None of what I said was racist, but I don't think you have the intellectual capacity to understand that.
1st cousins are double the average for normal couples
Good, and the odds of regular couples having a baby with genetic defects? About 1%. So we are up to a whopping two percent. Scary stuff. An order of magnitude up and we are still nowhere near what the chances of a child getting Huntington's of one of it's parent has the genetic defect are. If you have Huntington's half your kids will get it, so snip-snip to people with Huntington's right?
You fuck your sister, mother, or daughter and you will more than likely end up with a "flipper" baby.
I know, and that is why I would strongly recommend against it. It is willful recklessness, but so is driving a car in a residential neighborhood. The fact that society can, should and in many cases must frown upon some behaviors is fine, but that doesn't mean we should legislate them.
Incest producing severely damaged children that will require enormous resources to care for.
Ah, but there you go again, putting your foot in it and making a total fool out of your self. You see, the most common genetic defect of such unions is stillborn children or outright inability to construct babies. This means that for society, this is not a burden at all, comparatively. If, for example, you are born in a certain part of town with a certain type of social disadvantage, race isn't that strong a factor, but it is a factor, chances are your offspring will be huge burdens to society. So, going by your "reasoning", society has the right to prevent these from having babies too. I'd love to see how that goes down in those communities.
Chose your arguments with utmost care since the way you argue for your line in the sand must be allowed as an argument for any other arbitrary line in the sand.
It can all be prevented by simply keeping your dick out of your family members.
Here is an interesting piece of information for you, now you do with it as you wish. Remember - I am using your arguments here so if you call me a racist again you will have proven beyond reasonable doubt that you are in fact a moron.
Banning sibling relationships probably prevents the births of a handful of disabled children, with associated cost, in the US. Given normal society morals, the number of prevented births is probably far less than 10 000. OK, so society has banned something you and I find disgusting and we have saved some money. Good. Now, if I go out tomorrow and ban African-Americans and Hispanics from having babies, I will, in time, reduce the US prison population by about 60%. Now, keeping someone in prison is phenomenally expensive. So, going by your reasoning, that economy is more important than individual freedom, we should in fact forcefully sterilize the vast majority of our African-American and Hispanic population (or at least ban them from having children). Do you think that is a good idea? Oh, and I haven't even mentioned the reduced cost of insurance, the improved standard of living from less crime etc).
And again, please do not try to brand me a racist, that would just be proof that you are unable to understand what you read.
Don't even try that BS. Women past 40 don't have 1/4 to 1/2 chances of having severely genetically damaged children.
Neither does children of consanguinuous parents. Where do you get your numbers? If your parents are siblings and they have a genetic defect, you have a 50% chance of getting it. Tat doesn't mean that there is a 50% chance that the child will have a severe defect. This applies obviously to recessively inherited defects, which are most. This is incidentally the same chance as if non-related parents of which one has a dominantly inherited genetic defect will have a child with genetic defects.
When you are so fucked up, you are confined to a hospital for the time that you survive it makes Down Syndrome look like a rash
What are you babbling about? There are a huge number of diseases that result from genetic defects and the vast majority have no such properties. Get a grip. Stop emoting so much. Engage your brain before you spout nonsense.
Oh, and if you have Huntington's, which is one of the few dominantly inherited genetic defects, there is a 50% chance your offspring will have it too. This is more than an order of magnitude higher than the chance that offspring from random consanguinuous (we do not know if they are carriers of a genetic defect or not, if they are not, there is nothing to inherit and no damage done) parents having genetically "defect" children. Maybe we should test kids in school and do a snip-snip on the ones who are Huntington's carriers.
living in a world where our deepest-held moral convictions are set aside for technological progress sounds like a nightmare scenario.
Sounds like paradise to me. A society governed by reason rather than moronic superstitions.
it makes the world sane in a way to know that society's mores and taboos will be enforced.
Quite the opposite. Societies taboos should be shunned on principle. Mob-mentality instituted into law. Moronic superstitions codified and enforced by people in uniform. What makes the world insane is that our morals (which I assume is what you meant) and taboos are enforced.
that instinct is a very important part of how we interact as social creatures.
Instincts are what makes us animals. Reason is what makes us human.
