And a note to job seekers: when you apply for a job online and the system asks you to answer a few specific questions about the job before you submit your resume, fill out those questions carefully, because those are weedout questions, when the hiring manager scans the list of candidates, he's not even going to look at your resume if he doesn't like the answer to those questions.
Horrible philosophy and absolutely shows a disconnection with reality. The reality is that there are spamhous places that teach people to write bullshit that will pass through filters. They also teach people to use every acronym possible in order to get a job during phone interviews. To a manager, the use of the acronyms make it sound like a genius is on the phone. To your environment or team: Good luck after they get hired due to the use of poor practices to "screen" potential candidates. I'm quite fine people doing so though. I make my living (I'm sure many others do also) cleaning up the messes those people make.
I do find it humorous that even getting screwed by those hiring practices, nobody wants to look at the practice being a problem. They will add more search filters, and change a question or two. The spamhous will adapt, and people with that philosophy will continue to hire shit people that mess up their stuff.
And be realistic with salary ranges, entering a range that's unrealistically low is as bad as one that's unrealistically high..
That statement I agree with. I will point out that many, to most, managers using your method of hiring refuse to look at salaries considered too high. Quality generally comes with a price tag. Using the screening methods you mentioned, you are not looking for quality you are looking for a fast food service method of gathering potential candidates.
Numerous studies showed that extended use of VR could cause severe problems, namely permanent lazy eye (loss of depth perception). I believe it was Nintendo that dropped a VR product because of their own studies (I'm too tired to go look for the data at the moment). Government studies also found this to be true, so working in VR in Government jobs is restricted (or was when I was there) to 8 hours per week.
More studies need to be done to determine safe levels, and most importantly people should be made aware of the potential risks to health. Currently there are no warnings that I'm aware of and most people have no knowledge of the studies.
I think where we differ is in you blaming theists for trying to further the destruction. I look more at the cause which started the destruction. This is the part most atheists will deny: Atheism is a taught belief, and used as a Noble Lie in the same way as theism..
I'm not old enough to have seen classical education in the US, but the 50s were when it was last used. My parents had rhetoric and logic in elementary school in the late 40's and early 50's. Sure, during the first hundred years not everyone could afford to send their kids to school.
Based on what you have stated, I think we agree on many aspects of the problem. The obvious Soctratic question becomes: If theism did not dismantle the classical education system and "dumb down" society to an alarming level, why would they be responsible for furthering the destruction of society (perhaps exaggerated, but thinking longer term)? Would it not be more likely that the same people originally dismantling education are responsible, and people are taught to look elsewhere?
Further, based on Given the reality of who is benefiting most from a factory education, bringing up questions like the origin of the universe (if any) is doing them a disservice. There are a few further questions. If there is no point in the question, why are people trying so hard to make people never look? There are billions of dollars spent every year to spread the message that there is no creator, and that the question is meaningless, and that you should not consider the question if you are "smart". (The last being the common fallacy used to convince "educated" people that there is no creator.)
There is a lot of implied conspiracy in those questions, but I don't find them unreasonable to investigate. A last side note is that if you believe that there is a creator (which is a very logical conclusion) then theology does gain some importance. If you never look, and simply believe there is no creator of course theology is all bunk. I also strongly disagree that theism has been bad for society. Our laws are based on theism. Our morality is based on theism. Theism is a way to teach the ignorant morals without educating them. Theism used in this context is not the extremists which are rare, but the generally accepted schools of theology.
In closing, thanks for the civil comments and well thought out points. It's very much appreciated.
My sincere apologies as well, I just re-read your post and missed a critical statement. I see that you have issues with teaching the Big Bang. Personally, I don't have an issue with that. I don't have issues with teaching any theory as long as it's taught as theory.
My biggest concern is that we no longer teach classical education, and it's been devastating to our society. Blaming theology is not correct, the issue is more straight forward. The work based education system we have does not teach thought, it teaches rote and repetition. It teaches people to trust the establishment for answers, even when those answers are not correct.
The above is a summary of thoughts based on years and years of study. That is the public education system in a nutshell. Every school is slightly different, so I won't claim there are no gems among them. My kid was private schooled for that exact reason and never saw a public school.
I answered the quoted question, perhaps you neglected to read what I wrote? A 200 level Philosophy class covers that material and it's a resolvable answer. Perhaps you wanted me to give you 30-40 hours of lecture to cover the materials in a/. post? If the later is the case, it won't happen. There are thousands of Universities and Colleges that can teach you in a proper environment.
To address your dilemma, it is not acceptable to teach anybody's fairy tales with taxpayer money. If the separation of church and state is about nothing else in this day and age, it is about the distribution of money.
I call bullshit. If they can spend money to teach the big bang fairy tale they can spend the money on Philosophy. You however seem to take issue with that, as I hinted at. Your allowed fairy tale is presented in the name of science. Philosophy does not require a Theology, so don't bother to mention it. You already showed your bias by claiming that one fairy tale is okay on tax payers dollar and another is not.
I won't bother to quote your last paragraph, you can go back and read it. Let me just claim that in over 25 years of studying Philosophy I have yet to study Theology in earnest while studying Philosophy. You inject it because it fits your biases (belief system) not because it's the truth. As a side note, I have also studied numerous theologies, math, physics, art, language in that same time.
