Paradoxically, if you improve living conditions and infant mortality rates, the birth rate drops to more sustainable levels, since people stop pumping out kids to make sure that they have enough survivors to support the older members of their family.
However, science doesn't even ask the questions that religion answers - it doesn't ask "why".
Religion doesn't ask "why" either - it asks nothing. It proclaims a whole bunch of stuff, but enquiry is not part of faith. Faith by definition is unquestioning.
It seems to assume that the answer is "no reason, freak accidents",
It's good that you said "seems" there, as this is an absurd straw man that is merely what religious people project onto science as a reaction when science demonstrates the lack of necessity of their beliefs.
The term "freak accident" is loaded to imply that something, given everything we know about the physical universe, should not happen. This is a mischaracterisation of the scientific explanations for why humans exist. It is not series of unexplained events, at each step flying in the face of logic and understanding. It is a coherent thread constrained and predicted by a comprehensively tested body of rules, backed by 200 years of meticulous evidence collection. the only part of the process that is still a total mystery is the intial existence of the universe itself - the only reason for this mystery being that, as yet, it is impossible to collect any evidence about this event.
..irrational set of ethics that goes slightly beyond securing the most comfortable existence for themselves... irrationally believe that there is a point in trying to preserve humanity
Those values aren't irrational. They are an inherent part of being a human. Believeing that they are not inherently human, and that they are infused from an external supernatural source is however, highly irrational. If god told you to kill your children, would you do it? It's moral because god told you to do it, right? Wrong, it isn't and you know it isn't because that urge to protect people you care about is part of the social emotions instilled in the human brain by millions of years of evolving in social groups. So when god told Abraham to kill his kid, he shouldn't have passed the test because he was prepared to do it - it should have been the other way round. God is basically grooming Abraham to be a mindless child-murderer, encouraging the "i was only following orders" excuse.
If I won't be alive to see my grandchildrens children, I really shouldn't give a fuck about them. Right?
If somehow you found out tomorrow that god doesn't exist, or that god sent down Jesus again and he told everyone to stop giving a fuck about there grandchildrens children, you'd still care about them wouldn't you? I have no religious beliefs, and happily accept that humans have no universal significance. Yet I'm not an amoral sociopath. This is not becuase science told me to care about people - i've been caring about people since I was first concious. It's because evolution has crafted a brain that values social bonding. My emotions and feelings, while being the product of cold emotionless processes are neverless real.
We're not special. We'll be wiped out eventually, and the universe will not notice.
You're right, the universe won't notice if all human life ceases to exists, provided the universe itself is in no way sentient, which there is not evidence to suggest it is.
Define "special".
if you define special as "having some significance" than of course we're special. We all have significance to ourselves and to everyone we know. If you define special as "being significant on a universal scale" then no, we are not special. You seem to be arbitrarily pinning your self-worth on something for which there is no rational objective evidence, and in terms of the biblical accounts, masses of counter evidence. This does not mean that you cannot have self-worth. You just need to realise that you are the person who is defining what gives you self worth. Not the bible or your church. Whether you realise this yet or not
If you're going to cite Occam's Razor, you need to understand what it actually says. It's not just "the simplest solution is usually the correct one". There is one particular way that Occam's Razor can identify which arguments are objectively simpler than others. There is a very narrow range of arguments that can be compared with Occam's Razor. What it actually states is that if you have two comprehensive explanations for something that have the following form:
Explanation 1:
parameter a
parameter b
parameter c
Explanation 2:
parameter a
parameter b
parameter c
parameter d
Since both explanations fully explain the same subject, Occam's Razor states that explanation 2 is less likely to be true as it is objectively more complex, since it is a superset of explanation 1, sharing parameters a,b and c, with parameter d simply introducing more opportunities for the explanation to be incorrect.
What you are trying to compare with Occam's Razor are apples and oranges.
Explanation 1:
one of the many components of evolution a
one of the many components of evolution b
one of the many components of evolution c
...
Explanation 2:
god did it.
Neither of these arguements is a superset of the other, so they can't be compared using Occam's Razor.
Although there are more parameters to the first explanation, there is no way to objectively measure or even define the "complexity" of each individual parameter to check that even if you add them all together, if they are more "complex" than explanation 2
Slashdot Mirror
I'm struggling to find anything in your post that isn't an empty assertion with the word "fact" tacked on either end of it.
The simple fact is, you can look around everywhere and see real harm and damage done to companies and individuals from piracy.
No you can't. Unless you were trying to attract my attention to your waving hands.
Period. End of discussion.
So you admit your mind is riveted closed.
Your opinion seems to be based on truthiness as opposed to any objective evidence whatsoever.
If no one pays for entertainment..
So given this, you agree that piracy is harmless?
I hate to break this to you, but your entire body is made of chemicals.
Paradoxically, if you improve living conditions and infant mortality rates, the birth rate drops to more sustainable levels, since people stop pumping out kids to make sure that they have enough survivors to support the older members of their family.
i'm curous, how long can you run a desktop pc on a car battery for?
i like watching for dots that go off in remote locations. So far i've seen the canary islands, hawaii, siberia and greenland. No antartica yet.
garrysmod here i come!