Hitler was not a case where the enemy of my enemy is my friend
Of course he was. He wasn't "Satan" who hated everybody, he hated Jews, Gypsies, Communists and people with disabilities. His views were shared among the general population the world over, amongst them the venerable US Supreme Court Justice, Oliver Wendell Holmes.
From a Holmes' 1927 Supreme Court decision: "It is better for all the world, if instead of waiting to execute degenerate offspring for crime, or to let them starve for their imbecility, society can prevent those who are manifestly unfit from continuing their kind".
Arabs loved Hitler, Nazis loved (and quoted at their trial) US Supreme Court justices. The world was a little different. The US used Holmes' decision to forcefully sterilize women for decades afterwards.
Britain was involved in the settlement and creation of modern-day Israel
No, it wasn't. When the UN decided on a two-state solution (the only realistic solution at the time) Britain abstained, and actively opposed the creation of Israel since the solution was not unanimous. Britain would only support a solution that had the support of both the Jewish population in the area and the Muslim population (using Arab would be incorrect since a huge portion of the "Arab" population in the area are genetically Jewish, Coptic, Greek and various other mixes)
You might as well be supporting Child Pron. Oooh, see I can play with histrionics game too.
No, you can't. You are not clever enough. You see, he understands the difference between "informed consent" and "forced", you do not.
His parallel with you and Hitler, though really dumb, was appropriate. Where do we draw the line when we decide what consenting adults are allowed to do? That is what he is asking. Dragging in force and rape of children is infantile and indicates a rather limited intellect. Prove me wrong by not being upset at him comparing you to Hitler. Hitler was just a man too.
which is essentially, endorsing the *deliberate* creation of genetically damaged children....
Serious genetic abnormalities are known to occur with offspring from siblings.
Chances are equally high with women past 40 or so having children (Downs Syndrome). So we need to ban that too. How about people who are virtually guaranteed to give birth to children with severe social defects? I don't care if a child grows up with three legs and a contiguous eyebrow, but I do care if people give birth to children that are statistically much more likely to break into my house or mug me on the street.
The problem is that once you draw arbitrary lines like that, who are to say that your line is better than mine? You draw it at siblings, I draw it at inner-city dwellers in LA, Detroit and Chicago.
To put it another way, do you support two people having children if there is a 90-100% chance of having a "flipper" baby?
The problem with your argument is that we are drawing an arbitrary line that is squiggly as all hell, in other words, it hits some people randomly but equally problematic situations are allowed. Lines must be straight (no pun intended) and they must not be arbitrary.
Examplification What is "disadvantaged"? We know that a lot of people will, based on their current life-style, statistically (within 80% chance or so) have disadvantaged children one way or another. This includes, but is not limited to, people living in specific locations (some rural places have statistically terrible results), people with certain levels (or lack of) income, people in certain locations with certain cultural or racial backgrounds (for example there is a high chance that inner-city African-American children will be disadvantaged due to their parents actions or lack of such. Is it OK to make a law that says they need their tubes tied, at least until they're 25?
Where do we draw the line? Can a woman past 40 be allowed to produce children? It is far more likely that she has a downs-syndrome child than that a brother-sister relationship ends up with a disabled child. Do you want to tie the tubes on large numbers of inner-city Hispanic girls (and perhaps untie those tubes once they are past 25 or so)? What standards do we follow and why? Oh, and if you think I sound racist, please go and get your tubes tied before answering, you're already severely mentally deficient.
Consenting adults is a nice, straight line. It doesn't hit randomly. It doesn't hit some people who have "bad" children and not hit others with a similar profile. It allows for stuff that most people can not easily swallow today, but so what. Law isn't about morality and the government should not be in the business of enforcing any particular moral code.
You want to marry your sister - and she agrees, fine with me. Daughter? Ah, I'd like to see a competency test on her first. You want to marry a very young person? Well, not until we are sure that "consenting" is something that individual can actually properly do "informed" is an important part of "consent". Today we mostly say that consenting is something you are unable to do until your're 18. Fine by me. 16 is OK to, which is the case in other places. 13? Nah, nobody would agree that that is an age of informed consent.