To be ahead of any counterpoint you make, some Theologists were also Philosophers. They are talked about along with their philosophical works. If you claim taboo then you had better throw away every science and math course as well since much of that work was from Theologists as well. Until about 70 years ago, it was not uncommon for people to study and master numerous courses. The classic education system was disbanded in favor of work based education, so now few get training in the liberal arts. (Before you make comment on liberal arts I suggest you go read about the trivium and quadrivium which were used for nearly 2000 years in education and why it was taught that way.) Yes, the same education system we poke fun of the Russians having has been alive and well in the US for over half a century and working as intended. I'm sure you don't believe it, and it would cause severe cognitive dissonance if you investigated.
If God created the big complicated universe, what created God?
This is a rather simple paradox and easily resolved with logic. We learned both the resolution and paradox in PHY200, so it was not even an advanced Philosophy class. If you can't see a creator (and we can not) then why would anyone bother to look at what came before?
I didn't claim the expanding vacuum was unknown completely. It is a much newer theory than the Big Bang, and many atheists (read this whole post for validation) don't know about it. It's not being taught in schools, though the Big Bang is in nearly every science book and children are exposed to it between K and 12 in public education. Not as a "theory" either, it's still being taught as fact.
So here is the dilemma in my point of view. If teaching a creator is bad because it's not provable, why are we teaching absolute fairy tales like Big Bang as fact? It's not an issue of "Science" at all, though people will try and argue that point. The expanding vacuum is not proven either (though more logical than the big bang) and we teach that as fact. Why are fairy tales from science so much better than someone else' fairy tale? Come now, you have to admit it has nothing to do with people wanting facts. It is teaching a specific belief system and preventing people from thinking. Listen to Larry Kraus for a while. "Bully in the sky" is his tag line and he makes ass loads of money by not just appearing to talk about the expanding vacuum, but to bash anyone contemplating a creator. Neither of those theories (as previously mentioned) address the question of whether or not there is a creator.
Your opinion of the question is only relevant to you. Countless people find the question very entertaining, challenging, and important. Why should people be telling others to ignore the question? The question is an exceptional way to learn critical thinking, logic, rhetoric, debate, etc. etc... People would rather deny children the chance to learn because of their own biases than teach or let them learn to think for themselves.
Think hard about that last statement, it's not only that is demanding the biases be taught, but atheists as well. In fact I think most religions would have little issue changing the curriculum in a way I hint at (teaching the Philosophical base question). As for most atheists I have my doubts.
I won't even bother to list the logical fallacies you just used and abused. I'll ask rather why most atheists today claim that the big bang answers the question of the Universe and that there is no need for a creator.?Most atheists today have not heard of the expanding vacuum quantum theory, it's still new. Big Bang has been taught as an answer in schools for 70+ years (depending on the school).
The point still is, that both of those are theories and neither answer the question of whether a creator is needed or not.
Mods really need to read the rules for using mod points. You are not supposed to use your personal biases to rate posts. Odd that every atheist post gets a +5 insightful and any response that does not align with atheism gets a troll mark. Philosophy is not easy, which is why we have discussions.
Don't take this the wrong way, I admire his will to retrain himself and continue drumming.. but....
If you are very tone deaf you may be fooled, but any musician can tell the difference between acoustic and electronic percussion. Any drummer I consider "good" uses all 4 appendages. Yes, there are many drummers that make a living using 3 but I don't consider them "good". Rick Allen plays better than them while physically missing a limb.
Compliment him on his will to continue doing something he enjoyed and made a profession. Compliment him on having a big pair and coming on stage after working his ass off to relearn the drums. But don't claim that people can't tell he's only got 1 arm. Many can, and still think he's a great drummer.
We saw how well this turned out for American Auto companies didn't we? As long as CEOs make massive bonuses who cares about longevity of the company? They'll still get their golden parachute and blame the workers for the companies demise.
There is a similar point in the article, but it's using a bit of fuzzy logic. (they use 9K, I'm using 10 since I like even numbers). Mule steals 10K from you, takes 1K and passes 9K to the "thief" and you are at -10K. Magically the transaction gets reversed, and the thief is at 0, mule is at 0, and you are at 0 instead of -10K. But what mule and thief keep the money in their accounts after snatching money? Many of these are cashed out frequently enough that they become hard to track and very hard to reverse. It also makes you at "-10K" until they feel the time is right to replace the funds in your account.
That last part seems to be what screws the consumers. I'm lucky, but know people that have waited nearly a year to get funds put back that were stolen. This means bills can't be paid at best, and if that was the rainy day fund and an emergency happens you are screwed.
I agree with the article in the fact that security gets overblown. I'm not sure they did a great job of representing that.
And when we claim 99% of DNA is similar, and we have how many components, how many changes is that in reality? It is not the small number that your percentage implies at all. As a similar statement, I hate when users complain "My disk is at 99% full". 99% of what? If it's a 1GB file system it's not much space, if it's 1TB that's a lot of space. Using percentages in this case is rather misleading.
What we have not seen, as mentioned above is natural changes in DNA which can change one species to another. That was my point, and I have science backing my point.
