning of that term to be both "not in the domain of science" or "disproven by science" according to their rhetorical purposes--irrationally. I'm lookin' at you, Dawkins.
...along with the Andromeda Strain and the rest:
Revelation 8
10 The third angel sounded his trumpet, and a great star, blazing like a torch, fell from the sky on a third of the rivers and on the springs of water-- 11 the name of the star is Wormwood. A third of the waters turned bitter, and many people died from the waters that had become bitter.
No, I'm not going to follow-up to spontaneous demands to debate Christianity, eschatology, or the narrative form of Revelation. Nor do I think its directly applicable or predictive--just personally somewhat intriguing.
And for good reason. "Services" produces no significant value multiplier to time. Money (actual monetary value, not fiat paper) comes from value multipliers to time.
Nation of industry = wealth, nation of services = bankruptcy.
In brief (and I tend to be brief nowadays since I realized simply by waiting I automatically win)...
As stated, your "Since Thomas didn't write... the same is true..." is simply a direct, blatant, lie. There is no possible way you could -know- this as the case, in particular with respect to Thomas. In fact, this book tends to cause some consternation within the mainline Christian churches, as it is quite difficult to counter the scholarly consensus of first-or-second-century provenance, and many find it doctrinally objectionable. In other words, to remove some perceived bias from the discussion, though many Christians themselves would like your statement to be known as true regarding Thomas, that simply isn't the case. Naturally, you're going well beyond what any serious scholar would state regarding a 2000-year-old document, and going ahead and stating that you personally know for a certain fact it was not written by Thomas, nor anyone who knew him. Not merely that, but somehow you know this as a fact regarding -all- New Testament books. Unfortunately for you, that claim is absurd on its face.
But let's say you are correct--in that case, it still wouldn't matter. "The Gospel According to X" does not assert that "X" wrote the document, simply. If I collected, say, statements of Yoko Ono regarding John Lennon, which were provided verbally and/or second hand, it is still perfectly acceptable and reasonable to state that my document is "John Lennon According To Yoko Ono". You may choose to not believe that my claim that Yoko Ono said something is factually true, but the mere title does not get you to that conclusion. Somehow, I expect you already realized this, some time while you were wishing it was logically coherent that attacking your personal expectations of authorship would invalidate the content.
For any readers who would be interested in historical analysis that is actually serious regarding these books, by actual Christian -and- secular historians, I suggest http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/ .
...that is, your purpose insofar as you and Dawkins know. ;)
Jesus said, "Blessed is the lion which becomes man when consumed by man; and cursed is the man whom the lion consumes, and the lion becomes man."
--Gospel of Thomas
Another Randroid, perhaps?
Ah well, I'll just note that stating "enlightened self-interest" doesn't specify any particular behavior, other than generalizations given a particular social context, which is in itself rare in the overall context of history, and your particular derivation from that is pretty subjective. Without the quasi-religious implication of "enlightened", it just means one should do what's in their best interests, which is very often at odds with others.
See above. Your statement is fine presuming you have a theistic metaphysics to give it authority/objectivity, wholly unsufficient alone otherwise. Firstly, there's the problem of why it isn't just another subjective moral assertion; secondly, we'd be left wondering why "Do unto others as maximizes the survival likelihood of your genes" wouldn't be preferable...
Hmm... where have I heard that before... Bonus points: Explain why it's an objective axiom without reference to a theistic framework.