You want to marry a same-gender person? Fine. You want to marry two or three people. No problem. As long as everybody is capable of "informed consent". You want to marry your dog? Sure, when he can prove he is capable of informed consent.
Basically, you are just as closed-minded as the ID idiots
I will try to prove you wrong below, so please read on a little. I am in fact not at all close-minded, my dismissal of God is 100% scientific. I hope you are not so close-minded as to not read on.
You do not believe in god
Well spotted:-)
But, some sort of "god" has been worshiped by every society that I can think of
Human sacrifice has been practiced by every society I can think of. Does that make it rational, reasonable or desirable? If there is one thing we know for sure, human kind has an infinite capacity for stupidity, superstition and mischief to various degrees of horror.
(if there is a society that did not have a god figure of some sort, show it to me).
Traditional Buddhism is atheism. Particularly Zen and the likes. This only means that some "religions" do not incorporate gods, the societies where atheistic Buddhism has been prevalent have been known to also harbor gods on the other hand, so you may be right, man has concocted gods wherever he went.
I do not know which it is
Ah, then it is good for you that you have me, you see, I do know. All I need to know is this one little thing called "rationality". It works, and this being your lucky day, I will even show you how.
But, you cannot scientifically prove that god does not exist
This is something that religious people often bring up, and it is an irrational argument. You see, science can not prove the non-existence of anything at all. There is an infinite (exactly infinite) number of things that I can imagine (given time) that science can not prove that does not exist. Here are some examples:
There is a Dude (The Dude to those of us who "know" him) walking behind you trying to untie your shoelaces as you walk. If you try to look at him he goes instantly invisible. Every time you find your laces untied, that was him succeeding or they came untied by some other event, but mostly it is The Dude.
Science can not prove me wrong. There is no way science can prove he doesn't walk there.
There is, orbiting a little bit outside of Pluto, a little Tea Pot with a pink horse painted on it. It is there right now. It's been there for more than 1 million years. Sadly the material is now so old that within the next 20 years the Tea Pot will undergo spontaneous existence failure.
Again, science can not prove me wrong.
All these things that science can not prove do not exist amount to infinite, and they all have about the same probability of existing. Give or take 1/10th of infinity or so.
Is it rational to believe there is a man walking behind you trying to untie your shoelaces? Of course not. Is it rational to believe in a Tea Pot in orbit around the sun out there by Pluto? Absolutely not. Is it rational to believe in any of the infinite number of things man can device in his mind that science can not prove the non-existence of? Nope. People who believe that invisible men walk behind them trying to untie their shoelaces are what we in common speech call "nuts".
There is no difference between God and The Dude. The only difference is which particular historical individual concocted their existence in their mind.
Oh, and by the way, we have a lot of historical information about how, when, where and why the entity so popular today, the Yahweh, God, Allah figure of the eastern Mediterranean, was concocted. The construction of that particular fiction is rather well documented. Strangely people still tend to believe the fiction though. It is odd. On the other hand, perhaps the history of God/Yahweh/Allah isn't something you'd expect most people to know.
You can't prove it is not true. They cannot prove ID is true.
Actually, we can. ID is "not even wrong" (look it up).
Both positions assume facts not in evidence.
Wrong. One assumes, the other one doesn't. ID doesn't present any kind of theory, only an assumption presented as a foregone conclusion (some times as a theory). ID is superstition and not even wrong.
I cannot prove whether a god designed us and planted a lot of evidence to make it seem like he didn't, or if we actually came to be by evolution. To hold that viewpoint is not nuts
Honestly, it is. You see, what you would be saying in that case is that everything we observe is absurd and not real. It is a hoax created to make us all behave like idiots. Now, the belief that there is an entity not only capable of this, but willing to do it, is best described as "nuts".
Honestly, I think we should stop pussy-footing around these nutcases. We should point out that they are in fact nuts. Clinically so.
Now, there is a lot of people that have this vague "there must be something bigger than this" notion, and they call it "God". Fine. As long as they realize that "he" is a god of the gaps. Something to put where nothing else fits. The gaps are rapidly disappearing though.
I am compelled to point out that science does require faith in the basic assumption that the behavior of the universe is governed by laws.