Did Aristotle believe in Yahweh? Did Plato believe in a Judea Christian God? That is the root of the question, and the frame of mind required in order to look at the question without the biases.
If you are openly bigoted does that mean that everyone else is? Hardly. As mentioned above it's possible to look at the question without theism. If you don't care to try I'm okay with that. However your biases preventing you from looking are foolish, and not a reason to invalidate the question.
Awe, is someone suffering from something making them angry? Nobody gives a shit about your beliefs. You may choose to believe a flying unicorn is god. Doesn't matter. Nice twist, not. The overwhelming majority of Philosophers in the last couple centuries came to that conclusion first. A Theologian will argue otherwise, but I'm not a theologian.
Prove it. Looks to me like you just made this up. Without proving it, you may as well have. Wrong, go read a bit and come back after gaining some wisdom. I lack the time and patience required to teach you decades worth of learning. The question is first documented in Egypt, so there is a starting point. There have been easily thousands of Philosophers that tackle the question since, we have writings from the majority of Greek Scholars translated.
Last, go read a dictionary and try to comprehend the term Philosophy. Your definition is way off.
I never stated that Philosophy only answered that question did I? I simply stated that Philosophy has tried to tackle the question of a creator for a documented 2.5 thousand years. Where I think the question of Creator vs. Gravity differ is that with a creator we realized centuries ago that we can never prove one way or another with logical reasoning whether a creator exists or not. That does not invalidate the question at all, though there are many like Lawrence Kraus that are pushing to have people criminalized for teaching their children an answer.
The media plays a part as well, as Kraus is being paid a hell of a lot of money to spread bigotry and propaganda.
Where the two topics (creator vs. gravity) are similar is that many people have, maintain, and spread propaganda that we have solved all of the problems.
The logic is required before you make up an experiment correct? If you have no idea, you don't start throwing things in to vats of stuff or making machines around it. Experiments are an important step in proof, but the logic almost always comes first. When the first results are in, the logic is tuned and new experiments are made. If we lack the equipment to do better, we try inventing new equipment.
I'm not saying it's always that way, but the majority of science comes from having a sound chunk of logic then building an experiment. Occasionally we notice something we didn't expect.. in which case we do have something without logic.
Wow, so you are telling people what I already stated. Wolves are Canine correct? Coyotes are Canine correct? Most people seeing a coyote would probably recognize it as.. a dog! We have seen cats become cats too. As I stated, a species has been shown to change within themselves. Sometimes those changes are drastic. In the case of dogs, cross breeding has done wonders to the variety.
We have not proven that a Species can evolve into a new species. There is 1 example you will find on Google if you look, and I'd suggest you go look. A bird is claimed a new species. Look closely at the pictures and stats on the bird. The beak varies slightly and they called it a new species of bird. Except for the beak, it's the same bird!
Genetically similar is not the same as proving evolution either. I'm not going to look up the stat, but something along of 80% of all mammalian DNA is similar no matter what the species. Does it indicate that we all could have the same root? I believe that is a fair speculation.. but it's speculation not fact.
The theory remains mostly unproven. It's very difficult to prove. I realize that and sympathize with the Scientists trying to prove it. Dealing with fossil evidence and no DNA makes it a painful task. I'm not saying "you suck because you can't prove it". I'm simply stating that it's not proven.
If you took my statement to imply it was instant, then you are the "f^*$ing idiot". We lack the fossil evidence to show that these things happened over time.
We have some similarity in fossils, and we "think we got the timelines right" so we say "it probably happened this way". That is not proof! That is speculation. Please go read a dictionary and look up the words "proof" and "speculate" and learn the difference. Notice also that I did not claim that the speculation was wrong. Wrong is also defined differently than speculation, so maybe you should learn three new words today.
Stop reading what you want to see, and mature in your dialogue. Since you come across as having the intellectual capacity of a prepubescent teen I'll stop there.
No. It doesn't. It works on a story of a creator. There's no evidence for one; there's no way to test to see if there is one; there's no way to test to see if there isn't one (it's not falsifiable);
The Universe existing is evidence for a creator. Don't confuse that with any school of Theology. We have ample evidence that a creator is required by the lack of other Universes springing up inside of our own. We also seem to have this crazy idea that every action has an equal and opposite reaction. We use this to trace back the expanding vacuum and big bang to a point where we run out of actions. That does not mean that we don't exist.. but rather you are choosing not to look at the root question.
A reasonable atheist will simply inform you of the complete lack of evidence to back up the speculation, and, if you fail to do so, as all other theists from day one have failed, will assign no value whatsoever to your speculation.
Read the atheist comment I responded to above. It is ad hominem against all theism without provocation. That is rather common among atheists. I don't disagree with you that it should be as you said, but we are a long way from Utopia.
Just as theists vary from really nice people who you'd like to play cards with, to people who fly into buildings and set their wives on fire.
That statement I agree with. I have very close friends that are both theist and atheist. Not all people are the same.
No, you are not discussing degrees by a long shot. For example, when does a plant become a fish? When does a fish become an insect? When does a mammal become a reptile?
None of those things are proven, yet according to the Theory of evolution (caps intended) a fish became a mammal, and a reptile became a bird.