You're delicious.
everyone would be in the same boat
You forgot to add:
EARTH HAS 4 CORNER
SIMULTANEOUS 4-DAY
TIME CUBE
IN ONLY 24 HOUR ROTATION.
4 CORNER DAYS, CUBES 4 QUAD EARTH- No 1 Day God.
Difficult people are behind every project it is called pride, get over it
No, it's called insecurity, and since you don't understand this, it is probably something you should try to get over too.
are we witnessing the birth of meme?
Their motto is "don't be evil" not "do no evil". There is a subtle difference, in that you can do some evil without being considered generally evil.
it might be hard to tell at what exact shade of yellow a banana becomes ripe, but that doesn't stop you knowing that a green one is unripe.
get your anus to mars...
Yeah I'm pretty sure he meant the poster, not the person he was quoting.
poofter
The 1970's called, they wan't their homophobic slur back.
mutli-paged
i knew dick dastardly had a hand in this somewhere
endeavour first, then possibly atlantis if they have the money
janky
you don't happen to play "magic the gathering" do you?
that just means you can't love even while having sex in a non-boring way..
No it doesn't. That's just a lack of imagination.
can you install boxee on it?
If you don't see how that's doing it right, you're doing it boring.
However, science doesn't even ask the questions that religion answers - it doesn't ask "why".
Religion doesn't ask "why" either - it asks nothing. It proclaims a whole bunch of stuff, but enquiry is not part of faith. Faith by definition is unquestioning.
It seems to assume that the answer is "no reason, freak accidents",
It's good that you said "seems" there, as this is an absurd straw man that is merely what religious people project onto science as a reaction when science demonstrates the lack of necessity of their beliefs.
The term "freak accident" is loaded to imply that something, given everything we know about the physical universe, should not happen. This is a mischaracterisation of the scientific explanations for why humans exist. It is not series of unexplained events, at each step flying in the face of logic and understanding. It is a coherent thread constrained and predicted by a comprehensively tested body of rules, backed by 200 years of meticulous evidence collection. the only part of the process that is still a total mystery is the intial existence of the universe itself - the only reason for this mystery being that, as yet, it is impossible to collect any evidence about this event.
..irrational set of ethics that goes slightly beyond securing the most comfortable existence for themselves ... irrationally believe that there is a point in trying to preserve humanity
Those values aren't irrational. They are an inherent part of being a human. Believeing that they are not inherently human, and that they are infused from an external supernatural source is however, highly irrational. If god told you to kill your children, would you do it? It's moral because god told you to do it, right? Wrong, it isn't and you know it isn't because that urge to protect people you care about is part of the social emotions instilled in the human brain by millions of years of evolving in social groups. So when god told Abraham to kill his kid, he shouldn't have passed the test because he was prepared to do it - it should have been the other way round. God is basically grooming Abraham to be a mindless child-murderer, encouraging the "i was only following orders" excuse.
If I won't be alive to see my grandchildrens children, I really shouldn't give a fuck about them. Right?
If somehow you found out tomorrow that god doesn't exist, or that god sent down Jesus again and he told everyone to stop giving a fuck about there grandchildrens children, you'd still care about them wouldn't you? I have no religious beliefs, and happily accept that humans have no universal significance. Yet I'm not an amoral sociopath. This is not becuase science told me to care about people - i've been caring about people since I was first concious. It's because evolution has crafted a brain that values social bonding. My emotions and feelings, while being the product of cold emotionless processes are neverless real.
We're not special. We'll be wiped out eventually, and the universe will not notice.
You're right, the universe won't notice if all human life ceases to exists, provided the universe itself is in no way sentient, which there is not evidence to suggest it is.
Define "special".
if you define special as "having some significance" than of course we're special. We all have significance to ourselves and to everyone we know. If you define special as "being significant on a universal scale" then no, we are not special. You seem to be arbitrarily pinning your self-worth on something for which there is no rational objective evidence, and in terms of the biblical accounts, masses of counter evidence. This does not mean that you cannot have self-worth. You just need to realise that you are the person who is defining what gives you self worth. Not the bible or your church. Whether you realise this yet or not
If you're going to cite Occam's Razor, you need to understand what it actually says. It's not just "the simplest solution is usually the correct one". There is one particular way that Occam's Razor can identify which arguments are objectively simpler than others. There is a very narrow range of arguments that can be compared with Occam's Razor. What it actually states is that if you have two comprehensive explanations for something that have the following form:
Explanation 1:
Explanation 2:
Since both explanations fully explain the same subject, Occam's Razor states that explanation 2 is less likely to be true as it is objectively more complex, since it is a superset of explanation 1, sharing parameters a,b and c, with parameter d simply introducing more opportunities for the explanation to be incorrect.
What you are trying to compare with Occam's Razor are apples and oranges.
Explanation 1:
Explanation 2:
Neither of these arguements is a superset of the other, so they can't be compared using Occam's Razor.
Although there are more parameters to the first explanation, there is no way to objectively measure or even define the "complexity" of each individual parameter to check that even if you add them all together, if they are more "complex" than explanation 2