Perhaps. I would say it is more general, that what we observe is what "is". In other words, if you see an object fall, then I see it too. Not because we are both delusional, but because we observer "what is". The "laws" of the universe are not really laws at all, just our way of putting our observations into a system.
Assuming that what is observed is "what is" is not dogma though, it's an assumption. If it turns out to be false, so be it. It doesn't alter science, only the laws therein contained. I am sure science then would be able to come up with reasonable "laws" for the universe where things are different for all observers.
Which means that you need to get your dictionary out.
There's at least one true dogmatic believe in science: that the scientific method is a good method to find out how the universe works.
BZZZT! Wrong. There are assumptions in science, but no dogma. An assumption is that there is a relationship between what is observed and what is real and that what "is" can in some way be observed. No dogma. Just an assumption. If the assumption turns out to be invalid, then science is invalid.
Again, there is a big difference between base assumptions and dogma.
Maybe in an IDEAL fashion science is devoid of fallacy, dogma, and is correct 100% of the time. By realistically, science is still governed by scientists, and therefore subject to fallacy, and dogma.
Science is a methodology, not a church or a collection of people. Science can not, per definition, be dogmatic, since it is in direct contradiction to the practice of science. Science can not be dogmatic any more than in can be out, up can be down or white can be black. It simply isn't possible. Once something becomes dogmatic it automatically and instantly seizes to be scientific.
What science can and can not be is completely disconnected from what scientists can and can not be. Science is not "governed" by anyone. Scientific organizations are. Scientists may be. The concept of science can not possibly be.
Before you infer stupidity, you should make sure it exists.
In two postings you have been trying to convince me that it does indeed exist. How can I infer otherwise?
Your statement that science is NEVER dogmatic would have to take into consideration the 1000s of years science has been practiced
Sigh. Before continuing to make a fool out of your self, try to understand the difference between "science" and "scientist". Of course scientists can be dogmatic, every time they stop being scientific and let dogma rule, they become dogmatic. Science is never dogmatic however.Ever. Well, you could call geometry dogmatic if you were asinine enough, but that is another matter.
and in the US you could see their methods when they took over the country. Ravage the laws. Jail random innocent people. Enrich them selves and their cronies.
Can someone explain what is dogmatic about hypothesizing & testing theories
There is nothing dogmatic about that. Why do you ask? Oh, you think that the ID people are postulating theories? They are not. Read up on what a theory is please. Pay particular attention to the concept of falsifying. ID proponents have never postulated a single theory. Ever.
What better way to make you understand and can use the material you've been taught then to have you defend it against people who will purposely be attacking it vehemently.
That is not a requirement, and that will never happens. Fundies like these Taliban idiots, never stick around for the discussion. The course requirement is only to post, not to hang around and get intellectually beaten to a pulp after.
Eh, no, he is not. In fact his belief system proves that he is not. Being smart is not about being well read. Being smart is not about being interesting at parties. Being smart is not about holding a lot of facts in your head.
Being smart is about taking a variety of information and drawing conclusions from these based on disparate nodes of data. The fact that he has the belief system that he has is proof that he has no such abilities.
Not trying to be an ass here. He really is quite dumb.
Unfortunately a lot of science is dogmatic as well
I could be short and say: No, science is never dogmatic, now f.ck off. I'll be nice though and point to the fact that because a "scientist" says something or holds an opinion it isn's science. Science is a relatively well defined discipline, and it is never dogmatic. Being dogmatic is in fact the exact opposite of science.
Your statement is ridiculous, now go learn what "science" is.
I have to disagree with this one. People who run around saying that if you drop an object it will accelerate away from the earth at 1 million miles per second squared, and that they have proof, do not hold valid opinions. They are nuts.
it's apostate Protestantism trying to justify a political jihad
True, true. The only difference between these nuts and the nuts that we call Taliban and Al Queada is their methods, not their beliefs.
The fact that until 9/11, in international politics, the Bush regime voted with the neo-nazi arab fundies more than with the rational European democracies.
Slashdot Mirror
You can keep the racist shit to yourself.
None of what I said was racist, but I don't think you have the intellectual capacity to understand that.