Your ability to feed your kid tons of protein and make him larger does not prove evolution at all. It proves that diet can impact your size. You can lie to yourself and claim it does, but it's not scientific to make such claims. Changing species from ape to human requires new DNA strands, not the same strand with a slight modification in the chain.
As with above, I'm not claiming the theory is bad. I'm pointing out that it is a largely unproven theory.
Secondly, it's a pointless, valueless question. It's on exactly the same level as "is there a Santa Claus?" There's zero evidence for such a thing, despite thousands of yeas of looking for same,
That is absolutely your own bias. The questionchanges everything we do if there is a creator. Without one, morality is not an issue. With one, morality becomes important. Philosophy, Philanthropy, Sociology, Psychology, etc.. all are sciences dealing with those issues. Don't confuse the science _you_ like with all science. That is not a rational way of thinking.
You keep comparing the question to Santa as if the question's base requires a character you can recognize. This again is your own bias. The question is valid. As with above, _you_ may not find the question important but the question is important to others. Your thinking is again not rational.
The day theists have evidence, th...
Who said theists besides you? I stated "creator" very intentionally. Again you have biases that bring visions in to your mind when the word is used. Try and lose your biases when asking the question and the question takes new form. I've spent decades studying the question trying to do just that. It's not an easy thing to do, I'll grant you that. But it is possible to evaluate the question from a pure philosophical standpoint without theist or atheist biases.
To claim the question is not valid is to deny what we observe and test every day. Nothing just appears and nothing just happens. Everything is caused by something else, which was caused by something else, etc.. etc... Universes can most likely not just spring up for no reason. If they did, our Universe may not be here as the modelling for a Universe beginning within our own shows a pretty staggering amount of destruction whether using a big bang model or expanding vacuum model.
I don't claim to not have biases mind you. I'm biased as all humans have biases. I admit my biases and try to work around them.
Lastly, if what you claimed about atheists not caring was true then we would not see them using rhetorical fallacies trying to discount people that believe in a creator. What we see being practiced is the exact opposite.
Science isn't attempting to answer the question "Is there a creator?" because such a question is essentially unanswerable.
That is an incorrect statement. Philosophy tries to answer that question and Philosophy is science. Philosophy even does a very nice job of it if you care to investigate. What happens next is that people will claim that Philosophy is not science, so let me skip ahead a bit. Philosophical rules define science, including "the scientific method". People lacking training in Philosophy have poor critical thinking skills (which explains a whole lot in our current work based education system) which is why a PHD requires a tremendous amount of Philosophical training and education.
Science requires the same amount of faith in something as a creator. Scientists have faith that they will eventually understand something, so keep at it. The larger more complex issues are still open and being investigated. Someone else in the thread mentioned gravity which is a good example. We know of it, and have faith we know enough to work numbers. We also have faith we will eventually learn more, but we don't know.
It is quite possible that we can never prove an answer to the question of a creator. That is my belief after decades of study. Not having proof does is not the same as invalidating a question. We can't prove what causes gravity and we continue to ask. It's quite human to ask questions and dig for answers. Unfortunately it's also human to be biased enough to never look at reality.
Having a tail bone and no tail is not proving evolution. That is an absolute logical failure.
What we believe we have proven with evolution in comparison to the full theory fits into a thimble with your finger in it. We have evidence that a species can change within itself. Birds for example grow slightly different beaks depending their available diets. Animals may have size differences, longer or shorter legs, variations in ears, etc.. in order to adapt to their environment.
Those are very very minor points in the grand theory of evolution. You probably have a different height than a relative, different ears, different teeth, etc.. etc.. We already know based on human observation that those things can occur. Kids that ate lots of protein growing up were always bigger and stronger than the kids that ate poor grain.
Where evolution falls flat is trying to claim that a dinosaur evolved into a bird, or an ape evolved into a human. There is no solid evidence to show that a species can evolve into a different species. We have seen no plants that evolved into something other than the same plant with some variation. We see no evidence that a dog can evolve into something other than a dog. There is absolutely 0 proof that those things can occur.
We base the full theory of evolution on a whole lot of speculation and conjecture a small amount of fossil evidence. We have lots and lots of fossils, but we have no way of chaining them together. Quite frankly, the evidence is not that strong. That does not mean that the speculation is bad mind you, but it's important to know and acknowledge that it's only speculation.
Wrong, but thanks for playing "I have a shitty fallacy". The question "Is there a creator?" is the relevant question. Evidence for whether or not a creator exists can only be found in logic. Sorry, but to believe otherwise makes you no better than a devout person that believes because the Bible told them to believe. To believe the question is not relevant means that you have played in to all of the rhetoric being spread the last few decades trying to convince people they should never look.
What you are trying to do with your question is called a Slippery Slope. Maybe affirming the consequent, but I'm not sure you are that advanced with rhetoric.
And atheists are different? Big bang was the atheist answer to God for nearly a century. Now it's the expanding vacuum. Those theories don't answer the question of "is there a creator?" any better than a theology.
As someone else pointed out, you are obviously a bigot. I am doubting you will consider anything I just stated because your belief is way better than anyone else' belief.
