Where do you start?
POSTED BY: citizen
UPDATED: Wednesday, January 8, 2025 02:57
VIEWED: 8803
PAGE 6 of 8
Cartoon,
My 2 cents, on Creationism.
I am sure of very few things. Everything I try to analyze on the basis of evidence. Socialism may be the ideal society. I don't think so. If it wants to convince me of that, it has to present an abunance of evidence.
Creationism is wrong. Blatantly factually incorrect. I'm probably more sure of this than most things. The theory "human beings are a type of octopus" has more merit than creationism. If religious societies and individuals want to uphold the concept of divinity, they have to at least meet the facts halfway.
The idea that somehow "evolution is wrong" is patently absurd. I could start all over tomorrow, knowing nothing, and I would be inescapably drawn to the conclusion that evolution is an operating force of the universe. Anyone with any foundation in either math or statistics knows it to be a certainly, and even if they could not figure out that it was an unavoidable conclusion, would be faced with a truly daunting mountain of evidence everywhere they looked.
I think you're smarter than this. Just let go. Take some time to consider the possibility that the world is the result of constant competition, conflict and change. You won't ever look back, I promise.
Omegadark,
I pity you you're world view. A black and white faith-based perspective will never be able to objectively view the evidence and arrive at a logical conclusion. Since there is nothing in this world which reaches the 1 of truth, then everything in your world is ultimately going to be proven "false" if enough evidence is presented to you, and therefore you can know nothing.
While, ideally, that's fine, if you know nothing, but suspect everything, I think it will actually lead you to cling to the first thing you learn, not let go, and thus fail to ever replace it with something closer to the truth. I think if it wasn't obvious, the world view of truth being shades of grey rather than black and white was something I came to after years of searching, not a presupposed imposition, so you are truly unlikely to get me to abandon it by saying, oh the position you were taught originally is better. I think you need to read something that is not of western thought. Particularly something Asia, hindu bhuddist taoist or whatever, something not written by christians or other cult of yhwh followers.
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7%, Rue,
I'm impressed you people have the energy for this one. I guess I would shorten my argument to this one: The evolution train is leaving, jump on board or be left behind.
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I've said it before and I'll say it again.
Cartoon is a extremist religious nut. He will only lend credence to a source if it supports the Bible as literal truth and says that non Christians are evil and the source of all things bad in the world.
He will also only subscribe to sources that confirm his belief that all non Christians should be burnt at the stake, especially children, he likes that.
Doesn't matter if the source was written by a brain dead conspiracy theorist that parades around in tin-foil accessories, as long as the source says what Cartoon wants to hear.
What Cartoon wants too hear is that the rapture is coming and that he will be saved, as long as he preaches religious hatred and burns as many non-Christians as possible. He is a moron and a dribbling psychopath.
More insane ramblings by the people who brought you beeeer milkshakes!
No beast so fierce but knows some touch of pity. But I know none, and therefore am no beast.
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Citizen,
Quote:
Cartoon is a extremist religious nut. He is a moron and a dribbling psychopath.
He plays basketball?
Hmmm. I thought he was a reasonable man. I still do. I think he's misguided on this one. I invite him to weigh in here.
Cartoon,
Okay, creationism I won't argue with you on, I'm certain it's false, beyond a shadow of a doubt, but what makes you cling to it. I want to hear the case for what it possibly would say if it were true. Why would one even want to believe? I'm serious, give it your best shot. Just the 'whys' - I'm not up for a long list of factual attempts to prove that it actually is so, I just want to here why someone would want to believe and what it would mean if it were true. With that advisory, fire away.
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The problem with creationism/intelligent design is that it just begs the question. Consider:
If there is a creator, then where did that creator come from?
There are three basic possibilites:
A: The creator was itself created by something else.
B: The creator came into existence spontaneously and/or in an act of "self-creation".
C: The creator evolved, in some manner.
Answer "A" just pushes the question back another layer, to the question of who created the creator's creator.
Answer "B" assumes that a creator capable of intelligent design could come out of nowhere -- but the whole argument for intelligent design is predicated on the idea that the universe is too complex to exist without a creator; and logically, something capable of creating the universe must be more complex than that universe itself, and would therefore require a creator even more than the universe! Puting it another way, if the creator can come into existence spontaneously, then surely something less complex--such as the physical universe--could do the same--therefore eliminating the need for such a creator! (This doesn't prove there isn't one, but it does eliminate the necessity of a creator.)
Finally, answer "C" simply begs the question again, in much the same manner as answer "A", since for the creator to evolve implies an earlier existence of some kind--which implies a creator--and here we are back at Ourorboros eating his tail again.
"If Helen Keller were alone in the woods, and a tree fell on her, would it make a noise?" -- Mr. Mike
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Quote:No, it doesn’t seem like nitpicking; it seems like bullshit.
Originally posted by dreamtrove:
I know objectively this might seem like nitpicking the issue, but my point is:
Nihil est incertius vulgo, nihil obscurius voluntate hominum, nihil fallacius ratione tota comitiorum.
Nothing is more unpredictable than the mob, nothing more obscure than public opinion, nothing more deceptive than the whole political system.
-- Cicero
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Quote:Except for the fourth possibility:
Originally posted by RocketJock:
There are three basic possibilites:
A: The creator was itself created by something else.
B: The creator came into existence spontaneously and/or in an act of "self-creation".
C: The creator evolved, in some manner.
D: The creator always existed.