1st cousins are double the average for normal couples
Good, and the odds of regular couples having a baby with genetic defects? About 1%. So we are up to a whopping two percent. Scary stuff. An order of magnitude up and we are still nowhere near what the chances of a child getting Huntington's of one of it's parent has the genetic defect are. If you have Huntington's half your kids will get it, so snip-snip to people with Huntington's right?
You fuck your sister, mother, or daughter and you will more than likely end up with a "flipper" baby.
I know, and that is why I would strongly recommend against it. It is willful recklessness, but so is driving a car in a residential neighborhood. The fact that society can, should and in many cases must frown upon some behaviors is fine, but that doesn't mean we should legislate them.
Incest producing severely damaged children that will require enormous resources to care for.
Ah, but there you go again, putting your foot in it and making a total fool out of your self. You see, the most common genetic defect of such unions is stillborn children or outright inability to construct babies. This means that for society, this is not a burden at all, comparatively. If, for example, you are born in a certain part of town with a certain type of social disadvantage, race isn't that strong a factor, but it is a factor, chances are your offspring will be huge burdens to society. So, going by your "reasoning", society has the right to prevent these from having babies too. I'd love to see how that goes down in those communities.
Chose your arguments with utmost care since the way you argue for your line in the sand must be allowed as an argument for any other arbitrary line in the sand.
It can all be prevented by simply keeping your dick out of your family members.
Here is an interesting piece of information for you, now you do with it as you wish. Remember - I am using your arguments here so if you call me a racist again you will have proven beyond reasonable doubt that you are in fact a moron.
Banning sibling relationships probably prevents the births of a handful of disabled children, with associated cost, in the US. Given normal society morals, the number of prevented births is probably far less than 10 000. OK, so society has banned something you and I find disgusting and we have saved some money. Good. Now, if I go out tomorrow and ban African-Americans and Hispanics from having babies, I will, in time, reduce the US prison population by about 60%. Now, keeping someone in prison is phenomenally expensive. So, going by your reasoning, that economy is more important than individual freedom, we should in fact forcefully sterilize the vast majority of our African-American and Hispanic population (or at least ban them from having children). Do you think that is a good idea? Oh, and I haven't even mentioned the reduced cost of insurance, the improved standard of living from less crime etc).
And again, please do not try to brand me a racist, that would just be proof that you are unable to understand what you read.
Don't even try that BS. Women past 40 don't have 1/4 to 1/2 chances of having severely genetically damaged children.
Neither does children of consanguinuous parents. Where do you get your numbers? If your parents are siblings and they have a genetic defect, you have a 50% chance of getting it. Tat doesn't mean that there is a 50% chance that the child will have a severe defect. This applies obviously to recessively inherited defects, which are most. This is incidentally the same chance as if non-related parents of which one has a dominantly inherited genetic defect will have a child with genetic defects.
When you are so fucked up, you are confined to a hospital for the time that you survive it makes Down Syndrome look like a rash
What are you babbling about? There are a huge number of diseases that result from genetic defects and the vast majority have no such properties. Get a grip. Stop emoting so much. Engage your brain before you spout nonsense.
Oh, and if you have Huntington's, which is one of the few dominantly inherited genetic defects, there is a 50% chance your offspring will have it too. This is more than an order of magnitude higher than the chance that offspring from random consanguinuous (we do not know if they are carriers of a genetic defect or not, if they are not, there is nothing to inherit and no damage done) parents having genetically "defect" children. Maybe we should test kids in school and do a snip-snip on the ones who are Huntington's carriers.
living in a world where our deepest-held moral convictions are set aside for technological progress sounds like a nightmare scenario.
Sounds like paradise to me. A society governed by reason rather than moronic superstitions.
it makes the world sane in a way to know that society's mores and taboos will be enforced.
Quite the opposite. Societies taboos should be shunned on principle. Mob-mentality instituted into law. Moronic superstitions codified and enforced by people in uniform. What makes the world insane is that our morals (which I assume is what you meant) and taboos are enforced.
that instinct is a very important part of how we interact as social creatures.
Instincts are what makes us animals. Reason is what makes us human.
Hitler was not a case where the enemy of my enemy is my friend
Of course he was. He wasn't "Satan" who hated everybody, he hated Jews, Gypsies, Communists and people with disabilities. His views were shared among the general population the world over, amongst them the venerable US Supreme Court Justice, Oliver Wendell Holmes.