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And a note to job seekers: when you apply for a job online and the system asks you to answer a few specific questions about the job before you submit your resume, fill out those questions carefully, because those are weedout questions, when the hiring manager scans the list of candidates, he's not even going to look at your resume if he doesn't like the answer to those questions.
Horrible philosophy and absolutely shows a disconnection with reality. The reality is that there are spamhous places that teach people to write bullshit that will pass through filters. They also teach people to use every acronym possible in order to get a job during phone interviews. To a manager, the use of the acronyms make it sound like a genius is on the phone. To your environment or team: Good luck after they get hired due to the use of poor practices to "screen" potential candidates. I'm quite fine people doing so though. I make my living (I'm sure many others do also) cleaning up the messes those people make.
I do find it humorous that even getting screwed by those hiring practices, nobody wants to look at the practice being a problem. They will add more search filters, and change a question or two. The spamhous will adapt, and people with that philosophy will continue to hire shit people that mess up their stuff.
And be realistic with salary ranges, entering a range that's unrealistically low is as bad as one that's unrealistically high..
That statement I agree with. I will point out that many, to most, managers using your method of hiring refuse to look at salaries considered too high. Quality generally comes with a price tag. Using the screening methods you mentioned, you are not looking for quality you are looking for a fast food service method of gathering potential candidates.
Numerous studies showed that extended use of VR could cause severe problems, namely permanent lazy eye (loss of depth perception). I believe it was Nintendo that dropped a VR product because of their own studies (I'm too tired to go look for the data at the moment). Government studies also found this to be true, so working in VR in Government jobs is restricted (or was when I was there) to 8 hours per week.
More studies need to be done to determine safe levels, and most importantly people should be made aware of the potential risks to health. Currently there are no warnings that I'm aware of and most people have no knowledge of the studies.
I think where we differ is in you blaming theists for trying to further the destruction. I look more at the cause which started the destruction. This is the part most atheists will deny: Atheism is a taught belief, and used as a Noble Lie in the same way as theism..
I'm not old enough to have seen classical education in the US, but the 50s were when it was last used. My parents had rhetoric and logic in elementary school in the late 40's and early 50's. Sure, during the first hundred years not everyone could afford to send their kids to school.
Based on what you have stated, I think we agree on many aspects of the problem. The obvious Soctratic question becomes: If theism did not dismantle the classical education system and "dumb down" society to an alarming level, why would they be responsible for furthering the destruction of society (perhaps exaggerated, but thinking longer term)? Would it not be more likely that the same people originally dismantling education are responsible, and people are taught to look elsewhere?
Further, based on Given the reality of who is benefiting most from a factory education, bringing up questions like the origin of the universe (if any) is doing them a disservice. There are a few further questions. If there is no point in the question, why are people trying so hard to make people never look? There are billions of dollars spent every year to spread the message that there is no creator, and that the question is meaningless, and that you should not consider the question if you are "smart". (The last being the common fallacy used to convince "educated" people that there is no creator.)
There is a lot of implied conspiracy in those questions, but I don't find them unreasonable to investigate. A last side note is that if you believe that there is a creator (which is a very logical conclusion) then theology does gain some importance. If you never look, and simply believe there is no creator of course theology is all bunk. I also strongly disagree that theism has been bad for society. Our laws are based on theism. Our morality is based on theism. Theism is a way to teach the ignorant morals without educating them. Theism used in this context is not the extremists which are rare, but the generally accepted schools of theology.
In closing, thanks for the civil comments and well thought out points. It's very much appreciated.
My sincere apologies as well, I just re-read your post and missed a critical statement. I see that you have issues with teaching the Big Bang. Personally, I don't have an issue with that. I don't have issues with teaching any theory as long as it's taught as theory.
My biggest concern is that we no longer teach classical education, and it's been devastating to our society. Blaming theology is not correct, the issue is more straight forward. The work based education system we have does not teach thought, it teaches rote and repetition. It teaches people to trust the establishment for answers, even when those answers are not correct.
The above is a summary of thoughts based on years and years of study. That is the public education system in a nutshell. Every school is slightly different, so I won't claim there are no gems among them. My kid was private schooled for that exact reason and never saw a public school.
I answered the quoted question, perhaps you neglected to read what I wrote? A 200 level Philosophy class covers that material and it's a resolvable answer. Perhaps you wanted me to give you 30-40 hours of lecture to cover the materials in a /. post? If the later is the case, it won't happen. There are thousands of Universities and Colleges that can teach you in a proper environment.
To address your dilemma, it is not acceptable to teach anybody's fairy tales with taxpayer money. If the separation of church and state is about nothing else in this day and age, it is about the distribution of money.
I call bullshit. If they can spend money to teach the big bang fairy tale they can spend the money on Philosophy. You however seem to take issue with that, as I hinted at. Your allowed fairy tale is presented in the name of science. Philosophy does not require a Theology, so don't bother to mention it. You already showed your bias by claiming that one fairy tale is okay on tax payers dollar and another is not.
I won't bother to quote your last paragraph, you can go back and read it. Let me just claim that in over 25 years of studying Philosophy I have yet to study Theology in earnest while studying Philosophy. You inject it because it fits your biases (belief system) not because it's the truth. As a side note, I have also studied numerous theologies, math, physics, art, language in that same time.