Creationism is a religion, not a science. Arguing the veracity of one with regard to the other is a moot point.
Nihil est incertius vulgo, nihil obscurius voluntate hominum, nihil fallacius ratione tota comitiorum.
Nothing is more unpredictable than the mob, nothing more obscure than public opinion, nothing more deceptive than the whole political system.
-- Cicero
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Quote:
Originally posted by Finn mac Cumhal:
Except for the fourth possibility:
D: The creator always existed.
Sorry, but your answer "D" is semantically equivalent to answer "B", in that it implies that the creator exists without a cause. It's basically the same thing as self-creation--and if the creator "always existed", then why couldn't the universe also have "always existed"?
But the truth is that the universe was created in 1964 by a kid named Herbie Popnecker, and any evidence (including memories) of a universe before that point are merely Herbie's test of our faith.
Hey--Prove me wrong!
"Praise Herbie, and pass the buck!." -- Elliot Weinstein
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Quote:First of all, it’s clearly not the same, because if the creator always existed then you can dispute the existence of a creator by claiming that it’s too complex to have been created. Second, I didn’t say the universe couldn’t have always existed, but that doesn’t seem to be in tune with modern scientific thinking on the matter.
Originally posted by RocketJock:
Sorry, but your answer "D" is semantically equivalent to answer "B", in that it implies that the creator exists without a cause. It's basically the same thing as self-creation--and if the creator "always existed", then why couldn't the universe also have "always existed"?
Also I don’t remember any Gospel of Popnecker.
Quote:
If melodiously piping flutes sprang from the olive, would you doubt that a knowledge of flute-playing resided in the olive? And what if plane trees bore harps which gave forth rhythmical sounds? Clearly you would think in the same way that the art of music was possessed by plane trees. Why, then, seeing that the universe gives birth to beings that are animate and wise, should it not be considered animate and wise itself?
-- Cicero
Quote:I have no intentions of doing that.
Originally posted by RocketJock:
Hey--Prove me wrong!
Nihil est incertius vulgo, nihil obscurius voluntate hominum, nihil fallacius ratione tota comitiorum.
Nothing is more unpredictable than the mob, nothing more obscure than public opinion, nothing more deceptive than the whole political system.
-- Cicero
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Quote:
No, it doesn’t seem like nitpicking; it seems like bullshit.
Usually your less of an ass. This was an assinine response. You completely miss my point.
A dogmatic retort is a dogmatic retort whether you're dogmatically retorting 5,000 or 4.6 billion. I'm familiar with the science, I was using this as an example. The truth is evidence doesn't really support the 4.6 number. It's generally close to the truth, much closer than 5,000.
By extension, I also mean the position "Bush is always right, well intentioned and a skillful executer of well crafted policy" which is so often retorted on this forum by various members is not even on the same planet as the evidence.
The best thing that can be said for Bush is that he's hopelessly incompetent. That's the best possible light in which it can be put. IMHO. Anything other than that would lead me to the conclusion that he is simply crooked.
But what this whole God debate has exposed to me is that a large number of people on this forum are not weighing the balance of evidence, and they making their best guess. They are parroting what they were told.
One parrot is not smarter than another parrot just because his answer is closer to the truth. He's still just a parrot.
I think there are probably people parroting Bush is bad because he's a republican, I've seen a few of those around as well. I bother responding to your posts because I think you think. Or at least I think you think you think.
I spent some time studying this stuff in college, and I'm not just reading fallen nostril hairs and calculating astrophysics from it. There just wasn't a whole lot of support for the 4.6 billion year old Earth in the evidence, and I assure you, the data we had did have that assertion in theory, with nothing dated within 1.3 billion years of that figure.
Now, if one were to accept my wandering Earth theory, which you surely don't, there's wiggle room for the age of the Earth, since the Earth existed in some form before it arrived at its new destination. But this really isn't the point. The point is that, like the big bang, and like creationism, it's dogma. It's not just dogma, it's faith-based dogma. It was decided on long before the evidence was collected, and objectively deserves little if any reverence at all.
The fact is wandering Earth theory explains the layout of the solar system as we see it. That doesn't mean it must be so, but it's one possibility. Another fact is that the accepted scientific dogma fails to explain the layout of the solar system as we see it. This means that categorically, the accepted dogma is wrong. It is not only possibly wrong, it is certainly wrong. We don't know in which way it is wrong, but it must be because at least some minor alteration is required to explain the extant data.
Here are some things which have been tried as patches that don't work to explain the missing matter from the #5 band, where now the asteroid belt lies:
1. Killer dustbunnies in space. This theory says the matter in teh #5 ring never formed a planet and asteroids formed from the dust. It doesn't seem to be true. This simply doesn't generate enough pressure to create the kinds of bodies we see, and it fails to explain large amounts of missing matter.
2. Planet be gone. This says planet #5 just up and left either into deep space or fell into the sun. This is almost certainly not the case, it would never gain the escape velocity necessary to escape the solar system, and extreme unlikely it would collect an orbit so eliptical as to collide with
the Sun.
3. Jupiter Stress. This says planet #5 was torn apart by the gravity stress between Jupiter and the Sun. Not only is the matter of the cummulative asteroids completely insufficient to equal the initial mass of the band, the gravitational stress would be substantially less by an order of magnitude then the stress placed on the earth by the sun and the moon, which completely fails to having anything more than a casual passing affect on the Earth.
There's a final point here to these theorie
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