From a Holmes' 1927 Supreme Court decision: "It is better for all the world, if instead of waiting to execute degenerate offspring for crime, or to let them starve for their imbecility, society can prevent those who are manifestly unfit from continuing their kind".
Arabs loved Hitler, Nazis loved (and quoted at their trial) US Supreme Court justices. The world was a little different. The US used Holmes' decision to forcefully sterilize women for decades afterwards.
Britain was involved in the settlement and creation of modern-day Israel
No, it wasn't. When the UN decided on a two-state solution (the only realistic solution at the time) Britain abstained, and actively opposed the creation of Israel since the solution was not unanimous. Britain would only support a solution that had the support of both the Jewish population in the area and the Muslim population (using Arab would be incorrect since a huge portion of the "Arab" population in the area are genetically Jewish, Coptic, Greek and various other mixes)
You might as well be supporting Child Pron. Oooh, see I can play with histrionics game too.
No, you can't. You are not clever enough. You see, he understands the difference between "informed consent" and "forced", you do not.
His parallel with you and Hitler, though really dumb, was appropriate. Where do we draw the line when we decide what consenting adults are allowed to do? That is what he is asking. Dragging in force and rape of children is infantile and indicates a rather limited intellect. Prove me wrong by not being upset at him comparing you to Hitler. Hitler was just a man too.
which is essentially, endorsing the *deliberate* creation of genetically damaged children....
Serious genetic abnormalities are known to occur with offspring from siblings.
Chances are equally high with women past 40 or so having children (Downs Syndrome). So we need to ban that too. How about people who are virtually guaranteed to give birth to children with severe social defects? I don't care if a child grows up with three legs and a contiguous eyebrow, but I do care if people give birth to children that are statistically much more likely to break into my house or mug me on the street.
The problem is that once you draw arbitrary lines like that, who are to say that your line is better than mine? You draw it at siblings, I draw it at inner-city dwellers in LA, Detroit and Chicago.
To put it another way, do you support two people having children if there is a 90-100% chance of having a "flipper" baby?
The problem with your argument is that we are drawing an arbitrary line that is squiggly as all hell, in other words, it hits some people randomly but equally problematic situations are allowed. Lines must be straight (no pun intended) and they must not be arbitrary.
Examplification
What is "disadvantaged"? We know that a lot of people will, based on their current life-style, statistically (within 80% chance or so) have disadvantaged children one way or another. This includes, but is not limited to, people living in specific locations (some rural places have statistically terrible results), people with certain levels (or lack of) income, people in certain locations with certain cultural or racial backgrounds (for example there is a high chance that inner-city African-American children will be disadvantaged due to their parents actions or lack of such. Is it OK to make a law that says they need their tubes tied, at least until they're 25?
Where do we draw the line? Can a woman past 40 be allowed to produce children? It is far more likely that she has a downs-syndrome child than that a brother-sister relationship ends up with a disabled child. Do you want to tie the tubes on large numbers of inner-city Hispanic girls (and perhaps untie those tubes once they are past 25 or so)? What standards do we follow and why? Oh, and if you think I sound racist, please go and get your tubes tied before answering, you're already severely mentally deficient.
Consenting adults is a nice, straight line. It doesn't hit randomly. It doesn't hit some people who have "bad" children and not hit others with a similar profile. It allows for stuff that most people can not easily swallow today, but so what. Law isn't about morality and the government should not be in the business of enforcing any particular moral code.
You want to marry your sister - and she agrees, fine with me. Daughter? Ah, I'd like to see a competency test on her first. You want to marry a very young person? Well, not until we are sure that "consenting" is something that individual can actually properly do "informed" is an important part of "consent". Today we mostly say that consenting is something you are unable to do until your're 18. Fine by me. 16 is OK to, which is the case in other places. 13? Nah, nobody would agree that that is an age of informed consent.
You want to marry a same-gender person? Fine. You want to marry two or three people. No problem. As long as everybody is capable of "informed consent". You want to marry your dog? Sure, when he can prove he is capable of informed consent.