To be ahead of any counterpoint you make, some Theologists were also Philosophers. They are talked about along with their philosophical works. If you claim taboo then you had better throw away every science and math course as well since much of that work was from Theologists as well. Until about 70 years ago, it was not uncommon for people to study and master numerous courses. The classic education system was disbanded in favor of work based education, so now few get training in the liberal arts. (Before you make comment on liberal arts I suggest you go read about the trivium and quadrivium which were used for nearly 2000 years in education and why it was taught that way.) Yes, the same education system we poke fun of the Russians having has been alive and well in the US for over half a century and working as intended. I'm sure you don't believe it, and it would cause severe cognitive dissonance if you investigated.
If God created the big complicated universe, what created God?
This is a rather simple paradox and easily resolved with logic. We learned both the resolution and paradox in PHY200, so it was not even an advanced Philosophy class. If you can't see a creator (and we can not) then why would anyone bother to look at what came before?
I didn't claim the expanding vacuum was unknown completely. It is a much newer theory than the Big Bang, and many atheists (read this whole post for validation) don't know about it. It's not being taught in schools, though the Big Bang is in nearly every science book and children are exposed to it between K and 12 in public education. Not as a "theory" either, it's still being taught as fact.
So here is the dilemma in my point of view. If teaching a creator is bad because it's not provable, why are we teaching absolute fairy tales like Big Bang as fact? It's not an issue of "Science" at all, though people will try and argue that point. The expanding vacuum is not proven either (though more logical than the big bang) and we teach that as fact. Why are fairy tales from science so much better than someone else' fairy tale? Come now, you have to admit it has nothing to do with people wanting facts. It is teaching a specific belief system and preventing people from thinking. Listen to Larry Kraus for a while. "Bully in the sky" is his tag line and he makes ass loads of money by not just appearing to talk about the expanding vacuum, but to bash anyone contemplating a creator. Neither of those theories (as previously mentioned) address the question of whether or not there is a creator.
Your opinion of the question is only relevant to you. Countless people find the question very entertaining, challenging, and important. Why should people be telling others to ignore the question? The question is an exceptional way to learn critical thinking, logic, rhetoric, debate, etc. etc... People would rather deny children the chance to learn because of their own biases than teach or let them learn to think for themselves.
Think hard about that last statement, it's not only that is demanding the biases be taught, but atheists as well. In fact I think most religions would have little issue changing the curriculum in a way I hint at (teaching the Philosophical base question). As for most atheists I have my doubts.
I won't even bother to list the logical fallacies you just used and abused. I'll ask rather why most atheists today claim that the big bang answers the question of the Universe and that there is no need for a creator.?Most atheists today have not heard of the expanding vacuum quantum theory, it's still new. Big Bang has been taught as an answer in schools for 70+ years (depending on the school).
The point still is, that both of those are theories and neither answer the question of whether a creator is needed or not.
Mods really need to read the rules for using mod points. You are not supposed to use your personal biases to rate posts. Odd that every atheist post gets a +5 insightful and any response that does not align with atheism gets a troll mark. Philosophy is not easy, which is why we have discussions.
Don't take this the wrong way, I admire his will to retrain himself and continue drumming.. but....
If you are very tone deaf you may be fooled, but any musician can tell the difference between acoustic and electronic percussion. Any drummer I consider "good" uses all 4 appendages. Yes, there are many drummers that make a living using 3 but I don't consider them "good". Rick Allen plays better than them while physically missing a limb.
Compliment him on his will to continue doing something he enjoyed and made a profession. Compliment him on having a big pair and coming on stage after working his ass off to relearn the drums. But don't claim that people can't tell he's only got 1 arm. Many can, and still think he's a great drummer.
We saw how well this turned out for American Auto companies didn't we? As long as CEOs make massive bonuses who cares about longevity of the company? They'll still get their golden parachute and blame the workers for the companies demise.
There is a similar point in the article, but it's using a bit of fuzzy logic. (they use 9K, I'm using 10 since I like even numbers). Mule steals 10K from you, takes 1K and passes 9K to the "thief" and you are at -10K. Magically the transaction gets reversed, and the thief is at 0, mule is at 0, and you are at 0 instead of -10K. But what mule and thief keep the money in their accounts after snatching money? Many of these are cashed out frequently enough that they become hard to track and very hard to reverse. It also makes you at "-10K" until they feel the time is right to replace the funds in your account.
That last part seems to be what screws the consumers. I'm lucky, but know people that have waited nearly a year to get funds put back that were stolen. This means bills can't be paid at best, and if that was the rainy day fund and an emergency happens you are screwed.
I agree with the article in the fact that security gets overblown. I'm not sure they did a great job of representing that.
And when we claim 99% of DNA is similar, and we have how many components, how many changes is that in reality? It is not the small number that your percentage implies at all. As a similar statement, I hate when users complain "My disk is at 99% full". 99% of what? If it's a 1GB file system it's not much space, if it's 1TB that's a lot of space. Using percentages in this case is rather misleading.
What we have not seen, as mentioned above is natural changes in DNA which can change one species to another. That was my point, and I have science backing my point.
Did Aristotle believe in Yahweh? Did Plato believe in a Judea Christian God? That is the root of the question, and the frame of mind required in order to look at the question without the biases.
If you are openly bigoted does that mean that everyone else is? Hardly. As mentioned above it's possible to look at the question without theism. If you don't care to try I'm okay with that. However your biases preventing you from looking are foolish, and not a reason to invalidate the question.
Awe, is someone suffering from something making them angry? Nobody gives a shit about your beliefs. You may choose to believe a flying unicorn is god. Doesn't matter. Nice twist, not. The overwhelming majority of Philosophers in the last couple centuries came to that conclusion first. A Theologian will argue otherwise, but I'm not a theologian.
Prove it. Looks to me like you just made this up. Without proving it, you may as well have. Wrong, go read a bit and come back after gaining some wisdom. I lack the time and patience required to teach you decades worth of learning. The question is first documented in Egypt, so there is a starting point. There have been easily thousands of Philosophers that tackle the question since, we have writings from the majority of Greek Scholars translated.
Last, go read a dictionary and try to comprehend the term Philosophy. Your definition is way off.
I never stated that Philosophy only answered that question did I? I simply stated that Philosophy has tried to tackle the question of a creator for a documented 2.5 thousand years. Where I think the question of Creator vs. Gravity differ is that with a creator we realized centuries ago that we can never prove one way or another with logical reasoning whether a creator exists or not. That does not invalidate the question at all, though there are many like Lawrence Kraus that are pushing to have people criminalized for teaching their children an answer.
The media plays a part as well, as Kraus is being paid a hell of a lot of money to spread bigotry and propaganda.
Where the two topics (creator vs. gravity) are similar is that many people have, maintain, and spread propaganda that we have solved all of the problems.
The logic is required before you make up an experiment correct? If you have no idea, you don't start throwing things in to vats of stuff or making machines around it. Experiments are an important step in proof, but the logic almost always comes first. When the first results are in, the logic is tuned and new experiments are made. If we lack the equipment to do better, we try inventing new equipment.
I'm not saying it's always that way, but the majority of science comes from having a sound chunk of logic then building an experiment. Occasionally we notice something we didn't expect.. in which case we do have something without logic.
Wow, so you are telling people what I already stated. Wolves are Canine correct? Coyotes are Canine correct? Most people seeing a coyote would probably recognize it as .. a dog! We have seen cats become cats too. As I stated, a species has been shown to change within themselves. Sometimes those changes are drastic. In the case of dogs, cross breeding has done wonders to the variety.
We have not proven that a Species can evolve into a new species. There is 1 example you will find on Google if you look, and I'd suggest you go look. A bird is claimed a new species. Look closely at the pictures and stats on the bird. The beak varies slightly and they called it a new species of bird. Except for the beak, it's the same bird!
Genetically similar is not the same as proving evolution either. I'm not going to look up the stat, but something along of 80% of all mammalian DNA is similar no matter what the species. Does it indicate that we all could have the same root? I believe that is a fair speculation.. but it's speculation not fact.
The theory remains mostly unproven. It's very difficult to prove. I realize that and sympathize with the Scientists trying to prove it. Dealing with fossil evidence and no DNA makes it a painful task. I'm not saying "you suck because you can't prove it". I'm simply stating that it's not proven.
If you took my statement to imply it was instant, then you are the "f^*$ing idiot". We lack the fossil evidence to show that these things happened over time.
We have some similarity in fossils, and we "think we got the timelines right" so we say "it probably happened this way". That is not proof! That is speculation. Please go read a dictionary and look up the words "proof" and "speculate" and learn the difference. Notice also that I did not claim that the speculation was wrong. Wrong is also defined differently than speculation, so maybe you should learn three new words today.
Stop reading what you want to see, and mature in your dialogue. Since you come across as having the intellectual capacity of a prepubescent teen I'll stop there.
No. It doesn't. It works on a story of a creator. There's no evidence for one; there's no way to test to see if there is one; there's no way to test to see if there isn't one (it's not falsifiable);
The Universe existing is evidence for a creator. Don't confuse that with any school of Theology. We have ample evidence that a creator is required by the lack of other Universes springing up inside of our own. We also seem to have this crazy idea that every action has an equal and opposite reaction. We use this to trace back the expanding vacuum and big bang to a point where we run out of actions. That does not mean that we don't exist.. but rather you are choosing not to look at the root question.
A reasonable atheist will simply inform you of the complete lack of evidence to back up the speculation, and, if you fail to do so, as all other theists from day one have failed, will assign no value whatsoever to your speculation.
Read the atheist comment I responded to above. It is ad hominem against all theism without provocation. That is rather common among atheists. I don't disagree with you that it should be as you said, but we are a long way from Utopia.
Just as theists vary from really nice people who you'd like to play cards with, to people who fly into buildings and set their wives on fire.
That statement I agree with. I have very close friends that are both theist and atheist. Not all people are the same.
No, you are not discussing degrees by a long shot. For example, when does a plant become a fish? When does a fish become an insect? When does a mammal become a reptile?
None of those things are proven, yet according to the Theory of evolution (caps intended) a fish became a mammal, and a reptile became a bird.