Basically, you are just as closed-minded as the ID idiots
I will try to prove you wrong below, so please read on a little. I am in fact not at all close-minded, my dismissal of God is 100% scientific. I hope you are not so close-minded as to not read on.
You do not believe in god
Well spotted :-)
But, some sort of "god" has been worshiped by every society that I can think of
Human sacrifice has been practiced by every society I can think of. Does that make it rational, reasonable or desirable? If there is one thing we know for sure, human kind has an infinite capacity for stupidity, superstition and mischief to various degrees of horror.
(if there is a society that did not have a god figure of some sort, show it to me).
Traditional Buddhism is atheism. Particularly Zen and the likes. This only means that some "religions" do not incorporate gods, the societies where atheistic Buddhism has been prevalent have been known to also harbor gods on the other hand, so you may be right, man has concocted gods wherever he went.
I do not know which it is
Ah, then it is good for you that you have me, you see, I do know. All I need to know is this one little thing called "rationality". It works, and this being your lucky day, I will even show you how.
But, you cannot scientifically prove that god does not exist
This is something that religious people often bring up, and it is an irrational argument. You see, science can not prove the non-existence of anything at all. There is an infinite (exactly infinite) number of things that I can imagine (given time) that science can not prove that does not exist. Here are some examples:
There is a Dude (The Dude to those of us who "know" him) walking behind you trying to untie your shoelaces as you walk. If you try to look at him he goes instantly invisible. Every time you find your laces untied, that was him succeeding or they came untied by some other event, but mostly it is The Dude.
Science can not prove me wrong. There is no way science can prove he doesn't walk there.
There is, orbiting a little bit outside of Pluto, a little Tea Pot with a pink horse painted on it. It is there right now. It's been there for more than 1 million years. Sadly the material is now so old that within the next 20 years the Tea Pot will undergo spontaneous existence failure.
Again, science can not prove me wrong.
All these things that science can not prove do not exist amount to infinite, and they all have about the same probability of existing. Give or take 1/10th of infinity or so.
Is it rational to believe there is a man walking behind you trying to untie your shoelaces? Of course not. Is it rational to believe in a Tea Pot in orbit around the sun out there by Pluto? Absolutely not. Is it rational to believe in any of the infinite number of things man can device in his mind that science can not prove the non-existence of? Nope. People who believe that invisible men walk behind them trying to untie their shoelaces are what we in common speech call "nuts".
There is no difference between God and The Dude. The only difference is which particular historical individual concocted their existence in their mind.
Oh, and by the way, we have a lot of historical information about how, when, where and why the entity so popular today, the Yahweh, God, Allah figure of the eastern Mediterranean, was concocted. The construction of that particular fiction is rather well documented. Strangely people still tend to believe the fiction though. It is odd. On the other hand, perhaps the history of God/Yahweh/Allah isn't something you'd expect most people to know.
You can't prove it is not true. They cannot prove ID is true.
Actually, we can. ID is "not even wrong" (look it up).
Both positions assume facts not in evidence.
Wrong. One assumes, the other one doesn't. ID doesn't present any kind of theory, only an assumption presented as a foregone conclusion (some times as a theory). ID is superstition and not even wrong.
No, I am saying they are more sturdy than cockroaches, and a lot less intelligent. Many of them are also far more of a nuisance than said roaches.
I cannot prove whether a god designed us and planted a lot of evidence to make it seem like he didn't, or if we actually came to be by evolution. To hold that viewpoint is not nuts
Honestly, it is. You see, what you would be saying in that case is that everything we observe is absurd and not real. It is a hoax created to make us all behave like idiots. Now, the belief that there is an entity not only capable of this, but willing to do it, is best described as "nuts".
Honestly, I think we should stop pussy-footing around these nutcases. We should point out that they are in fact nuts. Clinically so.
Now, there is a lot of people that have this vague "there must be something bigger than this" notion, and they call it "God". Fine. As long as they realize that "he" is a god of the gaps. Something to put where nothing else fits. The gaps are rapidly disappearing though.
I am compelled to point out that science does require faith in the basic assumption that the behavior of the universe is governed by laws.
Perhaps. I would say it is more general, that what we observe is what "is". In other words, if you see an object fall, then I see it too. Not because we are both delusional, but because we observer "what is". The "laws" of the universe are not really laws at all, just our way of putting our observations into a system.
Assuming that what is observed is "what is" is not dogma though, it's an assumption. If it turns out to be false, so be it. It doesn't alter science, only the laws therein contained. I am sure science then would be able to come up with reasonable "laws" for the universe where things are different for all observers.
Sounds like dogma to me
Which means that you need to get your dictionary out.
There's at least one true dogmatic believe in science: that the scientific method is a good method to find out how the universe works.
BZZZT! Wrong. There are assumptions in science, but no dogma. An assumption is that there is a relationship between what is observed and what is real and that what "is" can in some way be observed. No dogma. Just an assumption. If the assumption turns out to be invalid, then science is invalid.
Again, there is a big difference between base assumptions and dogma.
Maybe in an IDEAL fashion science is devoid of fallacy, dogma, and is correct 100% of the time. By realistically, science is still governed by scientists, and therefore subject to fallacy, and dogma.
Science is a methodology, not a church or a collection of people. Science can not, per definition, be dogmatic, since it is in direct contradiction to the practice of science. Science can not be dogmatic any more than in can be out, up can be down or white can be black. It simply isn't possible. Once something becomes dogmatic it automatically and instantly seizes to be scientific.
What science can and can not be is completely disconnected from what scientists can and can not be. Science is not "governed" by anyone. Scientific organizations are. Scientists may be. The concept of science can not possibly be.
Before you infer stupidity, you should make sure it exists.
In two postings you have been trying to convince me that it does indeed exist. How can I infer otherwise?
Your statement that science is NEVER dogmatic would have to take into consideration the 1000s of years science has been practiced
Sigh. Before continuing to make a fool out of your self, try to understand the difference between "science" and "scientist". Of course scientists can be dogmatic, every time they stop being scientific and let dogma rule, they become dogmatic. Science is never dogmatic however.Ever. Well, you could call geometry dogmatic if you were asinine enough, but that is another matter.
Read that carefully. Try to understand it.
and in the US you could see their methods when they took over the country. Ravage the laws. Jail random innocent people. Enrich them selves and their cronies.
:-) And that is the very definition of insanity. Well, one of them at least :-)
Can someone explain what is dogmatic about hypothesizing & testing theories
There is nothing dogmatic about that. Why do you ask? Oh, you think that the ID people are postulating theories? They are not. Read up on what a theory is please. Pay particular attention to the concept of falsifying. ID proponents have never postulated a single theory. Ever.
What better way to make you understand and can use the material you've been taught then to have you defend it against people who will purposely be attacking it vehemently.
That is not a requirement, and that will never happens. Fundies like these Taliban idiots, never stick around for the discussion. The course requirement is only to post, not to hang around and get intellectually beaten to a pulp after.
Eh, no, he is not. In fact his belief system proves that he is not. Being smart is not about being well read. Being smart is not about being interesting at parties. Being smart is not about holding a lot of facts in your head.
Being smart is about taking a variety of information and drawing conclusions from these based on disparate nodes of data. The fact that he has the belief system that he has is proof that he has no such abilities.
Not trying to be an ass here. He really is quite dumb.
Unfortunately a lot of science is dogmatic as well
I could be short and say: No, science is never dogmatic, now f.ck off. I'll be nice though and point to the fact that because a "scientist" says something or holds an opinion it isn's science. Science is a relatively well defined discipline, and it is never dogmatic. Being dogmatic is in fact the exact opposite of science.
Your statement is ridiculous, now go learn what "science" is.
opponents who want to simply ridicule both groups instead of trying to reason with them
Have you ever tried? They deserve the ridicule they get. Adults running around believing in Santa Claus is ridiculous and hence "ridiculable".
Their opinions are valid
I have to disagree with this one. People who run around saying that if you drop an object it will accelerate away from the earth at 1 million miles per second squared, and that they have proof, do not hold valid opinions. They are nuts.
it's apostate Protestantism trying to justify a political jihad
True, true. The only difference between these nuts and the nuts that we call Taliban and Al Queada is their methods, not their beliefs.
The fact that until 9/11, in international politics, the Bush regime voted with the neo-nazi arab fundies more than with the rational European democracies.