Your ability to feed your kid tons of protein and make him larger does not prove evolution at all. It proves that diet can impact your size. You can lie to yourself and claim it does, but it's not scientific to make such claims. Changing species from ape to human requires new DNA strands, not the same strand with a slight modification in the chain.
As with above, I'm not claiming the theory is bad. I'm pointing out that it is a largely unproven theory.
Secondly, it's a pointless, valueless question. It's on exactly the same level as "is there a Santa Claus?" There's zero evidence for such a thing, despite thousands of yeas of looking for same,
That is absolutely your own bias. The questionchanges everything we do if there is a creator. Without one, morality is not an issue. With one, morality becomes important. Philosophy, Philanthropy, Sociology, Psychology, etc.. all are sciences dealing with those issues. Don't confuse the science _you_ like with all science. That is not a rational way of thinking.
You keep comparing the question to Santa as if the question's base requires a character you can recognize. This again is your own bias. The question is valid. As with above, _you_ may not find the question important but the question is important to others. Your thinking is again not rational.
The day theists have evidence, th...
Who said theists besides you? I stated "creator" very intentionally. Again you have biases that bring visions in to your mind when the word is used. Try and lose your biases when asking the question and the question takes new form. I've spent decades studying the question trying to do just that. It's not an easy thing to do, I'll grant you that. But it is possible to evaluate the question from a pure philosophical standpoint without theist or atheist biases.
To claim the question is not valid is to deny what we observe and test every day. Nothing just appears and nothing just happens. Everything is caused by something else, which was caused by something else, etc.. etc... Universes can most likely not just spring up for no reason. If they did, our Universe may not be here as the modelling for a Universe beginning within our own shows a pretty staggering amount of destruction whether using a big bang model or expanding vacuum model.
I don't claim to not have biases mind you. I'm biased as all humans have biases. I admit my biases and try to work around them.
Lastly, if what you claimed about atheists not caring was true then we would not see them using rhetorical fallacies trying to discount people that believe in a creator. What we see being practiced is the exact opposite.
Science isn't attempting to answer the question "Is there a creator?" because such a question is essentially unanswerable.
That is an incorrect statement. Philosophy tries to answer that question and Philosophy is science. Philosophy even does a very nice job of it if you care to investigate. What happens next is that people will claim that Philosophy is not science, so let me skip ahead a bit. Philosophical rules define science, including "the scientific method". People lacking training in Philosophy have poor critical thinking skills (which explains a whole lot in our current work based education system) which is why a PHD requires a tremendous amount of Philosophical training and education.
Science requires the same amount of faith in something as a creator. Scientists have faith that they will eventually understand something, so keep at it. The larger more complex issues are still open and being investigated. Someone else in the thread mentioned gravity which is a good example. We know of it, and have faith we know enough to work numbers. We also have faith we will eventually learn more, but we don't know.
It is quite possible that we can never prove an answer to the question of a creator. That is my belief after decades of study. Not having proof does is not the same as invalidating a question. We can't prove what causes gravity and we continue to ask. It's quite human to ask questions and dig for answers. Unfortunately it's also human to be biased enough to never look at reality.
Having a tail bone and no tail is not proving evolution. That is an absolute logical failure.
What we believe we have proven with evolution in comparison to the full theory fits into a thimble with your finger in it. We have evidence that a species can change within itself. Birds for example grow slightly different beaks depending their available diets. Animals may have size differences, longer or shorter legs, variations in ears, etc.. in order to adapt to their environment.
Those are very very minor points in the grand theory of evolution. You probably have a different height than a relative, different ears, different teeth, etc.. etc.. We already know based on human observation that those things can occur. Kids that ate lots of protein growing up were always bigger and stronger than the kids that ate poor grain.
Where evolution falls flat is trying to claim that a dinosaur evolved into a bird, or an ape evolved into a human. There is no solid evidence to show that a species can evolve into a different species. We have seen no plants that evolved into something other than the same plant with some variation. We see no evidence that a dog can evolve into something other than a dog. There is absolutely 0 proof that those things can occur.
We base the full theory of evolution on a whole lot of speculation and conjecture a small amount of fossil evidence. We have lots and lots of fossils, but we have no way of chaining them together. Quite frankly, the evidence is not that strong. That does not mean that the speculation is bad mind you, but it's important to know and acknowledge that it's only speculation.
Wrong, but thanks for playing "I have a shitty fallacy". The question "Is there a creator?" is the relevant question. Evidence for whether or not a creator exists can only be found in logic. Sorry, but to believe otherwise makes you no better than a devout person that believes because the Bible told them to believe. To believe the question is not relevant means that you have played in to all of the rhetoric being spread the last few decades trying to convince people they should never look.
What you are trying to do with your question is called a Slippery Slope. Maybe affirming the consequent, but I'm not sure you are that advanced with rhetoric.
And atheists are different? Big bang was the atheist answer to God for nearly a century. Now it's the expanding vacuum. Those theories don't answer the question of "is there a creator?" any better than a theology.
As someone else pointed out, you are obviously a bigot. I am doubting you will consider anything I just stated because your belief is way better than anyone else' belief.